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Allie Eve Knox creates adult content.She makes sexually provocative videos, sells subscription services on platforms like OnlyFans, performs live via webcam, and works as a findomme – short for financial dominatrix, a fetish involving dominance-submission dynamics and cash.The Texas native is also a major advocate of cryptocurrency. Knox describes herself as "one of the most outspoken sex workers, particularly for crypto." Her interest kicked off in 2014, which is when she says several vendors, including PayPal, Square Cash, and Venmo, shut down her accounts because of red flags related to sex work.So Knox started accepting cryptocurrencies instead. Her first exchange of bitcoin for content was pretty casual. It started on a Skype call with a client. "I had a Coinbase account at the time, and he said, 'Hold your QR code right to this camera here,' and he sent it through the camera. And I got it," she explained.It took 15 minutes, and there were no chargebacks, no website commission fees, and no bank intermediaries to turn down the transaction – all major pluses in her industry. But the biggest attraction was having total and irreversible ownership over the money she had earned. "I could cash it out. I could hold it. I could watch it go up and down," said Knox."It was mine."Knox is one of many adult workers who say that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin give them a sense of security and independence as banks, credit card companies, and payment processors tighten regulations around adult content. With crypto, there is no middleman making a judgment call on which transactions are acceptable. OnlyFans and the policy whiplashSex work is an umbrella term that includes anyone who engages in some form of erotic labor, whether virtual or in person."The majority of sex work in the U.S. is legal. It's not dealt with fairly, but it's still legal," explained Kristen DiAngelo, an activist and Sacramento-based sex worker who has spent over four decades in the industry. "Stripping is legal…massage is legal…escorting is legal. The only thing that's really illegal in the U.S. is the honest exchange of sexual activity for remuneration, for money."Some escorts – who charge anywhere from $1,700 an hour to $11,000 for a full 24 hours – now explicitly say in their ads that they prefer to be paid in bitcoin or ethereum.The sex work industry also includes performers on the popular subscription video site OnlyFans, many of whom work exclusively online and have never seen their subscribers or fans in person. Allie Rae is a 37-year-old mother of three boys who says she went from making about $84,000 a year as an ICU nurse in Boston to $1.3 million, thanks to her work on OnlyFans, which has more than 130 million users.Last August, Rae didn't know a lot about cryptocurrency, nor did she accept it for her work, but she was convinced that bitcoin and other altcoins were "100% the future," because they seemed like a far more secure method of payment.At the time, OnlyFans was navigating a publicity nightmare. After banks started flagging and rejecting transactions on the site, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content, its core product. The decision was met with such blowback that OnlyFans reversed course within days. The whole episode gave whiplash to OnlyFans performers, some of whom realized that they were just one company policy change away from financial ruin.Rae, a star of the OnlyFans ecosystem, was spooked, telling CNBC that she felt "kicked to the curb," and never wanted to be put in that position again.So she took action. She started with the basics, teaching herself the fundamentals of crypto, then decided to put real skin in the game by assembling a team of developers to build WetSpace, a cryptocurrency-powered adult entertainment platform, into which she has vowed to invest $1 million of her own money. As Rae describes it, WetSpace will be a place where creators don't have to worry about "big banking restrictions and payouts."By December, Rae had gone from bitcoin novice and OnlyFans ingénue to an adult content entrepreneur speaking fluent crypto, with terms like "smart contracts" and "ERC-20 tokens" rolling right off her tongue. Adult content creators have also jumped on the non-fungible token, or NFT, bandwagon. Knox tells CNBC she's sold photos of herself as NFTs on OpenSea and through SpankChain's custom NFT marketplace. Thus far, the most she's gotten from a single sale is $1,200 worth of ethereum. The disenfranchised strike backDiAngelo tells CNBC she will never forget the first time her bank account was closed without warning.It happened when she was on a trip to Washington, D.C. over a decade ago."I had just gone into the bank, made a deposit, and I went to buy lunch in Dupont Circle," said DiAngelo. "I gave him my card, and it was declined. I gave him my card, and it was declined again. And I gave my card again, and it was declined again. And I was like, 'No, no, no, no, that can't be right. There's something wrong.'" DiAngelo called Citibank and learned that her account had been frozen and she should tear up her credit card. DiAngelo says the customer service rep told her that they weren't "at liberty" to tell her why it had happened, and she would have to write a formal letter to request additional details. They did, however, say that she was still responsible for any money owed. "That put fear in my heart, like I thought my world was collapsing. My bank account was frozen. I couldn't access my money," she said. (Citibank did not respond to a request for comment.)There was particular irony in her situation, as DiAngelo did a stint as a stockbroker at Citibank in the 1980's, always pays her taxes, and has a credit score over 800.Allie Eve KnoxAllie Eve KnoxSo DiAngelo did what other sex workers do: She "platform hopped," meaning that she brought her money to another bank. When they also flagged and closed her account, she moved on to the next. After being shut out of a third bank, DiAngelo says she turned exclusively to bitcoin for her online banking needs. Nearly every sex worker interviewed for this story mentioned platform hopping. The government has a set of anti-trafficking guidelines drawn up by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and the banks and big payment apps keep an eye out for activity deemed suspicious by those guidelines. Those red flags include making cash deposits frequently – a hallmark of the sex work profession."We will change, we will pivot, we'll go to other platforms," Knox said. "This is just a constant like jumping through hoops cycle."In 2014, for example, PayPal booted her because of a payment for her used socks that was large enough to get red-flagged. Knox says neither she nor the buyer were refunded. (PayPal tells CNBC that her account was "closed due to policy violations.")Later, in 2016, Coinbase closed her account and blocked her from making others. (Coinbase acknowledged to CNBC that its terms of service prohibit the use of its "commerce or retail services connected to adult content.")"We're the ones being punished – not the traffickers, not those that are actually abusing workers," said Alana Evans, who has been an adult performer since the late 90's. Evans is currently president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild, or APAG, a federally recognized union within the adult industry that represents all workers from adult film set actors, to content creators."They've attacked our banking; our ability to operate like the rest of the world," explained DiAngelo. "You don't exist if you can't use the banking system."Evans says that once you've been in the industry and labeled as an adult performer, it is virtually impossible to get a job outside the industry – even at a fast food restaurant. "We are stigmatized. We are discriminated against," said Evans, who is actively looking to foment change in her role as the head of APAG. She says she has met directly with Mastercard and other companies to address the issue, and she is advocating with members of Congress to add occupation to the list of protected title practices, which currently includes race, age, and religion. Mastercard confirmed the meeting with Evans, saying that the company "welcomes dialogue and different perspectives" about its policies and programs.For many sex workers, bitcoin is more than a way to reclaim financial independence — it's an industry standard.In 2018, the U.S. passed a federal law designed to eliminate online sex trafficking. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA-SESTA, meant that owners of web sites could face criminal charges for content that promoted trafficking."It meant any site online, or any venue that does business online, that could possibly receive profits for prostitution in any way could be indicted and do 25 years in prison," explained DiAngelo, who is currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Davis.FOSTA-SESTA spelled an end for Backpage – once the bastion of online advertisements for sex workers — and persuaded Craigslist to discontinue its personal ads.But critics say the net effect of this law was to drive the trade further underground. Workers lost the ability to pre-screen clients, and many in the industry tell CNBC it led to a spike in street work and violence.It also turned bitcoin into a necessity for many escorts. Advertising is essential to attract new business, and workers using popular escort directories like Slixa and Eros tell CNBC that these platforms encourage payment in cryptocurrencies within the U.S. One industry vet says typical ads cost $480 worth of bitcoin for two weeks.Eros did not respond to a request for comment, while Slixa shared in a written statement that it "does not advertise or have as advertisers 'sex workers' as that term is traditionally defined," and that it takes multiple forms of payment."I think that in some ways crypto offers a way forward," said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, which is an adult video trade group that advocates for the rights of sex workers."It means that you can move away from these handful of payment processors, the handful of credit cards that seem to control what content can be sold," continued Stabile.Mastercard disputes the assertion that it's biased against sex workers. "Let us be clear – allegations of bias against adult content creators are demonstrably untrue. Our actions and business practices against trafficking and exploitation clearly show this."It's just an up-and-down kind of roller coaster. That's the beauty and the pain of crypto.One hazard of the trade are chargebacks, in which a transaction is reversed when a consumer claims they have been fraudulently charged for a good or service they did not receive. It is a tool designed to protect consumers, but many sex workers say it is a tool that is abused in their industry by clients who dispute a transaction for a product or service they have already received.Take OnlyFans. There are some customers who will dispute a transaction once they've already received custom video clips, or photos. OnlyFans' official policy on its website says the creator, not the company, foots the bill for a chargeback. (OnlyFans did not respond to requests for comment.)Many models have taken to forums like Reddit to share their experiences, in which they say these alleged scammers will sometimes put in for a chargeback six months after receiving pictures or videos.Transactions in cryptocurrencies are final, rendering chargebacks impossible. A wave of innovationOnline, the adult industry often leads technology shifts, and that's certainly been the case with crypto.UK-based escort agency VIP Passion started to accept bitcoin in 2013. Two years later, Backpage made a similar move into bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin after Visa and Mastercard refused to process payments for its "adult" section.Visa said at the time that the company's rules prohibited the network from "being used for illegal activity" and that Visa had a "long history of working with law enforcement to safeguard the integrity of the payment system." Mastercard issued a similar statement, saying that the card company has rules prohibiting its cards from "being used for illegal or brand-damaging activities."Pornhub – one of the world's most highly trafficked websites – began accepting a crypto token called verge in 2018. As litecoin creator Charlie Lee noted at the time, the porn industry is often a "leading indicator of technology adoption," so he was "glad to see them opening up to cryptocurrency." When PayPal decided to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand Pornhub performers, the site added tether (a stablecoin pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar) as an alternative option. In Dec. 2020, Pornhub went full crypto in some countries after Mastercard and Visa cut ties with the platform over claims of illegal content running rampant on the porn site. In a statement to CNBC, Mastercard said its decision was "based on an internal investigation that confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site." Visa did not respond.Allie Eve KnoxAllie Eve KnoxNowadays, it's par for the course to see adult websites accept cryptocurrency, and some deal in it exclusively.Chaturbate and FanCentro accept digital tokens, and live-streaming webcam platform Stripchat tells CNBC that 23% of its active models are now paid in a mix of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ethereum, and USDC, which is a stablecoin pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. Customers can also leave tips, and the company says its largest tip yet was $100,000 deposited in tether.It helps that recent advancements in payment technology have made it easier than ever to transact in cryptocurrency. The Lightning Network, for example, is a payments platform built on bitcoin's base layer that enables virtually instantaneous transactions."An OnlyFans that is Lightning based could easily survive the sort of censorship they faced in August," explained Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech data analyst. "Political pressure and stigma can be applied to card companies, which can then make it very difficult for otherwise legal businesses like OnlyFans to operate.""This entire vector is removed if you have a payment system which doesn't suffer from political pressures. And that's the case with the Lightning Network, which has inexpensive payments, easy transactions, and is not easily censorable," continued Sobrado.Stripchat's top crypto payoutsBitcoin49.4%Ether15.1%Tron14.5%Litecoin10.5%Binance Coin10.3Some adult media companies have even turned to blockchain technology to develop their own digital currencies and platforms.SpankChain is a cam-site built on ethereum's blockchain that, among other things, tries to make it easier for adult performers to safely get paid online. LiveStars, also built on ethereum, is an adult streaming platform and social network that promises greater privacy and security to users, plus similar payment solutions that intend to make transactions faster and more profitable for the performer – which is significant to workers who are accustomed to paying 40% to 50% commission fees on traditional platforms that run on fiat payment rails. CumRocket – which Elon Musk appeared to back in two cryptic tweets last June – has its own NFT marketplace and token, which can be used to tip and message content creators. Volatility and learning curve present problemsStabile warns there are still barriers to mass crypto adoption among sex workers. For one, there's a steep learning curve for both workers and customers. Sex workers have written and circulated guides online on how to use crypto, but a sizable knowledge gap remains.It is also difficult to get some customers to spend their bitcoin on adult content. "They generally use it as a store of value," says Stabile. "It's a speculative currency."Knox says often clients choose not to pay her in crypto. "That's the hurdle that we're at right now. We can take it all day long, but until people start using it and start paying us with it, it's not going to really take off for adoption," said Knox. Sex workers who do accept crypto also have to contend with volatile prices, which can cut into their earnings. For instance, bitcoin is down more than 40% from its November all-time high.Evans tells CNBC she stuck it out through the multi-year crypto winter that began in late 2017, when prices plunged."I literally had a paycheck that was worth one-tenth of what it was, because I held on to it," explained Knox. "It's just an up-and-down kind of roller coaster. That's the beauty and the pain of crypto."That volatility can create upside, too.When Knox began accepting cryptocurrency in 2014, it was mainly for convenience, rather than any sense of crypto as a long-term investment. In her early days, Knox tells CNBC she would get two bitcoin in exchange for an hour-long Skype session. A single bitcoin is now worth around $40,000, and has been as high as $69,000.Kristen DiAngeloKristen DiAngelo"I just kind of left it on the backburner and would collect it whenever people would pay me in it," said Knox, who tells CNBC she still holds a good portion of her crypto stake. "I collected till about 2017 and then crypto went crazy. It was one of those things where I was like, 'Oh, wow, this was an accidental great investment for me.'"Beyond price volatility, trading in crypto often incurs extra fees."Buying the crypto to pay for [ads] was always fraught with all these hidden fees that these trading sites would be charging," said San Francisco-based Maxine Doogan, who has been working as a prostitute for more than thirty years. Instead of using a traditional exchange like Coinbase, Doogan instead goes through a convoluted process that involves finding an intermediary via a trading site, and then depositing cash into that person's bank account, trusting that they will then electronically transfer bitcoin into her crypto wallet. Some of these intermediaries will accept gift cards. Others ask sex workers to buy a regular "vanilla" credit card and send them the numbers, in hopes that they'll follow through on the trade.DiAngelo says that in the early days of crypto, she would use bitcoin ATMs at liquor stores and gas stations to deposit cash to buy bitcoin. These machines charge commissions above and beyond the cost of the transaction.Another major problem relates to the rules that govern cryptocurrency exchanges. Many platforms like Coinbase require know-your-customer, or KYC compliance. In practice, that means having to connect an ID and bank account to the platform – a non-starter for many working in the industry. Because of this, some workers later find they can't cash out the crypto they have earned for products or services rendered.While there are tokens designed with privacy and anonymity in mind (zcash and monero, for example), the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is transparent by design, leading some in the industry to worry that with the right tools and crypto know-how, friends, family, or the government technically have the ability to track their steps.But Rae remains convinced that cryptocurrency is the future for the sex work industry."Cryptocurrency is our only option. I don't feel like we're going to survive under stricter and stricter rules from the banking industry," said Rae."For people like me making millions of dollars, a thirty day notice from OnlyFans would be the end of us. Crypto really feels like it's kinda it, otherwise we're going to be controlled forever and who knows the kind of content they're going to continue to ban. They can turn you off tomorrow." | US Federal Policies |
Defense Secretary says Pentagon examining Supreme Court decisionThe Pentagon will "closely" examine the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and evaluate our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law, said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin."Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce and DOD families," Austin said in a statement. "I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force."Hillary Clinton says ruling overturning Roe will 'live in infamy'Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Friday that the Supreme Court's ruling will "live in infamy." "Most Americans believe the decision to have a child is one of the most sacred decisions there is, and that such decisions should remain between patients and their doctors," she said in a tweet. "Today’s Supreme Court opinion will live in infamy as a step backward for women’s rights and human rights."Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state, then linked to a webpage that asks for donations to three major abortion rights groups.Oklahoma's GOP AG allows trigger law outlawing abortions to take effectOklahoma's Republican attorney general, John O'Connor, praised the Supreme Court's ruling and said he has certified it, allowing the state's trigger law outlawing abortions to take effect. In a letter, O'Connor certified "that Roe and Casey have been overruled such that Oklahoma may prohibit abortion on demand," according to the attorney general's office. "In that letter, he also indicated that he would begin efforts immediately to enforce Oklahoma’s abortion prohibitions, especially the one found in Section 861 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes," the office said. That section of the statute says that anyone who administers the "miscarriage" of a woman or by prescribing, advising or procuring medication or drugs will be guilty of a felony that could result in a sentence of two to five years in prison. O'Connor's letter says that his certification will also allow Oklahoma to enforce any similar statute prohibiting abortion throughout pregnancy. Taylor Swift reacts to Roe reversal: 'I'm absolutely terrified'Grammy-winning pop star Taylor Swift, who has become increasingly vocal about political issues in recent years, tweeted Friday that she was "absolutely terrified that this is where we are" after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Swift offered her thoughts in response to a statement from former first lady Michelle Obama, who wrote that she was "heartbroken today."Trump takes credit for 'biggest WIN for Life in a generation'Former President Donald Trump, who campaigned on limiting abortion rights and appointed three Supreme Court justices, took credit for Friday's decision in a statement.Calling it "the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation," Trump said the Roe ruling and "other decisions" recently announced "were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised."All three justices appointed by Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted with the majority in overturning Roe. Anti-abortion advocates celebrate Friday in front of the Supreme Court.Frank Thorp V / NBC NewsThough Trump was known to have more socially liberal positions as a private citizen, he won favor with Republican activists by vowing during his 2016 campaign to choose justices from a pre-selected list of conservatives.Sen. Kennedy praises reversal of Roe v. Wade: 'They did their work'Tat Bellamy-Walker42m ago / 5:24 PM UTCSen. John Kennedy, R-La., released a statement Friday that praised the justices for overturning Roe. v. Wade despite attempts to protest the decision. Rep. Cheney says she has always been 'pro-life,' ruling returns power to the statesRep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who has bucked her party by denouncing former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, indicated Friday that she supports the Supreme Court's ruling."I have always been strongly pro-life," she said in a tweet. "Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court returns power to the states and the people of the states to address the issue of abortion under state law."Biden says no violence, urges people to 'keep all protests peaceful'President Joe Biden on Friday urged people to "keep all protests peaceful" in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. "I call on everyone, no matter how deeply they care about this decision, to keep all protests peaceful," he said during a White House speech, reiterating: "Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. No intimidation. Violence is never acceptable." Hundreds of demonstrators have already gathered outside the Supreme Court following the historic decision with some abortion rights supporters chanting: "We won’t go back! We won’t go back! My body, my choice!"The crowd outside the court has continued to grow but has remained relatively peaceful. "Threats and intimidation are not speech," Biden said. "We must stand against violence in any form regardless of your rationale." 'People will die because of this decision,' Rep. Ocasio-Cortez saysAntonio Planas59m ago / 5:07 PM UTCRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Friday the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will make abortions more dangerous and result in deaths.“Overturning Roe and outlawing abortions will never make them go away. It only makes them more dangerous, especially for the poor + marginalized," she tweeted. "People will die because of this decision. And we will never stop until abortion rights are restored in the United States of America.”Anti-abortion Democratic Rep. Cuellar says Roe decision leaves issues up to the statesTexas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the lone anti-abortion Democrat in the House, said Friday his position has not changed."We'll let the states make this decision now," he said. Asked by NBC News about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to the Supreme Court's decision, which she said was "cruel," Cuellar said, "Everybody has their opinion, including the speaker."Cuellar said that while he was in the minority in his caucus, he is not in his district.WHO’s Tedros disappointed by Roe v. Wade decisionReuters1h ago / 4:59 PM UTCThe head of the World Health Organization said on Friday he was very disappointed by the overturning of Roe v Wade.“I am very disappointed, because women’s rights must be protected. And I would have expected America to protect such rights,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Reuters on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda.Sanders says it is time to end the Senate filibusterTat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 4:57 PM UTCSen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called on Democrats to end the filibuster in the Senate and solidify protections for abortion rights. Biden says Roe is 'on the ballot' in NovemberIn remarks from the White House on Friday, President Joe Biden said that "voters need to make their voices heard" at the ballot box in November's midterm elections because he is unable to restore abortion protections and Congress lacks the votes to take that action. "We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that. This fall, Roe is on the ballot," Biden said. Until November, Biden said he will do everything in his power to protect a woman's right to choose in states where they will face the consequences of the court's decision. He said, for example, that his administration will protect women's access to medications that allow them to self-manage an abortion at home. He acknowledged that a number of Republican-controlled states have already banned or restricted access to these medications. Biden expressed anger at the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that "the court has done what it has never done before — expressly take away a constitutional right." "This decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is — far removed they are from the majority of this country," he said. "You can act. You can have the final word."He blamed his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for the reversal of Roe because of his nomination of three justices at the "core of today's decision." Plaintiff in same-sex marriage Supreme Court case says decision is moving country 'backward'Christopher Cicchiello1h ago / 4:54 PM UTCJim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that established the right to same-sex marriages across the nation, called today's verdict "a sad day for women's rights.""This Supreme Court continues to erode the rights of citizens at an alarming rate," Obergefell said in a tweet. "Women deserve responsive leaders who support reproductive justice. Leaders who respect their fundamental right to have control over their own bodies."In a separate statement reacting to Justice Clarence Thomas’ call to reconsider the holding in Obergefell v. Hodges in his concurring opinion, Obergefell said that "the millions of loving couples who have the right to marriage equality to form their own families do not need Clarence Thomas imposing his individual twisted morality upon them."U.S. Capitol public tours halted after Roe decision Public tours of the U.S. Capitol were abruptly halted Friday after the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, allowing Capitol Police to shift some of their resources to the court complex, a source familiar with the decision said.Capitol Police were also concerned about members of the public lining up at the entrance of the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC), which is close to where thousands of protesters were assembling in front of the court building."It's because of the CVC entrance's proximity to activity at SCOTUS and the general need to shift U.S. Capitol Police manpower to respond to SCOTUS activity," the source said.So far, the protests have been peaceful.Scotland's leader calls out Roe decisionScotland's leader on Friday warned that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would "embolden anti-abortion and anti-women forces" beyond the United States."One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime," Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a tweet. "Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US — but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now — but it is necessary."McCarthy praises court's decisionHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised the decision of the court during a Friday press conference. "By a vote of 6-3, the court affirmed that the power to protect unborn life is returned to the people by their elected representatives," he said. "This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all people are created equal — not born equal, created equal."He added that the decision would "save the lives of millions of children" and "give families hope."Rev. Sharpton says court's decision brings us 'back to the dark ages' Tat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 4:46 PM UTCThe Rev. Al Sharpton, the head of the National Action Network and an MSNBC host, said Friday that Black women and poor women will be disproportionately affected by the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. British doctors union calls Roe decision 'deeply worrying'A senior official at the British Medical Association, the United Kingdom's doctors union, on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision overturning abortion rights could have an impact beyond the United States. “The news that restrictions to abortions could be made law in some U.S. states ... is deeply worrying for the future of women’s reproductive health," Zoe Greaves, chair of the group's medical ethics committee, said in a written statement. "The BMA, along with multiple other health organizations, is concerned that this will remove women’s access to essential medical care, a fundamental human right as stated by the U.N., both in the U.S. and potentially more widely," she said. The organization added in a statement that it would be weighing the decision's implications to determine how best to support the American Medical Association in its opposition to the "criminalization of reproductive health."First lady Jill Biden was with DeSantis when Roe decision came downJosh Lederman1h ago / 4:40 PM UTCFirst lady Jill Biden was with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis when she learned of the Supreme Court ruling, a White House official told NBC News.The first lady was preparing to go onstage at the memorial for the one year anniversary of the Champlain Tower collapse in Surfside, Florida, along with DeSantis and his wife in a holding room. Moments before the first lady walked on stage, the news alerts popped up on everyone’s phones.In April, DeSantis signed a Florida law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Democratic governors in the West pledge to stand up for abortion rightsDemocratic governors in California, Oregon and Washington said Friday they will continue to "protect" patients seeking reproductive care, including those from other states seeking abortions.California's Gavin Newsom, Oregon's Kate Brown and Washington's Jay Inslee made the announcement in a video message released after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, presenting themselves as a counterweight to "red states and Republican-stacked courts.""California, Oregon and Washington are building the West Coast offense to protect patients' access to reproductive care," Newsom said.Inslee said: "We're going to work with our legislators, with our providers, with our patient advocates."Brown said: "We will not stand on the sidelines."'With sorrow...we dissent': Court's liberal wing says majority decided women not deserving of equal protectionIn a blistering dissent to the court's decision reversing abortion rights, the justices on the bench’s liberal wing slammed the majority opinion as one that would curtail women's rights.“It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in the lengthy dissent."With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent," they added.Read the full story here.Planned Parenthood Wisconsin temporarily suspends abortion servicesAntonio Planas2h ago / 4:35 PM UTCPlanned Parenthood Wisconsin announced Friday it was “temporarily suspending” abortion services in response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In a video statement on the organization’s website, the group's president, Tanya Atkinson, lamented the Supreme Court’s decision because it has taken away a constitutional right from women and instead placed health care decisions in the hands of politicians.“Because Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban remains in effect, Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is temporarily suspending abortion services,” she said. “Please know that we are looking at all legal options available. This news is so incredibly devastating. The decision of whether or not to become a parent can be one of the most life-changing decisions a person can make,” she said. “You should be able to make the very personal, very needed health care decisions.”Atkinson added that although abortion services are not available in Wisconsin, the organization is still there for people who need abortions and will counsel them on finding options where abortions are safe and legal. The group, she said, will also be available for “after-care” services. Other services provided by the organization are also available at its centers or through telehealth, she said.“Planned Parenthood Wisconsin stands for health care, and we will not give up, not now, not ever,” she said.Anger and joy outside Supreme CourtTears flowed and voices bellowed outside the Supreme Court early Friday, as activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered to bear witness to the end of the Roe era. "It's really a visceral issue," said Mai El-Sadany, a human rights lawyer who opposes Friday's decision. "The people who showed up here are really angry and they didn’t want to be alone." Paige Nelson, 20, cried tears of joy on the street in front of the Supreme Court, where the grounds long used for demonstrations have been closed off for weeks as a security precaution."I’m just so happy that no matter who you are and whatever extra chromosomes or whatever disability you might have, you get the chance to live this amazing life, and I will continue advocating until abortion is completely gone," said Nelson, a Washington state resident who is participating in a summer program with the conservative Concerned Women of America.Canadian PM Justin Trudeau calls Roe decision 'horrific'Reuters2h ago / 4:30 PM UTCCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called the Supreme Court decision "horrific."“The news coming out of the United States is horrific. My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion,” Trudeau said on Twitter.“No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he said.Romney says he supports Roe's reversalSen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, praised the Supreme Court's ruling Friday in a brief statement. "The sanctity of human life is a foundational American principle, and the lives of our children—both born and unborn—deserve our protection," Romney said. "I support the Court’s decision, which means that laws regarding abortion will now rightfully be returned to the people and their elected representatives," he added.AG Merrick Garland says states cannot ban access to medications for abortionsAttorney General Merrick Garland vowed to protect access to Mifepristone, which is used along with another medication to end early pregnancies.“In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," he wrote in a statement.The Food and Drug Administration approved in 2016 the use of the medications in terminating abortions.The "Department will continue to protect healthcare providers and individuals seeking reproductive health services in states where those services remain legal," his statement added. "This law prohibits anyone from obstructing access to reproductive health services through violence, threats of violence, or property damage."Decision a 'dark moment,' British rights group says The Supreme Court’s decision is a “dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” the chair of a British rights group said Friday. ‘This is a hugely significant set back for abortion rights. Not just in the U.S. but it will embolden anti-abortion activists here and in Poland, Malta and other places where the struggle for access is already desperate,” Kerry Abel of Abortion Rights said in a statement. “Any chink in the legislative armour that undermines the right to privacy, makes access more difficult or puts abortion funding out of reach will impact poorer and marginalised women and pregnantpeople and will encourage yet more anti-abortion legislation and action,” she said. “This is a dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” she added.Rep. Jamie Raskin knocks Thomas, says they are not 'like real judges at this point'Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., knocked Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he is trying to "demolish the constitutional right to privacy" while blasting the high court's justices as an "instrument of the right-wing Republican agenda." "Roe versus Wade was built on Griswold versus Connecticut, which asserted a constitutional right to privacy for women and men to obtain contraception and birth control," Raskin said Friday. "They might like to pretend as if this is some kind of singular strike against just women's right to abortion, but it has implications for contraception. It has implications for the right of gay people to get married under the Obergefell decision. It has implications for the right of people not to be sterilized by the government against their will."Raskin added that the justices are "not like real judges at this point." "I mean, they’ve got the power of it, but they basically have turned themselves into partisans," he said.Sen. Susan Collins calls ruling 'not conservative' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh who were part of Friday's majority opinion, said in a statement that the ruling was an "ill-considered action" and "not conservative." "The Supreme Court has abandoned a fifty-year precedent at a time that the country is desperate for stability. This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show both consistency and restraint," Collins said. "Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government."Collins said that the ruling was "inconsistent" with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their congressional testimony and in meetings with her where, she said, "they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon."Collins said she is working on a bill with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would codify Roe, Casey, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and Griswold v. Connecticut."Our legislation would enshrine important abortion protections into law without undercutting statutes that have been in place for decades and without eliminating basic conscience protections that are relied upon by health care providers who have religious objections to performing abortions," she said.U.K.'s Boris Johnson calls Roe decision 'a big step backward'British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would have a "massive" impact around the world. “This is not our court, it’s another jurisdiction, but it clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world," he said during a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda. "It’s a very important decision." "I think it’s a big step backwards," Johnson, who leads the Conservative Party, added. "I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the U.K. has the laws that it does.”Missouri governor signs state proclamation banning most abortionsChristopher Cicchiello2h ago / 4:19 PM UTCMissouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a proclamation Friday to activate its trigger law, banning most abortions.“Nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the United States Constitution gave un-elected federal judges authority to regulate abortion. We are happy that the U.S. Supreme Court has corrected this error and returned power to the people and the states to make these decisions,” Parson, a Republican, said in a news release.This law makes it illegal for doctors to perform abortions and also makes anyone who knowingly induces an abortion guilty of a class B felony. Doctors can have their licenses revoked for their involvement. However, a woman who has an abortion will not be prosecuted "for a conspiracy to violate the provisions" of this act. No mention of an exception for a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest was provided in the act.Upon Parson’s signature, the act takes effect immediately.Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton says abortions are 'now illegal in Texas'Texas' GOP attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced Friday that abortion is now illegal in Texas as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling. "SCOTUS just overruled Roe & Casey, ending one of the most morally & legally corrupt eras in US history. Praise the Lord. Abortion is now illegal in Texas," he said in a tweet. Texas had on the books a trigger law, which immediately banned abortion once Roe came down.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed into law one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans last year, which took effect in September. It had banned abortions as early as six weeks, which effectively banned all abortions because most women don't know they're pregnant that early in the process. Whole Women's Health, an organization that has operated four clinics providing reproductive health services in Texas and other states, said it has stopped providing abortion procedures as a result of Friday's ruling, according to the Texas Tribune. In guidance posted on the organization's website Friday, it said that its clinics "are still operating in Baltimore, MD; Bloomington, MN; Alexandria, VA; and Charlottesville, VA." It also said that it offers medication abortion pills by mail to patients in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.It also said Whole Women's Health "is exploring plans to expand both our in-clinic and mail services into additional states where abortion is legally protected."Democratic lawmakers march to Supreme Court in support of abortion rightsAt least 150 Democratic lawmakers marched to the Supreme Court on Friday to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told NBC News the decision marked "a sad day for American jurisprudence.""Never did I envision that this court would reverse 40 or 50 years of precedence, but they did it," he said. "And they did it in utter disregard for the 60% of the American people who support Roe and did not want it overturned."Conservative Hispanic group lauds court decisionBienvenido, a conservative Hispanic group, said the court's decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision was "correct as both a legal and a moral matter.""Today we join millions of Americans — including the majority of Hispanics who value human life — in celebrating the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling overturning 'Roe' and 'Casey,'" a statement from the group said. "It was always a lie that the Constitution guaranteed the right to kill unborn children and this Court has just exposed this lie for the shameful farce that it always has been," the statement continued. "As we commemorate this historic decision, let us remember these children who were denied the right to live, pray for forgiveness, and give thanks to God." According to Pew Research Center, 60% of Hispanics in 2022 said abortion should be legal. Transgender Law Center denounces Supreme Court decision as "despicable" Tat Bellamy-Walker2h ago / 3:51 PM UTCThe Transgender Law Center, one of the nation's largest transgender rights groups, slammed the court's decision, calling it "despicable" and a "politically-motivated" attack.In a statement, the organization stressed that the majority opinion will have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups, including Black women, disabled people, migrant women, poor people and individuals living in rural communities.“Today we loudly affirm and pledge our solidarity with all people working for Reproductive Justice in this country,” the group's executive director, Kris Hayashi, said. “Whether it is a right to an abortion, the right to affirming medical care, or the right to learn about your own history in schools, our collective rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy are inexorably entwined.”'God made the decision': Trump praises the ruling overturning RoeFormer President Donald Trump praised the Supreme Court's ruling in a statement to Fox News on Friday, saying that it's "following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago."Trump was asked if he played a role in the decision because he nominated three of the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett."God made the decision," Trump told Fox. Asked to address any of his supporters who support abortion rights, Trump said, "I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody ... This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged."Trump had previously supported abortion rights years ago, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" in 1999 that he was "very pro-choice" at the time.Susan B. Anthony List celebrates overturning of Roe v. WadeThe anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List celebrated news Friday of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, calling it a "historic victory for human rights." Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the group, said in a video message outside the Supreme Court that it was a moment of "great gratitude and resolve." "This Court has just overturned the wrongly decided Roe versus Wade decision. Let those words sink in," she said. "Roe versus Wade is overturned after 50 years of lobbying, building centers of hope to serve pregnant women, on our knees praying, off our knees marching and ensuring the powerful pro-life voice could be heard in our elections. We have arrived at this day, a culminating day of so much and the first day of a bright pro-life future for our nation."She said the decision allows the "will of the people to make its way into the law through our elected officials" and declared that "our best days are ahead."Attorney General Merrick Garland vows to 'use every tool' to protect abortion rightsAttorney General Merrick Garland, who as Barack Obama's 2016 Supreme Court nominee was denied a confirmation vote by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, vowed to put the full weight of the Department of Justice behind protecting abortion rights."The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision," he said. "This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect — with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means."“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom. And we will not waver from this Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans," he added.Mayor Eric Adams says people around the country 'welcome' to access abortion care in New York City New York City Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at the Supreme Court on Friday, saying that "politics came before people at the highest court in the land." "What the court has done today ignores the opinions of the majority of Americans, as it helps states control women’s bodies, their choices, and their freedoms," the Democrat said in a statement, adding that the decision puts lives at risk."There is nothing to call this Supreme Court opinion but an affront to basic human rights and one that aims to shackle women and others in reproductive bondage."Adams sought to reassure New Yorkers, saying that they can still access safe, legal abortions in the city. He also said that people around the country seeking the procedure are "welcome here" to access those services.Massachusetts Gov. Baker signs executive order protecting abortion providersAntonio Planas2h ago / 3:39 PM UTCIn response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who is not running for re-election, signed an executive order Friday protecting health care providers performing abortions from losing their licenses or receiving other discipline based on potential charges from out of state, he said in a statement.“Under the executive order, the Commonwealth will not cooperate with extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against individuals who received, assisted with, or performed reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts,” the statement said.The order, he said, also prohibits any “Executive Department agencies” from assisting another state’s investigation into a person or entity for receiving or delivering reproductive health care services that are legal in Massachusetts.“This executive order will further preserve that right and protect reproductive health care providers who serve out of state residents. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, it is especially important to ensure that Massachusetts providers can contin | SCOTUS |
Republican Mayra Flores prevailed Tuesday in a special election for an open congressional seat in South Texas, marking a major breakthrough for Republicans eager to blaze new inroads in the historically blue region.She beat Dan Sanchez, the leading Democrat, outright in the closely watched race and will be the first Mexican-born congresswoman. She will get to serve only until January, but Republicans heralded her win as a shot of momentum in their new South Texas offensive.With all precincts reporting Tuesday night, Flores had 50.98% of the vote and Sanchez had 43.33%. There were two other, lesser-known candidates — Democrat Rene Coronado and Republican Juana “Janie” Cantu-Cabrera — in the race.Sanchez is a Harlingen lawyer and former Cameron County commissioner, while Flores, a respiratory therapist, is the Republican nominee for the seat in November.Speaking a little after 9:30 p.m., Flores declared victory and said her campaign “took no one for granted.”“For over 100 years, we have been taken for granted,” she said at her election night party in San Benito. “I will show you what real representation looks like. I will represent all people.”Sanchez conceded in a statement that pointed the finger at national Democrats for not doing enough to defend the seat. They had argued the race was not worth the investment.“Based on the results, we came up short tonight despite being outspent by millions of dollars from out of state interests and the entire Republican machine,” he said. “Too many factors were against us, including little to no support from the National Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”The special election was called to finish the term of former U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, who resigned in March to work for the lobbying firm Akin Gump.The special election was unique in that it was held under the previous lines of the 34th District, which President Joe Biden won by only 4 percentage points. But redistricting made the district more friendly to Democrats in November, when the Democratic nominee is U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen.Republicans have been eager to flip the seat as part of their new offensive in South Texas after Biden’s underperformance throughout the predominantly Hispanic region in the 2020 election. Flores and her allies spent over $1 million on TV ads in the special election, while national Democrats largely stayed away, arguing it was not worth it to save a seat that will be up again in November — and under new, more favorable boundaries.The dynamic put Democrats into an unusual underdog position in a region of the state they have long dominated. Vastly outspent by Flores, Sanchez repeatedly compared the special election to a David vs. Goliath fight, with himself playing David.Despite their downplaying of the stakes, national Democrats ended up spending a little on the race once early voting got underway. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee helped fund a $100,000 digital ad buy with Sanchez’s campaign, and House Majority PAC — the top Democratic super PAC in House races — launched a $115,000 TV ad buy against Flores.Flores campaigned hard on her story as the wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and as a Mexican immigrant whose parents brought her to the United States as a young child. She mostly ignored Sanchez but took a sharp tone against Washington, D.C., Democrats in general. In one of her TV ads, she said the Rio Grande Valley is “under attack” at the border and promised not to let the “compadrismo” — cronyism — “in Washington ruin our communities.”Sanchez also played up his background, starting with his upbringing on his family farm and later his long career in public service. He also campaigned as a moderate, calling himself a “conservative Democrat” and “pro-life” Catholic.QAnon conspiracy movementSanchez and his allies did not ignore Flores, painting her as an extremist acolyte of former President Donald Trump due to past social media activity that cast doubt on the 2020 election results and included hashtags for the QAnon conspiracy movement.Flores had the backing of top Texas Republicans including Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, while Sanchez’s biggest supporters among elected officials were Gonzalez and Vela. Both Flores and Sanchez were endorsed by their respective state party chairs and vice chairs.But Flores had virtually all the advantages throughout the special election, especially when it came to fundraising. On the only major campaign finance report of the special election, she reported $752,000 in contributions, compared to $46,000 for Sanchez.On Tuesday night, Flores most notably carried Cameron County, the most populous county in the district and a longtime Democratic stronghold along the Mexican border. She defeated Sanchez there by about a percentage point after Biden carried the county by 13 points in 2020.National GOP groups were jubilant about Flores’ win Tuesday night, especially as they push to retake the House majority in November. The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, said in a statement that the race was a “referendum on Democrats’ reckless policies that created a border crisis, led to record-high inflation, and sent gas prices soaring.”But the head of the Texas Democratic Party, Gilberto Hinojosa, downplayed Flores’ victory in a statement, saying the GOP “could barely squeak out a win” given all their financial advantages. Echoing national Democrats, he expressed confidence that Flores would occupy the seat only for a matter of months.“In January 2023, this seat will rightfully return to Democratic hands,” Hinojosa said.The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.Patrick Svitek, The Texas Tribune | US Federal Elections |
The campaign to smear Phil Mickelson for joining a Saudi Arabian golf tournament wreaks of hypocrisy - just ask Joe Biden, LeBron James or FIFA.
Who is the worst human being on Planet Earth?Vladimir Putin would get my vote for his disgusting genocidal rampage through Ukraine.But even he’s getting better press than golf superstar Phil Mickelson, who’s become sport’s No. 1 whipping boy for choosing to play in the new Saudi-backed breakaway LIV tournament.The attacks on Mickelson reached a nadir over the weekend when he was accused of “betraying” the victims of America’s worst-ever terror attack.Terry Strada, chair of 9/11 Families United, a support group for those who lost loved ones in the appalling September 11 atrocities, wrote a furious public letter to Mickelson — and his fellow renegades including Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na — saying he’d “sold out” the September 11 dead and insulted their memories.Strada raged: “This is a betrayal not only of us, but of all your countrymen.”It’s hard to think of a more damning accusation to make against any American.When Mickelson was asked for his response, he said: “I think I speak for pretty much every American in that we feel the deepest of sympathy and the deepest of empathy for those that have lost loved ones, friends in 9/11. It affected all of us, and those that have been directly affected I think — I can’t emphasize enough how much empathy I have for them.”But that just prompted another rebuke from Strada: “Phil knows exactly what he’s doing, and he and his fellow LIV golfers should be ashamed. They are helping the Saudi regime ‘sportswash’ their reputation in return for tens of millions of dollars, at the very same time our government is rolling out more damning evidence of Saudi culpability in the 9/11 attacks.”I understand Strada’s anger.Her husband, Tom, was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald and perished on the 104th floor of the North Tower.I would feel the same if my spouse had been killed by Osama bin Laden’s suicide bombers.But Phil Mickelson had nothing to do with 9/11, and I’m sure his sentiments toward the victims are entirely genuine.He’s condemned the Saudis’ appalling human rights record and admitted they’re “scary motherf–kers” in a now-infamous confession to a golf writer, but he doesn’t think that should stop him from doing business with the Kingdom, just as he’s plied his trade all over the world for three decades, often in places with very dodgy human rights records.As such, he’s no different from every president of the United States, though when it comes to Saudi Arabia, the presidential hypocrisy runs a little deeper.For example, Joe Biden was so morally outraged about the 2018 murder of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was ambushed by a hit squad at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, suffocated, and then cut into pieces with bone saws, that during a Democratic candidate debate the following year, he declared: “We were going to make them (Saudi Arabia) pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”Hmmm.One of the first things Biden did after winning the presidency last November was approve the sale of 280 air-to-air missiles worth $650 million … to Saudi Arabia.And next month, he will hold his nose again and travel to Riyadh to kiss the oil-pumping ring of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and beg him to produce more of the black stuff to bring down surging gas prices across the US.That’s despite US intelligence recently stating the Saudi leader personally approved Khashoggi’s assassination.Apparently, the US has decided to “move on” from the sickening murder to “pursue warmer relations” with the Saudis amid a growing global economic meltdown.Frankly, there’s no other sensible option.The cold, hard reality is that Saudi Arabia remains America’s second-largest trading partner and one of its most important strategic allies, developing a security alliance against joint threats like Iran.“I’m not going to change my view on human rights,” Biden said last week, defending his relationship with the Saudis. “But as president of the United States, my job is to bring peace if I can.”He’s right.And if the US government is happy to do big business with the Saudis, why shouldn’t an American citizen like Phil Mickelson be allowed to?Then there’s the stinking hypocrisy of his critics in the sports world.PGA boss Jay Monahan has banned all the LIV players from his tour, and when asked about the 9/11 families’ complaint, told CBS: “I would ask any player who has left [the PGA Tour] or any player who would ever consider leaving, ‘Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?’”Mr. Monahan seems to have severe amnesia.Last year, he allowed Mickelson and the LIV renegades to all play in the lucrative Saudi International tournament so long as they agreed to play in his AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am once over the next two years.In other words, his issue about Saudi Arabia wasn’t about morality, but money.The European Tour, whose bosses have expressed indignance similar to Monahan’s over the LIV tour, has taken Saudi money to stage tournaments there for the past few years.And what about the PGA’s business dealings with China?As with the NBA, whose star player LeBron James has led basketball’s own shameless sports-washing, it’s had no problem raking in billions in Chinese cash, and holding an annual tour event there, while not saying a condemnatory word about the totalitarian regime’s horrific human rights abuses like ongoing suppression of Uyghur Muslims.Nor does the PGA have any problem with its major sponsors like FedEx, UPS and RBC, and golf manufacturers like Ping, Titleist, Nike and Callaway, all doing huge business in China and throughout the UAE including Saudi Arabia.This whole “sports-washing” issue is riddled with rampant hypocrisy.FIFA, the top global football (OK, “soccer”) association, constantly bangs on about celebrating diversity and tolerance, and has been doing so again during Pride Month, but the same FIFA has sold its coveted World Cup to Qatar, where it’s illegal to be gay and where workers’ and women’s rights are just as dreadful.It’s the same two-faced virtue-signaling bulls–t we’ve seen with Disney, which goes to war in Florida over LGBT rights but simultaneously streams content to many anti-gay countries.Phil Mickelson’s no saint. By his own admission, he’s got a massive gambling problem, and has said some very clumsy things about this whole furor for which he’s apologized.But he’s an American sporting legend who’s done more than anyone other than Tiger Woods to make modern golf a hugely popular and financially rewarding game, and by taking paychecks from a country with a terrible human rights record, he’s no worse than his president, or most other leading US sportsmen and companies including his previous employers at the PGA.So I suggest his hypocritical critics take their cracked halos and shove them up their sanctimonious backsides. | US Political Corruption |
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters in Washington on Feb. 23, 2022.Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesCharles Schwab agreed to pay $187 million to settle an SEC investigation into alleged hidden fees charged by the firm's robo-advisor, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, according to an agency announcement on Monday."Robo-advisor" is shorthand for a digital investment service that uses algorithms to judge how to allocate individuals' money among asset classes such as stocks, bonds and cash. From March 2015 through November 2018, Schwab didn't disclose to clients that its robo-advisor allocated funds "in a manner that their own internal analyses showed would be less profitable for their clients under most market conditions," the SEC claimed.More from Personal Finance:401(k) savers will see a 'wake-up call' in their next statementWhat to know before you start investingThis rule of thumb shows how inflation impacts your savingsAs part of the settlement, three Schwab subsidiaries — Charles Schwab & Co., Charles Schwab Investment Advisory and Schwab Wealth Investment Advisory — agreed to pay a $135 million civil penalty and another $52 million in disgorgement and interest to affected clients.In a statement issued Monday, Schwab neither admitted nor denied the allegations and said the firm is "pleased to put this behind us.""We believe resolving the matter in this way is in the best interests of our clients, company and stockholders as it allows us to remain focused on helping our clients invest for the future," according to the statement. "As always, we are committed to earning our clients' trust every day and work diligently to maintain the highest standards for professional conduct throughout our organization."Cash dragRobo-advisors are getting more popular. They began appearing around 2008, during the advent of the iPhone and an ascendant digital culture. They may soon hold more than $1 trillion of Americans' wealth.The dynamic outlined by the SEC was due to an undisclosed "cash drag" on Schwab client portfolios, the agency said.Cash generally yields lower returns than stocks, for example, during periods of low interest rates and a rising stock market, as was the directional trend over 2015-2018.Schwab advertised that clients' cash allocations were determined by strict portfolio methodology that sought optimal returns, according to the SEC. But the firm's data showed that the cash allocations would lead clients to make less money for the same amount of risk in most circumstances, the SEC said.The firm profited by sweeping cash to an affiliate bank, loaning the money and pocketing the difference between the loan interest it received and the cash interest it paid to robo-adviser clients, according to the SEC."Schwab's conduct was egregious, and today's action sends a clear message to advisers that they need to be transparent with clients about hidden fees and how such fees affect clients' returns," Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC's enforcement division, said Monday.However, Schwab highlighted that its Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Service lets investors elect not to pay an advisory fee in exchange for allowing the firm to hold some proceeds in cash.The firm said it "[does] not hide the fact that our firm generates revenue for the services we provide" and thinks cash is a "key component of any sound investment strategy through different market cycles." | US Federal Policies |
LGBTQ groups say transgender people face growing threats of violence and discrimination in the US.A United States federal appeals court has approved a Florida high school’s policy barring transgender high school students from using the toilet facilities of their chosen identity.
On Friday, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a seven-to-four decision that the policy – instituted by a school board in St Johns County, Florida – did not violate the US Constitution’s Equal Protections Clause or federal civil rights law.
“This is an aberrant ruling that contradicts the rulings of every other circuit to consider the question across the country,” said Tara Borelli, a lawyer with the LGBTQ civil rights organisation Lambda Legal, which was involved in the case. “We will be reviewing and evaluating this dangerous decision over the weekend.” The ruling is a victory for conservatives who have sought to impose strict conceptions of gender on institutions across the country. In May, Oklahoma became the latest state to sign a so-called “bathroom bill” into law, requiring students in public schools to use restrooms, changing rooms and showers that correspond to the sex indicated on their birth certificate.
LGBTQ groups have fought back, accusing legislators of stirring up fear and resentment against transgender individuals. Lambda Legal is also challenging the Oklahoma law in federal court.
The St Johns County policy likewise forced transgender students to use toilets corresponding to the biological sex they were assigned at birth rather than their chosen identity.
The policy was challenged in 2017 by Drew Adams, a transgender man who was not allowed to use the men’s restroom when he was a student at Allen D Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
US President Joe Biden’s administration had urged the circuit court to strike the rule down, but the court voted to uphold it. Six of the seven judges in the majority were appointed by former President Donald Trump, a Republican, who rolled back protections for transgender people during his time in office.
States and local jurisdictions across the US have continued to pursue policies that critics say discriminate against transgender people, including legislation that would ban transgender youth from participating in sports teams and competitions that correspond with their gender identity.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit was also filed against the US state of Georgia, alleging the state’s health insurance policy illegally discriminates by refusing to pay for gender-affirming healthcare.
“The exclusion communicates to transgender persons and to the public that their state government deems them unworthy of equal treatment,” the lawsuit argues.
LGBTQ people in the US have raised concerns that heated rhetoric directed at them by conservative figures has contributed to a combustible environment and an “epidemic of hate”.
Right-wing groups, sometimes including members of armed militias, have protested against drag shows across the US. In Boston, a children’s hospital that offers gender-affirming medical treatment has faced numerous bomb threats. And a gunman attacked an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado last month, killing five people and injuring at least 17 others. In December, Biden signed a law protecting same-sex marriage rights amid concerns the country’s Supreme Court, which has a sizeable conservative majority, could roll back protections previously granted to LGBTQ people.
“This law and the love it defends strike a blow against hate in all its forms, and that’s why this law matters to every single American, no matter who you are and who you love,” said Biden at the signing ceremony. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
From BlackRock To Pimco, Bond Investors Bet Fed Hiking Is Over
A resilient job market has been the main stumbling block for the Fed to stop raising the borrowing costs.
(Bloomberg) -- For the first time since the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates almost 18 months ago, the labor market is showing enough cracks to embolden some of the world’s largest bond investors to bet that the tightening cycle is finally ending.
A spate of slowing employment metrics this week, crowned by Friday’s August payrolls report, has shifted market sentiment in favor of owning policy-sensitive two-year Treasuries, which BlackRock Inc.’s Jeff Rosenberg called a “screaming buy.”
The prospect of the Fed wrapping up its most aggressive tightening campaign in decades also drew investors to another favorite end-of-cycle trade — a steepening yield curve. The wager is that as the focus shifts to the timing of a potential Fed pivot to easing, short-maturity notes will fare better than long-term bonds. The strategy may also be benefiting from a seasonal tendency: Companies typically rush to sell debt after the US Labor Day holiday, putting pressure on long-duration bonds.
The jobs data leaves “the bond market comfortable with the view that the Fed is on hold for now and maybe done for the cycle,” said Michael Cudzil, a portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.8 trillion. “If they are done for the hiking cycle, it’s then about looking at the first cut that leads to steeper curves.”
While inflation has been trending lower in recent months, a resilient job market has been the main stumbling block for the Fed to stop hiking after raising the borrowing costs by 525 basis points since March 2022, to a range of 5.25%-5.5%.
But now the labor backdrop appears to be cooling. A government report Friday showed that the unemployment rate jumped to 3.8%, a level last seen in February 2022, and wage growth moderated. It was the third soft labor-market release of the week, following weaker-than-expected job openings data and an ADP Research Institute report showing slowing job additions by US companies.
Bond investors cheered the data after a relentless selloff in August saw 10-year yields hit the highest since 2007. The rate, a benchmark for global borrowing, ended the week below 4.2%.
What Bloomberg’s Strategists Say...
“While it would be a little foolhardy at this juncture to completely write off the chance of another rate hike, at this point it doesn’t seem like the Fed will need to go again. That may open a window of opportunity for bonds to rally in nominal terms, though it’s an open question of whether real returns can go positive on the year..”
- Cameron Crise, Macro Man column
For the full column, click here
Short-term Treasuries outperformed on Friday, sending the yield curve steeper. Two-year yields dropped roughly 20 basis points on the week to below 4.9%. Meanwhile, 30-year yields were little changed on the week at around 4.30%, after rising above five-year yields for the first time in weeks.
The employment reports looked like “the beginning of the end of the robust job market and the countdown for how long can the Fed stay on hold,” said George Goncalves, head of US macro strategy at MUFG. “This will favor the front-end versus the back-end,” he said, adding that two-year yields could fall toward 4.5%.
Interest-rate swap traders see slightly less than a 50% chance of another hike by November. After that, they’ve fully priced in a quarter-point cut by June.
As wage growth cools, Rosenberg, a portfolio manager of BlacRock’s $7.4 billion Systematic Multi-Strategy Fund, said the Fed has to lower borrowing costs to avoid the real rate – or inflation-adjusted policy rate – from tightening.
“It is about restrictive policy for longer, not higher for longer,” he said on Bloomberg TV. “That is what the bond market has priced in for next year. A gradual decline in inflation, leaving the Fed to have to cut rates, not because it is a hard landing or because they are overly tight, but because it is avoiding becoming overly tight to maintain restrictiveness.”
Rosenberg said he favors two-year Treasuries as they have both high yields as well as the potential to benefit from a Fed policy shift. Longer-term bonds are less attractive because of uncertainties around inflation and risk premium, he said.
Longer maturities tumbled Friday because traders were bracing for more corporate issuance next week, according to Subadra Rajappa, head of US rates strategy at Societe Generale.
But the curve trade also has the backing of the economic fundamentals, she said.
“The trade to be in is steepeners,” said Rajappa. “Either the market starts to price in more Fed cuts and the curve bull-steepens, or the Fed stays on hold with strong data and long-end sells off in that case.”
What to Watch
- Economic calendar:
- Sept. 5: Factory orders; durable goods orders; capital goods orders
- Sept. 6: MBA mortgage applications; trade balance; S&P Global US services and composite PMIs; ISM services index; Fed beige book
- Sept. 7: Nonfarm productivity, unit labor costs; jobless claims
- Sept. 8: Wholesale trade and inventories; consumer credit; household change in net worth
- Fed calendar
- Sept. 6: Boston Fed President Susan Collins; Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan
- Sept. 7: Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker; Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee; NY Fed President John Williams; Fed Governor Michelle Bowman; Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic; Logan
- Sept. 8: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr
- Auction calendar:
- Sept. 5: 13-, 26- and 52-week bills; 42-day cash management bill
- Sept. 6: 17-week bills
- Sept. 7: 4- and 8-week bills
--With assistance from Katie Greifeld.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
CNN — A federal appeals court put a temporary, administrative hold on President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, barring the administration from canceling loans covered under the policy, while the court considers a challenge to it. The order from the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals comes in a case brought by six Republican-led states, asking for a preliminary injunction to halt the policy after a district court dismissed the case earlier this week. The effort is separate from a Wisconsin taxpayers group’s challenge to the program that was recently rejected by the Supreme Court. The appeals court gave the administration until Monday to respond to the states’ request, and the states will have until Tuesday to reply to that response. The states had asked the appeals court to act before Sunday, the earliest date the Biden administration had said it would grant student loan discharges. In response to the pause, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre encouraged borrowers to apply for relief, saying that the administration would “continue to move full speed ahead in our preparations in compliance with this order,” and fight back against Republican legal efforts to the program. “Tonight’s temporary order does not prevent borrowers from applying for student debt relief at studentaid.gov – and we encourage eligible borrowers to join the nearly 22 million Americans whose information the Department of Education already has. It also does not prevent us from reviewing these applications and preparing them for transmission to loan servicers.” The lawsuit, which was filed last month, was dismissed on October 20 by a lower court judge who ruled that the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to bring the challenge. In another win for Biden that same day, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett declined to refer the challenge from the Wisconsin taxpayers group to the full court. The Biden administration is also facing lawsuits from Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and conservative groups such as the Job Creators Network Foundation and the Cato Institute. Many of the legal challenges claim that the Biden administration does not have the legal authority to broadly cancel student loan debt. Lawyers for the government argue that Congress gave the secretary of education the power to discharge debt in a 2003 law known as the HEROES Act. Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, first announced in August, aims to deliver debt relief to millions of borrowers before federal student loan payments resume in January after a nearly three-year, pandemic-related pause. Under Biden’s plan, eligible individual borrowers who earned less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 annually in those years will see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven. If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness. This story has been updated with additional details Friday. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! It appears Hollywood heard Bill Maher loud and clear. Just days after the "Real Time" host scolded his entertainment peers for not addressing the "romanticizing" of gun violence in films and television shows following a string of mass shootings, an open letter is being floated to potentially curb how guns are presented. "Guns are prominently featured in TV and movies in every corner of the globe, but only America has a gun violence epidemic. The responsibility lies with lax gun laws supported by those politicians more afraid of losing power than saving lives. We didn’t cause the problem, but we want to help fix it," the open letters reads, as reported by The Ankler. "As America’s storytellers, our goal is primarily to entertain, but we also acknowledge that stories have the power to effect change. Cultural attitudes toward smoking, drunk driving, seatbelts and marriage equality have all evolved due in large part to movies’ and TV’s influence. It’s time to take on gun safety."BILL MAHER RIPS HOLLYWOOD FOR NOT GOING ‘WOKE’ ON ROMANTICIZING GUN VIOLENCE: THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM A memorial is seen surrounding the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) The letter, which is being promoted by the group Brady United Against Gun Violence, stresses it is "not asking anyone to stop showing guns on screen" but rather creators "be mindful of on-screen gun violence and model gun safety best practices."It urges writers, directors and producers to use creativity "to model responsible gun ownership and show consequences for reckless gun use" and "make a conscious effort to show characters locking their guns safely and making them inaccessible to children."The letter calls for "at least one conversation during pre-production" on how guns will be portrayed in the final product and "consider alternatives that could be employed without sacrificing narrative integrity." It also suggests limiting scenes "including children and guns" as guns are "now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents."BILL MAHER BURIES NYT FOR BURYING KAVANAUGH ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: ‘THEY WEAR THEIR BIAS ON THEIR SLEEVES’ Amy Schumer is among the high-profile signatories on an open letter aiming to curb how gun violence is depicted in films and television shows. (Getty Images)"We are under no illusions that these actions are a substitute for common sense gun legislation. Furthermore, this list does not incorporate every nuance of guns on screen. However, these are small things that we can do as a community to try and end this national nightmare," the letter adds. Several big-name producers like J.J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, Shonda Rhimes, Kathleen Kennedy, Bill Lawrence, Steven Levitan, Damon Lindelof and Adam McKay are among the heavy hitters committing to the reform effort. Other A-listers who appear as signatories include Jimmy Kimmel, Amy Schumer, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.On Friday, Maher offered a scathing closing monologue calling out Hollywood for not going "woke" on gun violence as liberals continue to call for gun control. "Real Time" host Bill Maher slammed Hollywood for not addressing the gun violence it promotes in films and television, something he argued plays a roll in influencing mass shooters. (HBO)"Now that we live in an age of uber-corporate responsibility where every large company in America bends over backwards to get on the politically correct side of every issue, Hollywood has to tell us- why does that not include gun violence?" Maher began. "When liberals scream, ‘Do something!’ after a mass shooting, why aren't we also dealing with the fact that the average American kid sees 200,000 acts of violence on screens before the age of 18 and that according to the FBI, one of the warning signs of a potential school shooter is ‘a fascination with violence-filled entertainment?’"CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"It's funny, Hollywood is the wokest place on Earth in every other area of social responsibility. They have intimacy coordinators on set to chaperone sex scenes, they hire sensitivity readers to go through and edit scripts, Disney stood up to the 'Don't Say Gay' law, another studio spent $10 million to digitally remove Kevin Spacey from a movie, but when it comes to the unbridled romanticization of gun violence, crickets. Weird. The only thing we don't call a trigger is the one that actually has a trigger," Maher told viewers. WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE AND IMAGES OF GUN VIOLENCE DEPICTED Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn. | US Federal Policies |
Market professionals are supposed to be the ones warning the Fed to "go it slow," "don't break things," etc., but the chorus of investors begging the Fed to tighten even further right now is growing. Take hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who yesterday tweeted, "The [Fed] has allowed inflation to get out of control. Equity and credit markets have therefore lost confidence in the Fed. Market confidence can be restored if the Fed takes aggressive action with 75 bps [rate hikes] tomorrow and in July, and a commitment to continued [tightening] until it is clear that inflation has been tamed." He added, "And yes, 100 bps tomorrow, in July and thereafter would be better. The sooner the [Fed] can get to a terminal FF rate and thereafter can begin to ease, the sooner the markets can recover."By "terminal rate," Ackman means the level of neutral--or even restrictive--interest rates that is needed to dramatically slow inflation. And the market has had to quickly rethink how high rates need to go because inflation remains so elevated; it now thinks the Fed has to take rates to 4% by the middle of next year, from their current 0.75% to 1% range. Ackman is saying, why not get there--or to at least 2-3%--as quickly as possible. Jeffrey Gundlach, of DoubleLine, made a similar remark last night, tweeting, "The Federal Reserve should raise the Fed Funds rate to 3% tomorrow, in my opinion." Again, this is someone who has seen plenty of financial market crises first-hand. He knows how bad liquidity already is in the markets. And he knows the Fed erring on the side of "caution" could actually make things a lot worse right now. A friend of mine with a long career in markets made a similar comment to me over the weekend. "Markets prefer the devil they know over the devil they don't," he said. "An aggressively tightening Fed is a better known commodity than rampant inflation." I asked, would markets freak out if Powell took the kind of measures Ackman, Gundlach, and others are calling for? "Actually, if they did that, equities would massively rally," he replied, "and forward inflation breakevens would collapse." Should weaker economic data give the Fed pause right now? Not necessarily. Yes, retail sales dropped this morning. Yes, the Empire Fed regional manufacturing index was weak. But investors are basically chalking up this business cycle as a loss already; far better to shorten it now, conquer inflation, and have a faster, more promising recovery than to let these problems linger chronically, is what they're saying. After all, the deep Volcker recession of 1981-82 was the worst postwar drop since the Great Depression; but as inflation finally ebbed, it was followed by such a strong recovery that President Reagan was reelected with the biggest electoral college landslide ever by 1984. A similarly sharp downturn now might not spare President Biden a midterm loss, but it could set up much more promisingly for his 2024 reelection than a years-long period of stagflation. Monetary policy, remember, works with "long and variable lags." Even the most aggressive tightening today will take a year or more to work through the economy. Waiting another year to get aggressive only delays the timeframe further. And at least our Fed has the ability to tighten considerably right now--the same can't necessarily be said for Europe or Japan, leaving us, as is so often the case, as the biggest available player to tame global inflationary pressures. Indeed, Europe had to call an "ad hoc" (i.e. emergency) central bank meeting this morning to reassure markets that as yields of slower-growth economies start to jump in response to less central bank bond purchases, they remain committed to "act against resurgent fragmentation risks." This for the region that also has the worst inflation because of soaring energy prices; thankfully the U.S. is more insulated thanks to our larger domestic energy industry. So yes, markets have had to digest a lot already this year. But that's pushed the Fed much closer to an appropriately tight monetary policy. To give up or pause now would feel to markets a bit like that famous Tennessee Titans Super Bowl where they came up just one yard short of a touchdown and lost the game in the final moments. "We are much closer to pricing in a realistic tightening path now than we were a few weeks or months ago," wrote MKM's Michael Darda yesterday. If the Fed "actually pulls the trigger," on market expectations of a 75-basis-point hike today, and similar future tightening, he said, it could mean "the collapse in equity valuations may be (mostly) behind us now." See you at 1 p.m!KellyTwitter: @KellyCNBCInstagram: @realkellyevans | US Federal Policies |
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. repeatedly violated federal labor law by unilaterally changing policies and terminating union supporters at its sole unionized warehouse, US labor board prosecutors alleged in a complaint, which also accuses Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy of personally making illegal anti-union comments.
Most Read from Bloomberg
In a Monday filing, a National Labor Relations Board regional director wrote that Amazon illegally restricted employees’ ability to visit their unionized New York City warehouse during their time off, in order to discourage them from engaging in labor activism.
The agency alleges Amazon changed its policy on off-duty workers’ access to the premises, as well as its practices on announcing and providing paid leave for Covid-19 cases, without negotiating with the union at the Staten Island facility. It also accuses the company of terminating two employees because of their involvement in the Amazon Labor Union. Amazon should be forced, among other measures, to rescind its off-duty access policy for at least three years, the complaint says.
The complaint also accuses Jassy of violating federal labor law by saying, during a live interview as part of the New York Times Dealbook summit, that union representation would make workers less empowered and would make it harder for them to have direct relationships with managers. Jassy made the comments in November, a month after the NLRB issued a prior complaint saying similar comments the CEO had made to CNBC and to Bloomberg News also violated the law.
Federal labor law allows companies to vocally oppose unionization, but restricts them from threatening or retaliating against workers for organizing, and requires them to negotiate over working conditions if employees do vote to unionize.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to an request for comment on the filing. While the NLRB has certified ALU as the representative of the Staten Island workers, the Seattle-based company has argued that the union’s landmark election victory last year should be overturned due to misconduct, an argument it has signaled it will pursue in federal court. Amazon has repeatedly denied violating the law.
In November, a federal judge in New York ordered Amazon to cease and desist from retaliating against employees for workplace activism.
Complaints issued by NLRB prosecutors are heard by agency judges, whose rulings can be appealed to the labor board members in Washington, and then to federal court. The agency has the authority to order employers to reinstate workers and change policies, but not to fine them punitive damages or hold executives personally liable for violations.
Read more: Amazon Workers Launch Battle to Unionize in Britain
The NLRB’s Monday complaint alleged that Jassy’s comments were “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees” in their ability to exercise their rights. ALU argued that the comments constituted a threat to cut off workers’ access to supervisors if they unionized.
Complaints issued by NLRB officials personally naming prominent executives are relatively unusual. Under the agency’s current general counsel, President Joe Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency is also prosecuting a case accusing Starbucks Corp.’s former CEO Howard Schultz of making an anti-union threat during a meeting last year. A pro-union worker said Schultz asked them at the meeting, “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you work somewhere else?” Starbucks has denied wrongdoing.
“All these Succession-style billionaires should be held accountable for unlawful actions, and that’s what we’re doing,” ALU attorney Seth Goldstein said Monday. The complaint, he said, “is going to send a strong message to the union-busters and to CEOs like Jassy who think that they can say whatever they want to and they won’t be held accountable.”
(Updates with detail from complaint starting in second paragraph.)
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©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Labor Activism |
U.S. stock futures fell Monday, with the Nasdaq lower than other indexes, after the release of Friday's jobs report showed continued strength in the labor market.
Before the market opened, futures on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) dipped by 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell just below the flatline. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped by 0.6%.
Government bonds yields were lower. The yield on the 10-year note slipped to 3.38%, while rate-sensitive two-year note yields dipped to 3.94% Monday morning.
Crude oil (CL=F) continues to hover around $80 a barrel for the sixth consecutive day, the first time since late January.
Wall Street last Thursday wrapped up a short but volatile week, ending on a modestly upbeat note ahead of Friday's jobs report. Stocks had been wobbly earlier in the week in response to signs of a slowing economy, including weak data on private payrolls and job openings.
The stock market was closed for Good Friday. Still, the Labor Department on Friday reported that nonfarm payrolls rose by 236,000 in March, slightly below consensus estimates for 240,000 and down from February's revised 326,000. The unemployment rate was steady at 3.5%, while the labor force participation rate climbed to a post-COVID era high of 62.6%.
Hourly earnings rose 0.3% compared to February’s figures. The annual gain cooled to 4.2%, below February’s 4.6%.
“The March jobs report suggests the US labor market is moving into a healthier balance as softer employment growth and cooler wage inflation suggest we're nearing the end of the Fed's rate hiking cycle,” Ryan Sweet, Chief US Economist at Oxford Economics, wrote after Friday’s report.
Following the release, markets are now pricing in a 65% probability that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by another 0.25% in May, according to data from the CME Group.
Meanwhile, this week Wall Street will be closely paying attention to March’s consumer price index report out Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the index to rise 0.3% from February, lowering the year-over-year headline inflation rate to 5.2%.
“Thinking about the near-term setup, investors remain bearish, and the recession narrative was the dominant narrative last week as bad news was treated as bad news,” wrote the U.S. market intelligence team at JPMorgan in a note. “The CPI print should give more certainty around the terminal rate.”
Minutes from the Fed’s late-March meeting will be released on Wednesday, giving more insight into the central bank’s policy moves.
Under this backdrop, commercial lending has fallen more than $100 billion over the last two weeks of March, the largest dip on record, heightening the focus on bank earnings this week.
In single-stock moves, Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) shares moved down in premarket trading after the EV maker confirmed plans to build a major battery production site in Shanghai.
Pioneer Natural Resources Company (PXD) shares soared after a report from The Wall Street Journal hinted that Exxon Mobil held talks with the shale driller about a possible acquisition.
—
Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @daniromerotv | US Federal Policies |
The fast-food industry is seeking to overturn one of the most significant labor wins in recent American history by trying to scrap a new law in California that will establish an industry council for the sector on wage standards and other regulations, including safety.The Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, AB 257, was signed into law by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, on 5 September in what is seen as a huge fillip to a US labor movement seeking to capitalize on a wave of unionization drives.The law paves the way for a statewide fast-food sector council that includes workers, state regulators, franchises and their parent companies to establish wage standards and other regulations for the industry in the state.There are about 500,000 workers in the fast-food industry in California who will be represented under the law. It also provides a pathway for local municipalities to create their own similar councils overseeing the industry and to report to the statewide council. The law only applies to fast-food corporations with at least 100 retail locations nationwide under a common brand.The law is the first of its kind in the US, with workers in other states pushing to pass similar legislation, such as nail salon workers in New York.Fast-food workers have long reported widespread issues of violence on the job, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation for reporting abuses or for organizing, wage theft and poverty wages. The new law has been touted as a means to start addressing these issues that run rampant through the industry. Fast-food workers around California held over 300 strikes in the past year to rally support in favor of the legislation.As workers are now organizing to collect signatures to create the councils, the fast-food industry is mobilizing to try to overturn the law, claiming it will harm businesses and lead to a 20% increase in menu prices due to possible wage increases to up to $22 an hour in 2023. The industry also claims the law will not bolster worker protections.Cars wait in the drive-through line at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Francisco, California. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/APOpponents have also claimed the law could lead to restaurant closures and dissuade franchise owners from opening new locations in California.The National Restaurant Association and International Franchise Association has created a coalition of industry groups to back a statewide voter referendum initiative to overturn the law, and has warned that other states could follow suit in passing similar laws. Major fast-food corporations spent at least $1m lobbying against the bill between June 2021 and June 2022.The law is set to come into effect on 1 January 2023, but could be delayed if a referendum vote is allowed to move forward. If the referendum request is accepted by California’s attorney general, the groups backing the referendum would have until 1 April 2023 to collect roughly 623,000 valid voter signatures to qualify for the 2024 state ballot.During a press call, workers and labor leaders criticized the referendum proposal as a means to silence workers and an attempt by fast-food corporations to utilize their wealth to subvert democracy.“We’re going to keep organizing to fight the opposition,” said Lizzet Aguilar, who has worked at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles, California, for nearly 20 years. “We’re going to keep fighting. We have a lot of opposition, but we have to keep showing we want our union.”Others workers have described their own experiences.Alondra Hernandez helped organize a strike at the Burger King where she works in Oakland, California, after experiencing several instances of violence from customers while she was on the job. “There wasn’t a day when I went home and didn’t acknowledge a violent issue had happened at work,” said Hernandez.She explained that she and her co-workers started organizing for better security measures after an incident when a customer came into the store from the drive-through with their food, threw a burger at a co-worker’s face while demanding a refund and shattered a Plexiglas screen that cut the face of one of her supervisors.“With AB 257, there’s going to be the potential where we’ll have training on how to handle issues like these, to improve inspections into working conditions at stores and help improve our wages,” said Hernandez. “I believe with this council, government representatives, workers and representatives from the industry, that the representation is fair. Not one side is going to win everything, but we’ll have stability.”Advocates of the bill have noted its passage is an important step toward fast-food workers ultimately organizing a union, a task that has eluded workers due to high turnover, franchising and the widespread retaliation workers face throughout the industry. Less than 2% of workers in the food services and drinking places industry are currently represented by labor unions.Aguilar said she had led her co-workers on several strikes over unsafe Covid-19 working conditions in 2020, and she, along with other workers, were fired in retaliation. The state of California eventually issued a fine to the franchise owner and ordered the workers to be reinstated with back pay in 2021.“This law means a lot,” said Aguilar. “It’s a great victory. Fast-food workers have been through a lot at work. AB 257 is going to have a lot of benefits for workers, like helping to end discrimination, violence on the job and the injustice of wage theft. Many of us have been victims of wage theft.” | Labor Activism |
The Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election has recommended to prosecutors that they seek indictments against witnesses who they believe may have lied during their testimony, according to excerpts of the grand jury's report released Thursday.
"A majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses and testifying before it," the grand jury wrote in the report. "The grand jury recommends that the district attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,"
There are no names listed about who they believe may have committed perjury.
Separately, the grand jury also found "by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election."
Outside of this, in the few paragraphs that were released of the report's introduction, conclusion, and section on perjury, there were no details revealed regarding whether or not the grand jury recommended changes for anyone related to efforts to overturn the election.
The report does not name any potential targets for indictment, nor does it offer any rationale for its allegations of perjury. It does not mention Trump by name, nor any of the 75 witnesses interviewed as part of their probe.
Excerpts from the report were released Thursday, following an order earlier this week from a Georgia judge overseeing the case.
The majority of the long-anticipated report -- the final product of a monthslong grand jury investigation into potential 2020 election interference in the state -- remains sealed on order of Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney's. This includes the jury's ultimate recommendations on whether or not anyone should face criminal charges.
McBurney's ruling came after he heard arguments last month over whether or not to publicly release the report. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued for the report to remain sealed, saying that it was important to "be mindful of protecting future defendants' rights."
Thomas Clyde, a lawyer representing a coalition of media outlets that includes ABC News, urged McBurney to order the release of the report based on existing case law and "a genuine public interest in what these jurors found."
Though the special grand jury does not have the power to bring indictments, it has the power to make recommendations regarding potential charges. It would then be up to the district attorney to determine whether or not to pursue them.
According to the order from the judge, the report provided just that: "a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia," McBurney wrote.
Those recommendations, however, are "for the District Attorney's eyes only -- for now," McBurney ordered.
Ambassador Norman Eisen (ret.), a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020, told ABC News that despite the judge shielding most of the report, "it's clear from the judge's order that the grand jury recommended charges."
"The question is: I don't think that if people are being charged, Trump can logically be left out, because he was the ringleader," Eisen told ABC News. "He was the mastermind of the plots."
Eisen pointed to McBurney's note that the report gave recommendations regarding "who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what."
"Really, if no one was being indicted, there would be no need to say, 'for what,'" Eisen said. "That second clause only makes sense if someone is getting indicted."
In a statement before last month's hearing to determine the report's release, attorneys representing Trump in the matter said they did not expect to see charges recommended for the former president.
"The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President," Trump's attorneys said in a statement. "He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office."
Therefore, the attorneys said, they "assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump" -- although there's no indication if that's true or not.
Attorneys representing Trump did not respond to ABC News' request for comment ahead of the report's release.
Regarding the grand jury's concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony, Eisen said the district attorney could further pursue those witnesses.
"I don't think Fani Willis is going to let witnesses get away with perjury before her grand jury," Eisen said. "She can use that to coerce the liars to tell the truth and cooperate. By lying they've given her leverage over them."
The special grand jury, which was seated in May 2022, was composed of 26 members of the public who heard testimony from over 75 witnesses, prosecutors said.
Those who were subpoenaed and appeared before the grand jury included some of Trump's closest allies and supporters, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who unsuccessfully fought his subpoena up to the United State Supreme Court.
Giuliani, along with 16 so-called "fake electors" who allegedly participated in a scheme to overturn the state's election results, were notified last year that they were considered "targets" of the investigation.
Responding to the notification of his status as a target of the probe, Giuliani said, "I appeared in Georgia as attorney for Donald J. Trump -- so I'm going to be prosecuted for what I did as an attorney?"
The Justice Department is also examining the allegations involving fake electors as part of its own separate investigation, sources have told ABC News.
Attorneys for the electors have denied any wrongdoing in their actions.
"They cannot have and did not commit any crime as a matter of fact and law," attorney Holly Pierson, who represents 11 of the alleged fake electors, wrote in a court filing.
The jury was seated last May as part of Willis' criminal probe into allegations of election interference, which was launched in February 2021. The investigation was sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes," the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.
Trump has repeatedly defended his call to Raffensperger, calling it "perfect." | US Political Corruption |
Wall Street stock futures were little changed on Wednesday, as an accelerating bond rout took a breather and investors braced for the fallout from the historic ouster of the US House Speaker.
Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) futures edged up 0.1%, after a brutal selloff in stocks Tuesday that sent the benchmark into the red for the year. Futures on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) were both up around 0.1% too.
The indexes suffered deeper losses earlier in the morning as US government bond yields climbed, with the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) reaching 5% for the first time since 2007. Yields have since tipped lower, pulling the 10-year yield (^TNX) below 4.8%.
The selloff in stocks is all about the "pain trade" in bonds, some strategists believe, as investors increasingly accept the era of low interest rates is coming to an end. That has driven a fundamental shift in how investors think about everything from stocks to currencies, and the role bonds play in their portfolios.
At the same time, higher-than-expected data on job openings boosted bets for another hike this year. The next key reading on the US labor market will be the monthly payrolls print on Friday, likely to be closely watched for yet another sign the Fed has even more to do.
The historic ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday ramped up the uncertainty in the market, given voting in a replacement likely means weeks of chaos and gridlock for other business. That heightens the odds of a US government shutdown that could disrupt the economy, with a deadline due in just weeks.
Stock futures steady as bond pressure eases
The major US stock indexes traded around the flatline on Wednesday, after pressure from rising Treasury yields helped drive steep losses the previous day. | US Congress |
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images CNN — A majority of the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of the Biden administration’s defense of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to protect wetlands from pollution under the Clean Water Act on Monday, in the first session of oral arguments in the court’s new term. At the same time, however, some conservatives on the bench seemed to reject an argument from an opposing lawyer suing the federal government that would severely limit EPA’s ability to regulate. The long-running dispute centers on an Idaho couple who were hoping to build a home on new property in 2007 but received a stop work order from the EPA. The agency asserted that the property contained “navigable waters,” or wetlands subject to Clean Water Act protections. Now, the justices are attempting to devise a test for determining when wetlands – such as swamps, bogs, marshes that are adjacent to navigable waters – fall under the EPA’s authority. At her first oral arguments since joining the bench, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked several questions, joined at times by the two other liberal justices, suggesting that Congress’ intent was clear. They pushed on the notion that a wetland doesn’t have to actually touch the surface of navigable waters in order to trigger government regulation. Jackson did not hesitate to ask several questions, at one time interrupting another justice on the bench – a practice that rarely occurs now that the court has changed its process for questioning since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of arguments, she also broke from usual procedures by interrupting a lawyer during his rebuttal, a period of time where the justices usually allow a lawyer to have his final say. Chief Justice John Roberts offered the lawyer more time. Jackson, a veteran of multi-member courts having served on a federal appellate court based in Washington DC, seemed at ease, at one point sharing a joke with her seatmate Brett Kavanaugh. She wore a lace jabot over her robe, reminiscent of collars once worn by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The case before the justices has environmentalists – who were deeply disappointed last term when the court’s conservative majority curbed the agency’s authority to regulate power plant emissions – on edge. They see the current court as hostile to the power of federal agencies to protect the environment and fear the court will radically roll back federal safeguards for clean water, making it easier for oil and gas industries to bulldoze wetlands jeopardizing waterways. The Clean Water Act allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate “waters of the United States,” but the exact definition of such waters remains unclear. Critics of the EPA’s position cast the dispute as a battle of landowners across the country seeking to make use of their property without the interference of overzealous federal regulators. In 2004, Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased a vacant lot near Idaho’s Priest Lake. Three years later they broke ground, hoping to build a family home, but soon got entangled in a regulatory dispute. As they began backfilling the property with 1,700 cubic yards of sand and gravel to create a stable grade, the EPA sent them an order halting construction. At one point, the Sacketts were ordered to take actions to restore the site and were told if they did not, they could be faced with penalties of over $40,000 per day. Their property is bounded by roads to the north and the south, but across the street is a man-made ditch that drains about 35 acres of wetlands. The necessary permit would cost thousands of dollars and takes around two years to obtain. The Sacketts stressed that they had obtained all local building permits, that their site was bordered by developed properties and roads and that nothing in their deed suggested that their lot contained wetlands. They sued the EPA claiming that its jurisdiction under the law did not stretch to their property. The Clean Water Act was passed to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” It extends to “all navigable waters” and prohibits individuals without permits from discharging pollutants including rocks and sand into those waters. Since the CWA was enacted, however, courts have struggled to identify the exact definition of “waters in the USA.” In a 2006 case called Rapanos v. United States, a fractured Supreme Court wiped away two decisions upholding the application of the Clean Water Act to wetlands connected to distant navigable waters via ditches and drains, but the justices divided over their rationale. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by only three justices, developed a test for determining whether wetlands could be regulated under the law. Scalia said that “waters of the United States” extend only to “relatively permanent, standing or flowing bodies of water” and to wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to permanent waters. In the lawsuit at hand, a lawyer for the Sacketts supports Scalia’s view and says the couple should prevail. The lawyer stressed that the Sackett property contains “no stream, river, lake or similar waterbody.” Damien Schiff, a lawyer for the Sacketts, told the justices in court papers that his clients’ case is “emblematic of all that has gone wrong with the implementation of the Clean Water Act,” following the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision. Schiff stressed that the Rapanos plurality written by Scalia meant that the wetlands on their property limited federal authority only to wetlands that have a continuous surface-water connection to regulated waters. “The Clean Water Act does not regulate wetlands standing alone,” Schiff argued. “Rather, the Act reaches such non-waters only to the extent that a significant physical nexus (like a shoreline connection) between wetlands and an authentic water” such as a stream, river, ocean or lake, he said. In court, Jackson challenged Schiff. “Let me try to bring some enlightenment to it by asking it this way,” she said. “Why would Congress draw the coverage line between abutting wetlands and neighboring wetlands when the objective of the statute is to ensure the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters?” she asked. The EPA, however, pointed to now retired Justice Anthony Kennedy’s reasoning in the Rapanos case and said it should prevail against the Sacketts under a so called “significant nexus test.” Kennedy – whose wrote on the narrowest grounds supporting the majority’s bottom line—said that under the CWA, “jurisdiction over wetlands depends upon the existence of a significant nexus between the wetlands in question and navigable waters in the traditional sense.” “Wetlands play an essential role in protecting the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of neighboring waterways, including by filtering pollutants, storing water, and providing flood control,” a Justice Department attorney said Monday. A federal appeals court – relying upon Kennedy’s rationale – ruled in favor of the EPA. “The record plainly supports EPA’s conclusion that the wetlands on the Sacketts property are adjacent to a jurisdictional tributary and that, together with the similarly situated Kalispell Bay Fen, they have a significant nexus to Priest Lake, a traditional navigable water,” the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals held. On Monday, Kennedy, who rarely appears at the court, sat in the audience – in a section of the court reserved for retired justices and special guests to hear oral arguments in the case that he had decided before his retirement. This story has been updated with additional details. CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report. | SCOTUS |
As an economist, pulling punches isn't in my DNA. So, I'll be blunt: For most Americans, early retirement isn't just a decision to take the longest vacation of their lives — it's one of the biggest money mistakes that they will regret.The reason is simple: We are, as a group, lousy savers, making early retirement unaffordable. Financially speaking, it's generally far safer and far smarter to retire later.According to a Boston College Center for Retirement Research report, half of today's working families risk a major living standard decline in retirement. The share would drop by roughly 50% if all workers were to retire two years later.Of course, there are situations where retiring early is a great option. Some people have carefully planned and can afford to buy more leisure. Many have no choice; they run out of physical or psychological steam. Others find their jobs automated or outsourced.Still, almost two-thirds of people — between ages 57 and 66 — choose to retire early out their own volition, despite having saved next to nothing. And most of them are able-bodied, without disabilities that would prevent them from staying on the job.The baby boomer's retirement debacleTake the baby boomer generation, the 76 million-strong population of those born between 1946 and 1964, who are retiring droves. Almost half of them have little if any savings.Indeed, their median wealth is just $144,000 — less than three years of median household spending. If they had significant private, state or local pensions on which to rely, things would look better. They don't.Less than 1 in 3 have a pension apart from Social Security. As for those with pensions, many had state- and local-government jobs that weren't covered by Social Security.Worse, those receiving such pensions can lose most or all of the Social Security benefits accrued from working part-career in covered employment due to Social Security's Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset provisions.Social Security is nothing to write home aboutSocial Security's average benefit — $18,000 per year — could be far higher, but 94% of retirees take Social Security retirement benefits well before its benefit peaks, at age 70.In fact, roughly 85% should be waiting until 70 to collect. The age-70 retirement benefit is 76% higher, adjusted for inflation, than, for example, the age-62 benefit.Moreover, when Americans take their Social Security retirement benefits far too early, they potentially condemn their spouses or ex-spouses (to whom they were married to for a decade or more) to far lower widow(er)'s and divorced widow(er)'s benefits. You can't count on dying timeThe failure of most of us to save reflects a misfocus on life expectancy, which is routinely used to set one's planning horizon. Half of 50-year-olds will live beyond age 80. A quarter will make it to age 90.To understand what adequate saving really involves, take Jane, a single 40-year-old Louisianan. Jane, who plans to retire and take Social Security at 62, earns $75,000 per year and has $150,000 in her saving account — an inheritance from a rich uncle.Jane could live to 100. Like the rest of us, Jane can't count on dying on time. She needs to plan to live to her maximum age of life, because she might. Jane has saved nothing. She's counting on Social Security and her 401(k), with its $150,000 balance and to which she and her employer contribute 3% annually, to sustain her retirement. Jane is miles off base. Her retirement could last longer than she works. If she lives to 100, she needs to save 28% of her take-home pay each year through retirement! What if Jane takes Social Security at 70? Good move! This raises her lifetime spending by over 10% and lowers her requisite pre-retirement saving rate to 16%. And if she plays the odds of dying young and plans to lower her living standard by 1.5% annually starting at 80? Now her required saving rate is 13%.Unfortunately, Jane is saving nothing. If she continues to do so, her post-retirement living standard will be half her pre-retirement living standard!Even so, Jane is actually in better shape than many. About one-third of private-sector workers have no retirement plan. And a quarter of those that do fail to participate even to the point of getting their free employer match.The answer is to delay retirementHow to rescue non-saving Jane's retirement? If Jane retires and takes Social Security at 70, she won't need to save on her own. And her lifetime spending will rise by one-third!Yes, this is a risky strategy. Jane could become disabled. Or she could be fired. But if she refuses to save a ton and doesn't want to experience severe financial deprivation in retirement, her only answer is to keep on working.As for me, I just turned 71. Fortunately, I have tenure and can keep doing research, writing books and columns and teaching. My current plan is to die in the saddle. My work is just too rewarding — financially, intellectually and psychologically — to give it up.Laurence J. Kotlikoff is an economics professor and the author of "Money Magic: An Economist's Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life." He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977. His columns have appeared in The New York Times, WSJ, Bloomberg and The Financial Times. In 2014, The Economist named him one of the world's 25 most influential economists. Follow Laurence on Twitter @Kotlikoff.Don't miss:I retired at 34 with $3 million—here are 5 downsides of early retirement that no one tells youA Harvard-trained economist shares his top 21 money rules: 'Own your home' and 'try to buy in cash'38-year-old retiree: 'America, stop wasting your money on these 7 things—if you want to retire early' | US Federal Policies |
New York CNN Business — America’s freight railroads have already stopped accepting shipments of hazardous and other security-sensitive materials because of the looming threat of a strike Friday. Union Pacific, one of the major national railroads whose operations would be halted by a strike, said the move is meant to “protect employees, customers, and the communities we serve.” A statement from the railroad’s trade group said they needed to take this step in order to follow federal rules to “ensure that no such cargo is left on an unattended or unsecured train.” But the unions representing the members of the train crew threatening to go on strike say the railroad’s new freight restrictions are designed to put pressure on Congress to block the unions from walking out. They said the move was “completely unnecessary” and “no more than corporate extortion.” “The railroads are using shippers, consumers, and the supply chain of our nation as pawns in an effort to get our unions to cave into their contract demands,” said the unions’ statement. “Our unions will not cave into these scare tactics, and Congress must not cave into what can only be described as corporate terrorism.” The statements show the rising stakes in the labor dispute that could lead to the first national railroad strike in 30 years as soon as this Friday. About 60,000 union members who work for the railroad are set to go on strike, including the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train. Even though 45,000 other union members belong to unions that have reached tentative deals with the railroads, a strike by engineers and conductors would bring the freight rail system, which carries nearly 30% of the nation’s freight, to a grinding halt. It’s about the last thing the US economy needs as it struggles to get over several years of supply chain issues. A prolonged strike could mean some empty shelves in stores, temporary closures at factories that don’t have the parts they need to operate, and higher prices due to the limited availability of various consumer goods. “While these actions are necessary, they do not mean a work stoppage is certain,” said the statement from Union Pacific. “What we want, and continue to push for, is a prompt resolution that provides historic wage increases to employees and allows the railroads to restore service as soon as possible, preventing further disruption to the struggling supply chain.” Labor law for railroad and airline employees is different from the law that controls labor relations for the vast majority of private sector workers. The Railway Labor Act, the nation’s oldest labor law, allows Congress to take action to keep workers on the job in case of a strike or a lockout of workers by management. But it’s not clear that Congress could act quickly to find a bipartisan measure needed to win the votes to avert a strike, especially just weeks before crucial midterm elections. In July, when a strike was first threatened, President Joe Biden used powers he had at that time to block a freight rail strike. That created a 60-day cooling off period during which a panel he appointed, known as a Presidential Emergency Board, or PEB, looked at the dispute and came up with a set of recommendations. But that 60-day cooling off period ends at 12:01 am ET Friday, allowing the union to go on strike or the railroads to lockout the union members. Biden does not have the power to prevent a strike or lockout once again. Without a labor agreement or congressional action to impose a contract or extend the cooling off period, the national freight railroads will grind to a halt on Friday. “The railroads show no intentions of reaching an agreement with our unions, but they cannot legally lock out our members until the end of the cooling-off period,” said the union in a statement. “Instead, they are locking out their customers beginning on Monday and further harming the supply chain in an effort to provoke congressional action.” The US Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to both the Democrat and Republican leadership of both houses asking that Congress be prepared to act if the two sides can’t reach an agreement before Friday. “We continue to believe that a voluntary agreement by all parties is the best outcome, but it is now clear that Congress may need to intervene,” said the letter. It urged Congress to impose a new contract based on the PEB’s recommendations upon the unions that have yet to reach a tentative agreement with the railroads. It did raise the possibility of extending the cooling off period rather than imposing a contract. The PEB’s proposals included an immediate 14% raise for 115,000 union members working for the railroad, including backpay back to 2020, and raises totaling of 24% over the five-year life of the contract from 2020 to 2024. The plan was good enough for eight of the 12 unions, which together represent about 45,000 railroad employees to agree to tentative labor agreement. The most recent agreements came over the weekend. But four of the groups, including the two most significant unions that represent the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train, have refused to accept the PEB’s proposal so far. Two of the unions -— those representing the train crew members – say their members would never ratify a contract that includes the current staffing levels and scheduling rules. They say the shortage of workers has meant their members need to be on call to report to work on short notice seven days a week, even on the days they’re not scheduled to work. Those rules do not apply to members of the unions who have reached tentative agreements. The engineers and conductors unions include about half of the union members working for the railroads. And if they strike, even if the other unions all agree to stay on the job, the trains will not operate. Railroad management says that the PEB considered the union’s demands on scheduling and were “expressly rejected.” “It is critical that the remaining unions promptly reach agreements that provide pay increases to employees and prevent rail service disruptions,” said management’s statement. It said the deals with the remaining unions should be “based on the PEB’s recommendation.” But the engineers’ and conductors’ unions are pushing their allies in Congress not to take any action to impose a labor deal on workers who have yet to reach a deal, or to extend the cooling off period. The unions say only a strike can resolve the issue, and if management wants to avoid a strike, it must agree to fix the work rules. “Rather than gridlock the supply chain by denying shipments …. the railroads should work towards a fair settlement that our members, their employees, would ratify,” said the unions. “For that to happen, we must make improvements to the working conditions that have been on the bargaining table since negotiations began.” US Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, who met with the two sides during mediated talks last week, again engaged the two sides on Sunday to push them to reach a resolution that averts any shutdown, according to a statement from a Labor Department spokesperson. He has also canceled a trip to Ireland to give a speech there due to the railroad labor talks. “All parties need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues, and come to an agreement,” said the statement. “The fact that we are already seeing some impacts of contingency planning by railways again demonstrates that a shutdown of our freight rail system is an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people, and all parties must work to avoid that.” – CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich and Betsy Klein contributed to this report. | Labor Activism |
When Manny Huizar came home from his job on the overnight shift stocking shelves at a San Jose Safeway, he often showed his three brothers videos of him catching shoplifters as they tried to get away with baskets of liquor and groceries.
Some of the footage captured Huizar stopping thieves at the door before they left the store, his family said. Other times, the videos he copied on his phone from Safeway’s security cameras showed the 24-year-old pushing a full grocery cart back into the store after confronting a suspect who made it as far as the parking lot.
“He did it a lot of times,” said one of his brothers, Jose Huizar. “He didn’t like it when people would steal from the store. He just took it seriously and maybe he took it personally. I know from co-workers and friends that everybody would tell him, ‘Hey, it’s not worth it.’”
A week ago Sunday, at 3:35 a.m., after a confrontation with a thief in the liquor aisle, Huizar was shot dead – a tragedy that comes amid a fraught time and fierce debate over crime in America’s cities. Frustration over highly-publicized, brazen thefts at supermarkets, pharmacies and retail stores is filling social media. There’s a growing sense that the thieves are becoming more emboldened — and that nobody is taking responsibility.
“People are getting so sick and tired of this behavior happening over and over and over again,” said Rachel Michelin, CEO and president of the California Retailers Association that has lobbied for stiffer consequences. “Everyday citizens are going to start taking the law into their own hands. My fear is that we’re going to see many more of these types of situations happening across the state.”
Over recent months, accounts of shoplifting at Walgreens and CVS and other retail outlets have placed a spotlight on California’s Prop 47, a voter-approved measure that in 2015 began lowering the penalty for thefts of less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. Supporters say the law is not to blame. Data – which has been criticized as incomplete – shows no sustained increase in property crimes since the law took effect.
But critics say look no further than Google for “shoplifting in California” — one of the most frequent related searches that pops up is “How much can you steal in California without getting in trouble?”
Since word of the June 5 shooting spread through the upscale Willow Glen neighborhood last weekend, the sidewalk in front of Safeway has become a growing memorial where Huizar’s family has spent every day embracing shoppers offering flowers and condolences. “People keep coming,” said Huizar’s mother, Marisela Cornejo, who kept vigil until midnight one night last week.
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 8: Marisela Cornejo, right, of San Jose, the mother of 24-year-old Manuel Huizar who was gunned down Sunday, June 5, 2022, in a San Jose Safeway after encountering thieves in the liquor aisle, clasps the hand of Gilda Alvarado, a shopper who stopped by a makeshift memorial to share that Huizar had often helped carry her groceries to the car (Julia Prodis Sulek/Bay Area News)
Family and friends describe Huizar, the youngest of the four brothers and a sister, as talkative and generous, someone who “wouldn’t hurt a fly,” and so big-hearted he was almost “nerdy.”
“He helped me take my groceries to the car,” shopper Gilda Alvarado told Huizar’s mother, clutching her hand through the window of her SUV. “He always said hello.”
Details of the confrontation are still unclear. A few days after the shooting, the only sign that something was amiss at the Safeway store was a security guard wearing a bulletproof vest and the store’s top wine shelf wiped clean of the most expensive cabernets.
Police would only say that Huizar had been in “an altercation prior to the shooting” with an adult male, who is still on the loose. Huizar’s brother Jose said he still has “a thousand questions.”
One of Huizar’s co-workers, who also stocks shelves and asked not to be named, said that store management warns employees not to confront shoplifters. Still, he said, it was routine for him and Huizar to casually mention to suspicious-looking people in the liquor aisle after 2 a.m. that “‘Sorry, it’s too late for liquor sales’ and hope it will deter them from doing anything.”
Sometimes, he said, the attention is enough for would-be shoplifters to panic and leave. Other times, “they’ll walk in and walk out with shopping carts full. We say you can’t leave with that, but they always say, ‘You can’t touch me, you can’t chase us.’”
Shoplifting incidents rarely turn deadly. But last year, a Rite Aid employee in Los Angeles was killed when he confronted thieves stealing cases of beer.
The year after Prop 47 became law, crime statistics showed a 9% jump in larceny – including a notable increase in shoplifting and vehicle break-ins – but that returned to previous levels the following year, according to Magnus Lofstrom, criminal justice policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California.
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 8: Family and friends of Manuel Huizar, including his mother, Marisela Cornejo of San Jose, in white, pray in front of a makeshift memorial outside a San Jose Safeway on Wednesday, June 8, 2022, three days after the store clerk was gunned down by thieves stealing liquor. (Julia Prodis Sulek/Bay Area News)
It’s not clear, however, whether the prevalence of shoplifting truly declined from 2015 to 2016 as the data suggests, Lofstrom said, or whether retailers simply reported it less often. Either way, “the crime data shows that California is not unique,” he said, and “this is part of something that is experienced in other places in the country as well.”
Michelin from the Retailers Association says the true scope of the problem doesn’t show up in crime data.
“It’s this merry-go-round where retailers say, ‘Well, we’re not going to report them because when we have called, the police don’t show up,’” she said. “The police don’t show up because they say the district attorneys won’t prosecute. The district attorneys say they don’t prosecute because the police aren’t bringing in the cases. The police say we’re not bringing the cases because the retailers aren’t reporting them.”
The retail association isn’t advocating the repeal of Prop 47, she said, just fixing it. For instance, she said, the misdemeanor could be raised to a felony after multiple thefts by the same person total more than $950.
It’s time, she said, “for our elected leaders to take this seriously.”
Huizar’s family doesn’t know whom to blame. They wonder if Manny’s 6-foot-2 stature was enough to intimidate the gunman. They question why Safeway hired a security guard only after the shooting.
In an emailed statement, Safeway said little except that it was working with law enforcement and that store safety is a top priority.
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 9: Marisela Cornejo (right), of San Jose, holds hands with Rita Estrada, of Sunnyvale, in front of her son Manny Huizar’s memorial at the Safeway on Hamilton Avenue in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, June 9, 2022. Cornejo is the mother of Manny Huizar, a 24-year-old stocking clerk, was gunned down after confronting thieves while working at Safeway. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
The night of the shooting, Huizar’s co-worker said he was stocking shelves on the opposite side of the store when he heard something smashing through the glass doors, then saw someone dive into the back seat of a sedan and speed off. When he heard another employee call out, “Come save him,” he rushed to Aisle 2, then knelt on the polished floor spilled with blood and held Huizar’s hand as he died.
“The best I could do was make him feel he wasn’t going to go alone,” he said.
While the family waits for answers, they plan to keep returning to the sidewalk in front of Safeway, where Mexican prayer candles are burning.
“Until the day I bury him,” Jose said, “this is where I’ll be.” | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
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Electric vehicle sales continue to grow every year, and more companies announce plans to ditch gasoline engines altogether. But high fuel costs and the relatively high prices of fully electric cars have meant that hybrids can still help drivers save money. And customers are purchasing hybrids in high numbers, even if they don’t always recognize they’re buying one. The Toyota Prius sent car shoppers racing to dealerships in the early 2000s, as gasoline price spiked and a recession had them looking for fuel-efficient alternatives. But those Prius waitlists eased over the years as more hybrids entered the market. Toyota Prius sales peaked in the United States in 2012, with over 230,000 sold. In 2019, that number shrank to just over 69,000. But at the same time, hybrid technology has become more common. And, while fully electric vehicles carry a certain cultural cache, carmakers are often cautious about calling out their gasoline-electric hybrids. While many hybrids are proudly billed as such – the Hyundai Tucson Hybrid and Ford Escape Hybrid, for instance – others, often vehicles with mild hybrid systems, include that information only in technical documents or the owner’s manual. Hybrid market share has more than doubled from 2017, going from 2.0% of the market to 5.1% of the market, according to data from the automotive web site Edmunds.com. But that doesn’t capture all hybrid vehicles, Edmunds.com analyst Ivan Drury said. It’s impossible to know exactly how many hybrid trucks, cars and SUVs are being sold because they’re only counted as hybrids in industry statistics when the manufacturer, itself, calls it a hybrid, or gives it a separate model name, said Drury. Often, carmakers don’t specifically call out hybrid systems any more than they would another engine or transmission feature. That means that a Toyota Rav4 Hybrid might be counted while a Toyota Tundra i-Force Max pick-up, which is also a hybrid, might not. The differences in how hybrid vehicles are marketed – sometimes with a chrome “Hybrid” badge on the back and sometimes with barely any mention – can come down to how the technology is perceived by different types customers. “There might be a little bit of a stigma with the word ‘hybrid,’” said Bill Visnic, editorial director at the Society of Automotive Engineers. Some car shoppers fear hybrid could mean “weeny” performance, he said. When people think of hybrids, they tend to think of the icon of the type, the Toyota Prius. The Prius, and other hybrids like it, have batteries that store up energy as the car drives. That electricity is then used to to power an electric motor that can drive the wheels at low speeds – or even at high speeds if the gas pedal isn’t pressed hard – and provide an extra push during acceleration. But modern hybrids have moved beyond the Prius’ technology. Many modern cars have what are called “mild hybrid” systems. These vehicles have smaller, lighter batteries and a less powerful electric motor than so-called full hybrids. The electric motor generally can’t drive the car on its own, but it can provide assistance whenever the vehicle is starting off from a stop. The gas engine still does most of the work, but the electric motor provides an extra push that eases the gas engine’s work. Because of their smaller batteries, mild-hybrid technology is easier to put into a vehicle without taking up cargo or passenger space for battery packs. They also don’t add as much cost to the vehicle, making them easier to sell to buyers not entirely focused on fuel economy. Mild hybrid systems can be found in surprising places, like some Jeep Wrangler and Ram 1500 full-size pickup models. The optional mild hybrid eTorque system in the Ram 1500 allows the truck’s gas engine to turn off when the truck comes to a stop, allowing the truck to run off of its battery as it sits still for up to about 10 minutes. (Not every vehicle that turns its engine off at a stop is necessarily a mild hybrid, though.) When the driver releases the brake pedal, an electric motor can start moving the truck forward for less than half a second while the gas engine starts up again. The mild hybrid system adds up to two extra miles per gallon, mostly in city driving, according to the manufacturer. Other cars have Prius-style full hybrid systems but just don’t market them that way. The Toyota Tundra i-Force Max, for instance, is a full hybrid pickup truck, but you’d never know from looking at it. It can shut off its engine and drive sometimes using just its electric motor. But even on the gauge cluster, there’s no indication that truck has a hybrid system. There’s a gauge showing the amount of power coming from the electric motor, but it’s labeled simply “Max.” The Tundra i-Force Max doesn’t make a big deal out of its hybrid nature, said Craig Herring, a Toyota engineer, because, during market research, potential customers showed no interest in buying a hybrid. But they were interested in more towing and hauling power without an impact on fuel economy. The Tundra’s hybrid system is tuned for maximum power rather than primarily fuel economy. In the Tundra line-up, the i-Force Max takes the place of what might have been a thirstier V8 engine option for customers who want maximum towing and hauling capability. With its emphasis on power, though, the hybrid Tundra is less fuel efficient than Ford’s hybrid F-150, but it provides slightly more horsepower and torque. Some vehicles, like the new Audi A3 compact sedan, are somewhere in between mild and full hybrids. It’s technically a mild hybrid, but it’s not all that mild. As in a full hybrid, an electric motor can move the relatively small and light A3, Audi’s entry level model, at low speeds or when coasting on flat roads or downhill. Similar technology has been available on larger Audi models in Europe, said Anthony Garbis, head of product planning for Audi of America, but it was felt US customers might not appreciate it on those larger, more luxurious cars. “We always thought it was a bit odd to have your A8 [full-size luxury sedan] coast down the highway,” he said. “So with the A3, it seemed like the right audience, the right price and the right technology to introduce the coasting function.” And with Audi moving towards a fully electric line-up in just over a decade, there’s less focus now on this sort of technology, he said. Now, Audi is looking ahead to when its cars will have no gas engine at all. If you’re curious if a car you are considering purchasing has mild hybrid technology, a visit to the automaker’s website will usually tell you. Or you can just Google or go straight to online resources like Consumer Reports (subscription required), KBB.com, Edmunds.com, or, if you really want to dig into the details, CarandDriver.com. If you’re just looking for the best fuel economy, regardless of what technology is involved, the Environmental Protection Agency’s fueleconomy.gov is always the best place to start. | US Federal Policies |
Dolly Parton criticises Tennessee’s anti-trans bills: ‘I just want everybody to be treated good’
Dolly Parton has slightly eased up on her no-politics rule to speak about her home state of Tennessee and their hurtful anti-trans laws.
Over the course of her legendary career, the “Jolene” singer has tried – for the most part – to avoid talking about politics or current affairs in interviews.
But in a new discussion with The Hollywood Reporter, Parton decided to share her thoughts on Tennessee’s recent slew of transphobic legislation.
Back in March, the state passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, including evidence-based treatments like hormone therapies and puberty blockers, despite the treatments being backed by every major medical association in the US.
At present, a number of transgender teenagers from Tennessee and their families are waiting to hear whether or not the Supreme Court will hear their case and block the discriminatory ban, after failing to block the ban at the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Commenting on the state’s anti-trans laws, the singer said: “I just want everybody to be treated good.
“I try not to get into the politics of everything. I try to get into the human element of it. I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees.
“I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge.”
The country singer continued: “And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are.
“I know how important this is to them. That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me.
“If there’s something to be judged, that is God’s business. But we are all God’s children and how we are is who we are.”
As far back as 2009, the “I Will Always Love You” singer has been outspoken about marriage equality.
In 2016, she spoke out about controversial public bathroom debates, while states determined whether or not they would restrict trans people from using public restrooms.
“I hope that everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are. I just know, if I have to pee, I’m gon’ pee, wherever it’s got to be,” she told CNN at the time.
Parton is very much pro-drag, telling ABC News in 2012 that if she had been biologically born a male, she would have been a drag queen.
And last year, when Parton hopped on the social media bandwagon and joined TikTok, one of her first posts was a dedication to some of her biggest queer fans, including Dylan Mulvaney, Jan Sport, The Vivienne, Shuga Cain, and Trixxie Deluxe.
How did this story make you feel?
MyPinkNews members are invited to comment on articles to discuss the content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Please familiarise yourself with our community guidelines to ensure that our community remains a safe and inclusive space for all. | US Local Policies |
When President Joe Biden recently touted the hundreds of billions of dollars invested into American manufacturing in the last two years, he included a talking point that previous Democratic presidents might not have bragged about. New factories in Ohio, he said, could offer thousands of “jobs paying $130,000 a year, and many don’t require a college degree.”
When Biden highlighted those non-college jobs at the State of the Union, it was just three weeks after Pennsylvania’s new Democratic governor Josh Shapiro eliminated the requirement of a four-year college degree for the bulk of jobs in Pennsylvania state’s government, two months after Utah’s Republican governor Spencer Cox did the same, and nearly one year after Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan set off the trend. Since the president’s State of the Union, Alaska’s Republican governor Mike Dunleavy has also followed suit.
Maryland’s newly elected Democratic governor, Wes Moore, plans to continue opening up state jobs to non-college-educated workers, confirmed his spokesperson.
For liberal politicians like Moore, Shapiro, and Biden, promoting policies to help the more than 70 million American workers who never graduated from college is rooted partly in politics, as Democrats have struggled recently to earn support from non-college-educated voters, especially men. After decades of prioritizing college attendance, the Democratic Party has been scrambling to figure out how to change the widespread perception that its leaders are out of touch with the struggles of average people.
But the announcements we’ve seen haven’t just come from Democrats looking to appeal to voters or just from elected officials. And they’re not even mere reactions to the heightened competition for workers, though that’s part of it.
The moves are the result of a concerted effort, backed by staggering research and a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign, to educate employers on broken hiring practices that have needlessly locked two-thirds of the workforce out of higher-paying American jobs. For decades, more and more job postings have reflexively required college degrees. Now it’s finally being recognized this was a mistake.
Why so many jobs started requiring college degrees that didn’t before
The story of college degree requirement creep begins back in the 1980s, as employers started to hire globally for workers and tech automation started to change the nature of many domestic jobs in America. As routinized factory work began to be replaced by machines or outsourced to other countries, one consequence was a shift toward expecting workers to handle more social tasks, with so-called “soft skills” that facilitate collaboration like conscientiousness and the ability to make small talk.
Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the US labor force, according to Harvard education researcher David Deming. As a hiring proxy for this, companies started to turn to four-year college degrees.
These trends accelerated during the Great Recession, when employers had a labor surplus to choose from. Of the 11.6 million jobs created between 2010 and 2016, three out of four required at least a bachelor’s degree, and just one out of every 100 required a high school diploma or less.
These changes were documented in a 2017 study led by researchers at Harvard Business School. Their report, “Dismissed by Degrees,” found more than 60 percent of employers rejected otherwise qualified candidates in terms of skills or experience simply because they did not have a college diploma, and that the imperfect BA proxy had many negative consequences for workers and companies alike.
One of the researchers’ most revealing findings was that millions of job postings listed college degree requirements for positions that were currently held by workers without them. For example, in 2015, 67 percent of production supervisor job postings asked for a four-year college degree, even though just 16 percent of employed production supervisors had graduated from college. Many of these so-called “middle-skill” jobs, like sales representatives, inspectors, truckers, administrative assistants, and plumbers, were facing unprecedented “degree inflation.”
The report pointed to employer surveys that showed workers without college degrees were often considered just as productive on the job as their college-educated counterparts. They were also less likely to turnover and less expensive for companies to hire. Degree inflation was particularly harmful to Black and Hispanic job applicants, the researchers noted, since they’re less likely than white applicants to have college diplomas.
“That report was a wakeup call for companies but it definitely took some time to get out there,” said Elyse Rosenblum, the founder of Grads of Life, a nonprofit that backed the study and encourages businesses to adopt more diverse hiring practices.
Rosenblum’s group grew out of work that began during the Obama administration to help so-called “disconnected youth” — referring to the roughly 4 million young adults, ages 16-24, who were neither working nor in school. These efforts led to a national 2014 “Grads of Life” ad campaign, followed soon after by a national organization with the same name.
Another major player focused on degree inflation is Opportunity@Work, a group founded in 2015 originally to support an Obama White House initiative dedicated to expanding the tech hiring pipelines. In 2019, Opportunity@Work turned its full attention to helping all 70 million workers without four-year degrees. To refer to these workers, they coined the term “STARs”, an acronym for Skilled Through Alternative Routes.
“We felt it was important to name this talent category for what it is, a skilled talent group,” explained the group’s chief operating officer, Shad Ahmed.
Opportunity@Work helped bring about more discourse-shifting research. Working with Peter Blair, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in March 2020 they published their first study, “Reach for the STARs,” which found that workers in low-wage jobs often have skills that are in high demand by higher-wage employers. Over 5 million workers without college degrees, they noted, were already in jobs paying at least $77,000 per year, proving “that a bachelor’s degree is not the only route to gain skills for higher wages.”
Nine months later, Opportunity@Work published a second report, looking at mobility barriers among high-skilled non-degree holders, and launched a hiring database to help connect STARs with local employers.
The tightening labor market, George Floyd’s murder, and the pandemic all sped up hiring reform
Years before governors and the president started talking about degree inflation, some companies were already ahead of the curve. Perhaps the most widely recognized leader is the technology conglomerate IBM, which back in the Great Recession realized it needed to loosen its hiring requirements to stay competitive.
“They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s essentially where we found ourselves about 10 years ago,” explained IBM’s chief human resources officer, Nickle LaMoreaux, pointing to the shortage of skilled tech workers, the “half-life” of tech skills, and the fact that two-thirds of US adults lacked bachelor’s degrees. By 2021, half of IBM’s US jobs no longer required a college degree.
Ahmed said in addition to a tightening labor market, George Floyd’s murder and the attention that brought to structural racism in America generated new focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in businesses.
“Nonessential degree requirements aren’t race-neutral,” Ahmed and Blair wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2020. “They embed into the labor market the legacy of black exclusion from the U.S. education system—namely, the antiliteracy laws that made it illegal for blacks to learn to read, the separate and unequal schools that kept them from catching up, and the limited progress since then on policies designed to remedy racial discrimination.”
In December 2020, in response to Floyd’s death, business leaders launched the OneTen coalition with the goal of placing 1 million Black Americans without college degrees in “family-sustaining jobs” over the next decade. The high-profile effort was led by IBM’s executive chairman and Merck’s chief executive, and included leaders from companies like Cisco, Nike, Target, and American Express. One year later, the coalition announced it had expanded to include 60 member companies. Part of their work involves identifying alternative ways to discern whether workers possess the skills they need.
This past September, a new chapter in this broader culture-shifting work began. Developed in partnership between Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council, a nonprofit that sponsors public service advertisements across the country, a campaign to “tear the paper ceiling” launched, focused on removing barriers to workers without college degrees. Nearly 50 national groups participated in the campaign’s launch at an event co-hosted with LinkedIn.
There’s evidence of an “emerging degree reset”
The hard work is starting to pay off. Earlier this year, the New York Times editorial board published a piece that praised the work of companies like IBM and governors like Josh Shapiro for expanding their hiring practices to include individuals without college diplomas. “Making college more affordable is important, but there are other keys to the doors of opportunity as well,” they wrote.
Last year, researchers from Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute found evidence of what they called “an emerging degree reset” in hiring. By analyzing over 51 million job postings dating back to 2014, the researchers found that between 2017 and 2019 roughly 46 percent of “middle-skill” and 37 percent of “high-skill” occupations no longer asked for a bachelor’s degree, and instead had job postings listing technical and social skills instead. The report concluded that based on the trends they were observing, an additional 1.4 million jobs could open to workers without college degrees in the next five years.
“Jobs do not require four-year college degrees,” the report’s authors wrote. “Employers do.”
Getting more employers to rethink their degree requirements will take hard work. Rosenblum, of Grads of Life, said one of the biggest barriers is just changing mindsets. “Employers have grown up in a system where the four-year degree is the proxy and there’s a perception that it’s risky to do something different,” she said.
So far, there is no perfect, universal alternative assessment to identify the professional skills employers have previously relied on a Bachelor’s degree to signal. But Rosenblum and Ahmed from Opportunity@Work say there’s a lot of work happening right now to develop those tools, such as creating micro-credentials for individual industries. Software developers reflect a good example of an industry that has embraced new hiring practices, partly because employers have found other ways to verify the quality of someone’s coding skills, making college degrees less relevant. The challenge is finding out how to create comparable assessments for other fields.
Ahmed said there’s still a lot of work to do to get managers to realize that STARs are half of the talent pool. “Many just do not know, we’re all in our own cocoons,” he said.
New data released this month suggests employers are hiring at a slower rate, and economists still warn of a possible recession this year as inflation persists. Advocates for hiring workers without college degrees say it’s critical that employers don’t revert to the same flawed hiring proxies they adopted following the last big economic downturn.
“I do have frankly a lot of concern,” said Rosenblum. “We’re having a lot of change in our labor market, things are weakening, and we’re seeing companies doing hiring freezes and layoffs. We’re spending a lot of time talking with business leaders about the need to make sure we don’t go back to what happened in the 2008 recession.” | US Federal Policies |
Stocks on Wall Street sank at the open on Friday after the US jobs report blew by expectations, as investors considered the possibility that it could sway the Federal Reserve's thinking on whether to hold or hike interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was down 0.3%, or about 90 points, after the major indexes recovered ground on Thursday. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.5%.
The September jobs data did not show the signs of cooling in the labor market that were forecast. The US economy added 336,000 jobs in September, almost twice the number expected. That could give the Fed more evidence that the labor market remains strong, making the case for a more restrictive policy for longer.
Friday's data is the last key payrolls report before the central bank's next policy meeting.
The Fed is also watching the bond markets, as Fed official Mary Daly said Thursday that if long-term bond yields remain around current levels, then policymakers may not need to raise interest rates again. The blistering rally in yields continued Friday after the jobs print, with 10-year U.S. Treasury yields (^TNX) going back up past 4.8%.
The bond sell-off may well continue, given there's no clear catalyst to stem the bleeding, according to some analysts. It would take a washout in stocks or softening in the economy to prompt a retreat in yields, they believe.
Worries about growth have weighed on oil prices, which are set for their biggest weekly loss since March thanks to a clouded demand outlook. WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) turned higher after falling below $82 a barrel on Friday, while Brent crude futures (BZ=F) rose to pass the key $84 level.
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Stocks open lower after blockbuster jobs report
The first week of October headed for more losses after stocks sank at the opening bell on Friday. Investors recoiled after the newly released September jobs report showed the US economy added 336,000 jobs, shattering expectations that had called for 170,00 additions. The latest jobs data fueled concerns that the labor market isn't slowing as fast as the Federal Reserve would like as it struggles to lower inflation.
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Tesla, Activision Blizzard, and Coca-Cola: Stocks trending in premarket trading
Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page in premarket trading on Friday:
Tesla (TSLA): Shares in Tesla fell over 2%. Tesla again cut prices of its Model 3 compact sedan and the Model Y SUV.
Nestlé (NESN.SW): Nestlé shares fell 3% on Friday. The food and drink maker's shares were under pressure as investors weighed the potential impact of weight-loss drugs and how it could reduce spending on food.
The US labor market was so back in September
The US labor market added 336,000 jobs in September, nearly double the 170,000 expected by Wall Street economists and a sign the labor market's resilience may continue to push the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates elevated or even raise rates further.
The unemployment rate in September was unchanged at 3.8% as labor participation remained steady from the prior month. A rise in participation pushed unemployment higher in August.
Wage growth slowed modestly in September, with average hourly earnings rising 4.2% over the prior year, less than the 4.3% that was expected, which would've matched the increase seen in August.
In the initial aftermath of this report odds the Fed raises rates next month rose to about 29% from 20% as of Thursday. We'll keep a close eye on where these odds shake out over the coming weeks, and particularly ahead of inflation data due out next Thursday.
Stock futures rise with all eyes on US payrolls print
The major US stock indexes were poised to open higher on Friday, as investors waited for the release of the key US monthly jobs report that could set the tone for Federal Reserve policy. | US Federal Policies |
Hundreds of people gathered Tuesday in Washington to urge the Biden administration to extend labor protections to undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The Here to Work Day of Action march, organized by a coalition of dozens of migrant advocacy groups, called on U.S. President Joe Biden to allow immigrants living in the U.S. for years to apply for work permits.
Lydia Walther-Rodríguez, one of the march organizers, told VOA that more than 3,000 people attended the event. They visited members of Congress to ask them for support and to press Biden to give work permits to the estimated 11 million people who are here undocumented.
Walther-Rodríguez, who is a member of CASA, an immigration advocacy group, said allowing people to work and giving them temporary protection would also prevent family separation.
“We are talking about security, but a security that gives the migrant movement the peace of mind to continue on a path to citizenship,” she said.
Since February 2023, the Here to Work Coalition has brought together more than 300 businesses, Republican and Democratic governors, and members of Congress to urge the Biden administration to expand work permits for immigrants who have been paying taxes in the U.S. for years.
According to immigrant advocates, the president can take this action by expanding humanitarian parole, Temporary Protected Status, and Deferred Enforced Departure. All three policies allow individuals who meet specific requirements to stay in the country and work temporarily.
U.S. Congressman Jesus “Chuy” García, a Democrat from Illinois, addressed the protesters and supported their appeals, saying Biden must deliver for immigrants and that “We must all be heard.”
In a written statement after the march, Garcia added: “Whether you arrived days ago or decades ago, immigrants deserve dignity. Many of my constituents have worked and paid taxes for years, but still live without the protection and stability that comes from a work permit.”
US labor shortage
In an October report, Stephanie Ferguson, director of Global Employment Policy and Special Initiatives at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote that the country is facing “unprecedented challenges” trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs.
“Right now, the latest data shows that we have 9.6 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.4 million unemployed workers. We have a lot of jobs, but not enough workers to fill them. If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have around 3 million open jobs,” Ferguson wrote.
According to data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are 68 workers for every 100 open jobs.
Decades in the U.S.
Catalina Bueno, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States for more than 30 years, traveled from Chicago to Washington. She hopes a work permit and Temporary Protected Status could help her immigration status.
“We’ve made our lives here, and I think it is fair that they take us into account, which is fair to us because we have a life here ... My whole life is here and returning to Mexico is difficult for me ... We must all be heard, and the president, more than anything, must be fair to everyone," she said.
Temporary protection
The Biden administration recently announced an extension and redesignation of the program that gives temporary protection from deportation for nationals of Sudan and Ukraine. Nationals of El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua also have had their protection extended.
Advocates also called for new TPS designations. Immigrant rights groups have ongoing campaigns for Mauritania and Democratic Republic of Congo.
TPS allows migrants whose home countries are considered unsafe to live and work in the United States for a period of time if they meet certain requirements established by the U.S. government.
Other forms of relief include deferred action, deferred enforced departure, or parole. Each has distinguished requirements while offering temporary relief from deportation and work authorization.
Some Republican lawmakers have pushed for legislation that would make U.S. immigration law more restrictive.
Senate Republicans released a proposal on Nov. 6 that could prohibit or limit Biden officials’ use of temporary protection for migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border and those already in the United States.
The one-page plan narrows the scope of the parole statute to clarify that it is to be used rarely and limits granting parole to one year, with up to one one-year extension or less.
Renata Castro, an immigration lawyer based in Florida, told VOA that Congress needs to act and that immigration is about economic growth.
“We need an innovative economy and the only way we will be able to do that is if we have meaningful immigration reform that deals with the needs and the problems of the United States of today, not of 30 or 40 years ago,” Castro said.
The immigration attorney said other countries are taking note of the immigration challenges in the United States, and they are working hard to attract the best and the brightest.
“I, as a practicing immigration attorney, think that United States employers, particularly small businesses in the service industries, construction and hospitality, are really struggling because they cannot find individuals who are ready, willing and available to work. … Meaningful immigration reform could solve all of that,” she added.
Humanitarian parole or temporary status or protection, such as TPS or DED, is not a pathway to permanent residency. | US Federal Policies |
This article originally appeared in Bitcoin Magazine's "Moon Issue." To get a copy, visit our store.West of the Andes Mountains in Chile lies the Atacama Desert — the driest place on Earth. There, extreme aridity preserves Earth’s oldest mummies and ensures all but the most resilient flora and fauna quickly join them in death. The same equipment that failed to detect life on Mars yielded identical results when presented with the Atacama’s soil. Fittingly, the landscape so closely resembles the distant red planet that science fiction filmmakers and NASA scientists alike converge there to shoot movies and test space rovers. High elevation coupled with virtually nonexistent light pollution and moisture produce perfectly clear skies more than 200 nights a year, making the Atacama region mankind’s premiere destination for observing the heavens.Some 38 years before Earth’s largest ground telescope was built there, political prisoners of the U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet contemplated the same night sky above a concentration camp. One, a doctor well-versed in astronomy, led a small cohort of his fellow prisoners in nightly studies of the constellations. Reflecting on these lessons in a 2010 documentary, survivor Luís Henriquez remembered, “We all had a feeling … of great freedom. Observing the sky and the stars, marveling at the constellations … we felt completely free.” The military soon banned these astronomy lessons, fearful the prisoners would use their knowledge of the constellations to plan routes of escape. For thousands of years, man has looked to the heavens to determine his location and chart course toward the unknown. Formed out of a violent cosmic collision roughly 4.5 billion years ago, the moon enthralled the earliest humans and has since made its way into the iconography of nearly all of the world’s religions. Around 428 BC the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras deduced that the moon was a giant spherical rock which reflected the light of the sun. Some 2,397 years later, our pale blue dot met the gaze of two men standing on the lunar surface. The moment was widely celebrated as mankind’s greatest scientific achievement.But 24 hours before the Apollo 11 launch, White House staffer William Safire was preparing for a different outcome. In the speech President Nixon would have delivered had Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin perished on their expedition, Safire wrote: "In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."The position of the U.S. was clear: Regardless of the outcome, the mere act of reaching toward the unknown would count as success. Failure was submission to the boundaries of the present. This was the consensus of crowds from Merritt Island to Central Park, who erupted in joy when Armstrong took his “small step for man.”Yet that same day, just blocks away in Harlem, The New York Times reported that a “single mention of the [lunar module] touching down brought boos” from the crowd of 50,000 Black Americans gathered for a concert. With nearly one in three Black families living below the poverty line at the time, the U.S. government spending more than $120 billion in today’s dollars to put men on the moon illustrated perfectly what civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy called America’s “distorted sense of national priorities.”Harlem musician, poet and activist Gil Scott-Heron captured the essence of the critique:"A rat done bit my sister Nell with whitey on the moon. Her face and arms began to swell and whitey's on the moon. I can't pay no doctor bill but whitey's on the moon. Ten years from now I’ll be paying still while whitey's on the moon. You know, the man just upped the rent last night cause whitey's on the moon. No hot water, no toilet, no lights but whitey's on the moon."While Harlem may have been the epicenter of outrage, its residents were not alone. Throughout the 1960s, a majority of Americans believed NASA’s Apollo spending was not worth the price tag. On the day of the launch, one poll found approval had just barely crossed 50%. The justifications for the program centered around appeals to the pioneer spirit, American pride, and the quest for knowledge and understanding. But for many, talk of the space race felt like a non sequitur to the harsh inadequacies of daily life on Earth.The Apollo program may not have been the ultimate demonstration of human achievement, but it wasn’t just an expensive piece of Cold War propaganda either. The crowds in Merritt Island and Harlem alike could not have imagined how the mission would alter mankind's relationship with technology and facilitate groundbreaking advancements in engineering, medicine and technology — from the fuel cell to the modern computer. David Mindell wrote that “Apollo began in a world when hardware and electronics were suspect and might fail anytime. It ended with the realization that as electronics became integrated, computers could become reliable.” Between 1969 and 1972, 10 more men would follow in Armstrong and Aldrin’s footsteps. Almost 50 years since the last Apollo mission, in the summer of 2021, Atlanta was the host of TABConf, a Bitcoin conference for some of the most dedicated enthusiasts of the technology. Near the end of her shift, an Atlanta bartender watched disinterestedly as a crowd of party-going conference attendees gathered. “It’s for something about bitcoin,” her customer explained. “Bitcoin,” she murmurs, then, more forcefully, “Bitcoin?” any sense of bemusement eclipsed by disdain. “How am I supposed to feed my kids bitcoin?”She will likely react to the news that we’re sending bitcoin to the moon the same way she did then, along with the overwhelming majority of Americans. I suspect she would agree with sociologist Amitai Etzioni who, five years prior to Apollo 11, argued that all resources used for space exploration should instead be spent on healthcare and education. Or perhaps her core condemnation would center not on the expedition’s cost but on its apparent vanity. She’d find company with philosopher Lewis Mumford, who denounced Apollo as “an extravagant feat of technological exhibitionism” and compared the rocket’s command module “to the innermost chambers of the great pyramids, where the mummified body of the Pharaoh, surrounded by the miniaturized equipment necessary for magical travel to Heaven, was placed.” Of course, she may also feel that sending bitcoin to the moon is not only wasteful and vain, but yet another spectacle distracting us from genuine issues. Etzioni, who saw the space race as an act of escapism, would likely share her view. “By focusing on the Moon, we delay facing ourselves, as Americans and as citizens of the Earth,” he wrote. But perhaps escapism and introspection are two sides of the same coin. For as long as mankind has gazed at the moon, its mystique and distance have provided us with a tabula rasa, a sandbox for the imagination with which we may depict our hopes, our insecurities and our visions of a world detached from our own. Greek philosopher Philolaus theorized that the moon would boast people, plants, animals and scenery familiar to residents of Earth, only much larger and more beautiful. Visions of lunar utopias have followed since. Fifteen centuries after Philolaus, Bishop Francis Godwin described the moon as a paradise whose inhabitants perfectly refrained from sin. Four decades later, Cyrano de Bergerac set a novel on the moon in order to question society’s rigid axioms. Lunar scholar Bernd Brunner wrote that in Bergerac’s satire, “Old people obey the young … trees philosophize, and payment is made with self-written poetry rather than coins.” Russian author Vasily Levshin imagined the moon as “a world of absolute equality with neither soldiers nor sovereigns.” A century later, as the Industrial Revolution swept across France, Alexandre Cathelineau wrote of a moon without “murders, wars, or sickness.” In their attempts to envision a better world on Earth, authors throughout human history have dreamed of lunar societies to determine which fixtures of modern life might be more vestigial than requisite. "Old people obey the young… trees philosophize, and payment is made with self-written poetry rather than coins."–Bernd BrunnerThe year is 2022 now, and bitcoin is on the moon. This, too, will not be without criticism. Seven hundred million people live on $2 a day, with bitcoin on the moon. A child dies every five seconds from preventable causes, but bitcoin’s on the moon. Political polarization, income inequality and the prison population are at all-time highs. Bitcoin, too. And bitcoin’s on the moon. Many people, especially those who could think of better uses for the money, undoubtedly will question the worth of sending bitcoin to the moon. Most will likely dismiss the mission as a silly marketing stunt. But a small number will be thrilled that their favorite investment and magazine now call the lunar surface home. All are perfectly reasonable reactions. Regardless of one’s views on the subject, it’s clear that we are stunted when we imagine future life on our planet. The economic, political and social institutions du jour shape our understanding of the world as is, in turn prohibiting us from imagining a world too different from our own. Scholar, poet and prison abolitionist Jackie Wang wrote that “unthinking” the prison requires “a mode of thinking that does not capitulate to the realism of the present.” Nearly 13 years ago, mankind’s first digital, stateless money was merely an idea. When its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, pressed “send” on an email containing the Bitcoin white paper, he set in motion one of mankind’s most ambitious endeavors — the creation of a universally accessible, peer-to-peer digital money owned and operated not by governments but by its users. Such an act required nothing less than a mode of thinking unconstrained by the present. Today, with the project still in its relative infancy, Bitcoin asks each of its users to engage in a collective imagination of a better future with better money.If there is a case for sending bitcoin to the moon, then it is this; to charge those who look to the night sky with the task of imagining a more just world, radically different from our own. From now on, to echo Safire’s words, every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that forever hosts an act of defiance to the boundaries of the present and a dream for a better society. Part of me thinks that’s why Pinochet’s soldiers banned those astronomy lessons — not because the stars could navigate escaped prisoners out of the desert, but because he recognized that challenging power is impossible when we are restricted from imagining a world beyond reality. | Civil Rights Activism |
CNN — A federal appeals court is allowing the Justice Department to continue looking at documents marked as classified that were seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort. The emergency intervention upends a trial judge’s order over those documents that blocked federal investigators’ work on the documents. A special master’s review of that subset of about 100 records, which would’ve allowed Trump’s legal team to see them, is now partially stopped. The special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, is able to continue his work reviewing the rest of the material seized from Mar-a-Lago, to make sure records belonging to Trump or that he may be able to claim are confidential aren’t used by investigators. “It is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in ‘exceptionally grave damage to the national security,’” the three-judge panel from the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals stated. “Ascertaining that necessarily involves reviewing the documents, determining who had access to them and when, and deciding which (if any) sources or methods are compromised.” This story is breaking and will be updated. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
CNN — The conservative Supreme Court will meet Monday to consider whether colleges and universities can continue to take race into consideration as a factor in admissions, a case that could diminish the number of Black and Hispanic students in higher education. Hanging in the balance is the future of admissions plans at hundreds of schools that have relied on court precedent for decades in order to achieve the educational benefits they say flow from student body diversity on campus. Challengers in the case are targeting Harvard and the University of North Carolina arguing that their programs violate equal protection principles, dash the promise of a colorblind society, and discriminate against Asian Americans. They are urging the court to overturn precedent and they say that the schools should explore and further develop race-neutral alternatives to achieve diversity. At least nine states have already chosen to end consideration of race in university admissions, including Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Supreme Court precedent allows the consideration of race, but the court’s new composition of conservative justices did not hesitate last term to overturn decades old precedent in a case that curtailed a federal right to abortion. A Washington Post poll found that 63% of US adults support the Supreme Court banning colleges and universities from considering a student’s race and ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions. At the same time, 64% also say that in general, programs designed to increase the racial diversity of students on college campuses are a good thing. A conservative group, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is behind both challenges. Edward Blum, the President of SFFA, has hired a conservative boutique law firm, Consovoy McCarthy, to challenge the policies at the country’s oldest private university, Harvard and the country’s first public university, University of North Carolina. The firm is composed of several former clerks of Justice Clarence Thomas who has been a critic of affirmative action. In 2003, Thomas wrote in one opinion: “The Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only because those classifications can harm favored races or are based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.” SSFA argues that the Harvard policy violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating based on race. He says that the UNC policy is subject to Title VI, as well as 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, which covers state universities. Lower US courts have ruled in favor of the schools finding that that the programs used race in a sufficiently limited way to fulfill a compelling interest in diversity. The two disputes were initially consolidated, but after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson announced she would recuse herself from the Harvard case because she had served on the school’s board of overseers, they were decoupled, so the nation’s first black justice could weigh in on the issue in at least one case. The University of North Carolina, established in 1789, was formally segregated for much of its history. The current challenge comes some 70 years after the first Black student was admitted. After an eight-day trial in 2020, district Judge Loretta C. Biggs ruled in favor of the school making special mention of its history steeped in racism. In a footnote, she noted the school’s “comparatively recent embrace of diversity,” citing Southern historian Dr. David Cecelski, who, she said provided the court with credible evidence that UNC has been a “strong and active promoter of white supremacy and racist exclusion for most of its history.” The judge noted that Cecelski put forth considerable findings that while the school has made “important strides to reform the institution’s racial outlook and policies” the efforts have fallen short of “repairing deep-seated strides to reform the institution’s racial outlook and policies.” “The University continues to face challenges admitting and enrolling underrepresented minorities particularly African American males, Hispanics, and Native Americans,” Biggs said and noted that in 2013 enrollment of African American men in the first-year class fell below 100 students. Siding with UNC, Biggs said “Ensuring that our public institutions of higher learning are open and available to all segments of our citizenry is not a gift to be sparingly given only to select populations, but rather is an institutional obligation to be broadly and equitably administered.” The Supreme Court stepped in to consider the case before it was heard by a federal appeals court. The school’s admissions office consists of about 120 employees engaged in a process where in the typical cycle the school receives about 43,500 applications for a freshman class of 4,200. Generally, about half the applicants are North Carolina residents. The requirements for admissions include a common application, an essay, letters of recommendation and standardized test scores. Race is used as a “plus factor” as the school considers criteria that includes a high school’s program criteria, academic performance, testing and engagement in activities outside of the classroom as well as personal attributes such as curiosity, honesty, motivation, and impact on the community. In addition, the school considers race-neutral alternatives that would allow it to achieve diversity. North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park, argued that diversity is a compelling interest at the school and that the admissions office uses a holistic approach that affords an individualized consideration of all aspects of an applicant’s background, never relying upon quotas when it considers race. He also said the school makes a good faith effort to consider race neutral alternatives. “In UNC’s academic judgement, diversity is central to the education it aims to provide the next generation of leaders in business, science, medicine, government and beyond,” Park said in court papers. He said that while an applicant’s race may occasionally tip the balance toward admission in an individual case “it almost always does not.” He said the school offers about $159 million in undergraduate scholarships, part of which go to students based on their family’s socio-economic standing. It also recruits from a pool of high achieving community college students. Park also borrowed from the judicial philosophy favored by several of the current conservative justices who believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original meaning of the founders. Park argued that the 14th Amendment was originally understood to allow “appropriately tailored race-conscious decision making”, an argument that Justice Jackson made in a different case earlier in the term concerning the historic Voting Rights Act. To make the connection, Park referred to historian Andrew Kull, who wrote that the framers considered and rejected proposals that would have made the Constitution explicitly colorblind. And he cited Brown v. Board of Education, the seminal opinion holding that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Constitution. He argued that UNC’s admissions policy furthers the school’s “unwavering commitment to providing equal educational opportunities to all qualified students, no matter their race.” SSFA lawyer Patrick Strawbridge responded that the process is not holistic, and in fact the school conceals the improper use of race behind opaque procedures awarding “mammoth racial preferences” to African Americans and Hispanics. He said that the use of race so permeates the process that race becomes a predominant factor at “every stage.” He told the justices that the lawsuit had revealed the schools “sporadic and unserious efforts” to examine the availability of face-neutral alternatives by providing data through simulations “A white, out-of -state male who had only a 10% chance of admission would have a 98% chance if UNC treated him as an African American and a 69% chance if UNC treated him as a Hispanic,” he said. Strawbridge argued that the Brown decision actually supports his position. “Separate but equal has no place in education,” he said but added that the court should overturn a 2003 case called Grutter v. Bollinger that upheld the affirmative action admissions policy at the University of Michigan Law School. “Because Brown is our law, Grutter cannot be,” he said. Harvard’s program is like that of University of North Carolina, but the challenge at hand focuses particularly on the treatment of Asian American students and a charge that the school intentionally discriminates against them setting higher standards for their admission. While Harvard is a private university, it is still subject to Title VI because it receives public funds. Its freshman class in 2019 had 1,600 students out of 35,000 applicants. Of the 35,000, 2,700 had perfect verbal SAT scores, 3,400 had perfect math SAT scores and more than 8,000 had perfect GPA’s. After a 15-day bench trial that featured 30 witnesses, the district court ruled in favor of Harvard, finding that the school did not discriminate against Asian Americans in violation of Title VI. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court, holding that it did “not clearly err in finding that Harvard did not intentionally discriminate against Asian Americans. “ The admissions process at the school takes into consideration several components including pre-application recruitment efforts, applications, a “first read” of application materials, and interviews. The reading procedures include guideline to assign numerical numbers to certain categories to detail the factors admissions officers should consider. Those factors include academic ratings, extracurricular ratings, athletic ratings, and personal ratings. The personal ratings attempt to measure how an applicant impacts people around them and contributions they might make. Considerations include perceived leadership, maturity, self-confidence, likeability, courage and kindness. After SFFA brought the suit, Harvard modified its instructions to say that an applicant’s race or ethnicity should not be considered in assigning the personal ratings. Harvard has a list of so called “tip” factors including race that are used after the first read process. Former US Solicitor General Seth Waxman, Harvard’s lead lawyer, pointed out in court papers that court precedent allows a “holistic” review of an application, and that it need not ignore race. “Seeking the benefits of a diverse student body, universities may consider race as one among many factors,” he said. “Our Constitution promises ‘equal protection of the laws,’ he said and added “it does not require us to disregard the commonsense reality that race is one among many things that shape life experiences in meaningful ways.” He roundly rejected charges of any discrimination against Asian American students arguing that while the SFFA “invokes the bogeyman of discrimination” against Asian American applicants the lower courts had found “in no uncertain terms that Harvard does not discriminate.” And he said that the lower courts had found that none of the asserted race-neutral alternatives put forward by Harvard would allow it to achieve its goals and that if it abandoned consideration of race as one among many factors, representation of African Americans and Hispanic students would decline. Cameron Norris, the SSFA lawyer charged with arguing the Harvard case, charges the schools with ignoring precedent and the “mistreatment” of Asian American applicants. “Its admissions process penalizes them for supposedly lacking as much leadership, confidence likability, or kindness as white applicants” he said. He particularly attacked Harvard’s system based on so called “personal ratings.” By considering race alongside subjective criteria like “self-confidence, likability, and courage” universities invite admissions officers to rely on anti-Asian stereotypes, he said. “No one is under the illusion that we live in a post-racial society, or that racial discrimination is a thing of the past,” Norris said in court papers. “But when elite universities place high-schoolers on racial registers and tell the world that their skin color affects what they think and know, the universities are hurting, not helping,” he said. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar supports both Harvard and the University of North Carolina, urging the justices to reject the invitation to ignore court precedent stemming from the Court’s 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v Bakke where Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. recognized that the nation’s future “depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” She noted that court precedent has played a vital role in bringing diversity in higher education that has had rippling effect in the work force. “The Nation’s military leaders, for example, have learned through hard experience that the effectiveness of our military depends on a diverse officer corps that is ready to lead an increasingly diverse fighting force,” she said in court briefs. Judge Jackson in remarks: I am the dream of the slave 02:17 - Source: CNN She said court precedent has proven “eminently workable, carefully limiting the consideration of race and requiring use of race-netural alternatives to the extent possible.” And she, too cited, Brown. “Nothing in Brown’s condemnation of laws segregating the races to perpetuate a caste system calls into question admissions policies adopted to promote greater integration and diversity,” she wrote. A friend of the court brief filed on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund also questions the challengers’ suggestion that Brown mandates a result in SSFA’s favor. “Petitioner would transform Brown from an indictment against racial apartheid into a tool that supports racial exclusion, prevents further advancement in the Nation’s progress towards racial integration, and deepens persistent inequalities in educational opportunities,” the brief said. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund is also supporting the school, rejecting the charge that race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans or perpetuate harmful stereotypes against them. “The Asian American community is vast and varied, including first-generation college students and children whose parents’ professions secured their immigration; children of working-class refugees and multigenerational Americans; speakers of over 300 languages; aspiring entrepreneurs, artists, teachers, and more,” they argued. They say that Students for Fair Admission relies on “manipulated date” to attempt to demonstrate that Asian Americans with high test scores are admitted at lower rates than other racial groups. Two groups, however, the Asian American Coalition for Education and the Asian American Legal Foundation, support SFFA with a particular emphasis on the “personal ratings” used by Harvard that the groups say assigns an “artificially low” rating to Asian American applicants during the admissions process to “counter their otherwise above-average metrics and ‘balance’ the racial makeup of its student body.” “Through use of the personal rating, Harvard essentially imposes a racial hierarchy, where African Americans are the most desirable, followed by Hispanics, followed by whites, and with Asians at the very bottom as the least favored and the least likely to be admitted,” they said. David E. Bernstein, a University Professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School also supports SFFA. He calls into question Harvard’s racial categories, deeming them “arbitrary and irrational.” “Harvard cannot explain why roughly 60% of the world’s population should be grouped together as ‘Asian” despite vast differences in appearance, language, and culture,” he added. | SCOTUS |
'It's taking longer than I thought': Why some jobs seekers can't find work 02:35 - Source: CNNBusiness New York CNN Business — The US economy added 261,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, according to the latest monthly employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday morning. The total job gains were lower than the revised September number of 315,000, and above the 200,000 forecast from economists surveyed by Refinitiv. Economists had expected a smaller rise in the unemployment rate, to only 3.6%. Still, it is low by historical standards — September’s 3.5% reading matched a half-century low. While the 261,000 jobs added for October is the the smallest monthly jobs gain for the US economy since December 2020, it is also a solid gain by historical standards. The economy added an average of 183,000 jobs a month over the course of the decade before the pandemic. The US labor market has remained very strong despite growing fears by many economists that a recession looms, and efforts by the Federal Reserve to tamp down the pace of economic growth as a way of combating higher prices. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has warned that the economy may need to shed jobs if price pressures are to be brought under control, but so far the Fed’s string of large interest rate hikes has not stopped employers from seeking more help. The continued strength in the labor market could leave the door open for the Fed to continue to hike rates at its upcoming meetings. This story is developing and will be updated. | US Federal Policies |
Fading Optimism On Rates Signals Trouble Ahead For $425 Billion Debt Wall
The strength of the US labor market increases the likelihood that the central bank won’t pivot to cutting rates next year.
(Bloomberg) -- Friday’s sizzling jobs report is bolstering the probability of another Federal Reserve rate increase this year, adding to pain in credit markets that are already getting hurt by a year-long jump in yields.
The strength of the US labor market increases the likelihood that the central bank won’t pivot to cutting rates next year. That’s a big negative for corporate America, which has continued boosting its debt levels even as yields have surged over the last year.
Two data points that highlight the extent of corporate trouble: companies have about $425 billion of dollar-denominated junk debt due to mature before the end of 2025, and market yields for speculative-grade bonds are now at least 3 percentage points higher than the average coupon the borrowers are paying on their existing debt.
The higher borrowing costs that many companies face could cut into profits and increase default risk. Rates staying higher-for-longer will likely have some kind of unexpected impact on the economy, Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz SE, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
“This is likely to be bad news for markets and for the Fed,” El-Erian said after the US jobs data was published on Friday. “Something is likely to break, probably in the financial markets, but that will spill back into the economy.”
Even before the jobs report, worries about rising yields had shut down new junk bond sales in the US, bringing the first “zero” week since the week ended Aug. 18, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. That came as the 30-year US Treasury bond this week breached 5% for the first time since 2007, crystallizing just how challenging and expensive it is going to be for some issuers to deal with their debt.
Read More: The 5% Bond Market Means Pain Is Heading Everyone’s Way (1)
“The junk bond market needs to massively reprice to account for refinancing risk with benchmark borrowing rates so high,” said Althea Spinozzi, a strategist at Danish lender Saxo Bank. “I can’t see how the default rate doesn’t rise sharply and there will be stretched balance sheets everywhere.”
That kind of thinking helped lift the average yield on the Bloomberg Global High Yield index to 9.26% this week, the highest since November last year and nearly double what it was at the start of 2022. The drought in new sales followed more than $23 billion in issuance in September, the busiest month since January 2022.
Economic uncertainty and higher yields make it harder to sell debt. Barclays Plc held preliminary discussions with investors about refinancing a private loan for Hibu Inc., the former Yellow Pages publisher, but found tepid interest from loan buyers and the deal was scrapped. Separately, a planned sale of a portfolio of European leveraged loans worth €290 million ($305 million) was shelved.
Refinancing at higher yields is painful, and many loan borrowers are already feeling heat: benchmarks for the floating-rate debt have been consistently adjusting higher since last year. If rates are higher for longer, then junk bond borrowers face greater risk of having to adjust their coupons materially higher too, said Sinjin Bowron, portfolio manager at Beach Point Capital.
The rapidly growing corporate private credit market will probably also see more defaults, with Bank of America Corp. strategists estimating it could reach 5% next year, exceeding those in the syndicated loan market.
For at least the near term, companies that had planned to come to the market offering risky bonds and loans will probably think again.
“Credit markets are likely to remain under some modest pressure through early November and a combination of earnings blackouts and materially higher borrowing costs should keep issuance fairly limited through October,” said Winnie Cisar, global head of strategy at CreditSights Inc.
Week in Review
- Credit markets took a beating after heading for their worst week since the global banking turmoil in March, with a strong jobs report on Oct. 6 driving Treasury yields to the highest since 2007 and placing more pain on corporate borrowers.
- Private credit funds competing with banks to finance Carlyle Group Inc.’s potential buyout of some units of Medtronic Plc have offered a partial payment-in-kind feature in an effort to win the deal.
- Thoma Bravo is nearing a roughly $1 billion financing package from a group of private credit lenders for its planned acquisition of NextGen Healthcare Inc.
- Apollo Global Management and CVC Capital Partners are among private credit lenders providing €500 million ($526 million) of subordinated debt backing Cinven’s buyout of Synlab AG.
- A group of private credit lenders led by Oak Hill Advisors provided a $505 million loan for Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer’s acquisition of The Kleinfelder Group Inc.
- Private credit funds are working to provide about a fifth of an up to £1.25 billion ($1.5 billion) financing to back the potential buyout of the UK’s Iris Software in payment-in-kind debt.
- Blackstone Inc. committed $1.5 billion to help finance the merger of HealthComp Holding Co. and Virgin Pulse.
- T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Oak Hill Advisors are launching a new private credit fund open to individual investors in the US to take advantage of the rapidly-growing $1.5 trillion market.
- BlackRock Inc. is tapping the private credit market to launch a new fund that will offer one of the fastest growing ESG investment strategies in the US.
- Private credit funds have been raking in bonanza profits lately as a result of rocketing interest rates, but their investors are starting to question whether they really deserve so much of the windfall.
- KKR & Co. sees more investors permanently allocating to private credit alongside other fixed-income assets even as public credit markets regained some strength in recent months.
- Sunac China Holdings Ltd. won court approval for its multibillion-dollar offshore debt restructuring plan, clearing the last key hurdle for it to become the country’s first major developer to overhaul such liabilities.
- China SCE Group Holdings Ltd. said it will appoint external advisers and explore a holistic debt plan after not making a $61 million loan payment.
On the Move
- RBC Capital Markets’ head of US credit sales, John Maggiacomo, has left the bank after six years.
- Nikunj Gupta has joined HSBC as head of credit structuring.
- Apollo Global Management Inc. managing director Tiffany Gallo has left the firm.
- Navis Capital Partners recruited Jack Ng as director based in Singapore for its private credit business.
- Veteran debt trader Omar Ghalloudi joined boutique London-based investment bank KNG Securities from Credit Suisse Group AG.
--With assistance from Olivia Raimonde, James Crombie and Dan Wilchins.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
Joe Raedle/Getty Images/FILE CNN — The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trump’s request that it intervene in the dispute over classified documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August. Calling the records “extraordinarily sensitive,” the Justice Department said the Supreme Court should let stand a federal appeals court order that blocked the special master’s access over those records while legal challenges play out. “As this Court has emphasized, courts should be cautious before ‘insisting upon an examination’ of records whose disclosure would jeopardize national security ‘even by the judge alone, in chambers,’” DOJ wrote, citing a past case. Trump’s lawyers want the special master assigned in the case to review the more than 100 documents marked classified – which, if allowed, could open the door to Trump’s team reviewing the records and arguing they should be off-limits to prosecutors in a criminal case. The full court could act on the matter within days. It would take five justices to agree to grant Trump’s request. The Justice Department’s primary argument is that the appeals court was correct, and they said the Trump legal team was wrong to argue the Supreme Court should take the case. “Indeed, the most that applicant could possibly establish about appellate jurisdiction in this case is that it presents a ‘difficult’ question,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in Tuesday’s filing. At issue are two orders US District Judge Aileen Cannon issued last month. She has authorized a special master to review seized materials – including those with classified markings. Earlier, Cannon temporarily enjoined the Justice Department from using the subset of documents as a part of its ongoing criminal probe. A panel of judges on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, however, acting upon a request from the Justice Department, agreed to freeze portions of those orders while the legal dispute plays out. Trump has argued that he may have had a right, as a former president, to possess certain government documents, including documents potentially containing the country’s most sensitive secrets. “The Eleventh Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review, much less stay, an interlocutory order of the District Court providing for the Special Master to review materials seized from President Trump’s home,” Trump told the Supreme Court last week. Raymond Dearie, the senior US judge appointed as special master, will be “substantially impaired” by the appeals court order and that it will slow “ongoing time-sensitive work,” Trump’s team added. “Any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a President’s home erodes public confidence in our system,” the filing said. Trump’s appeal puts the court once again front and center in a dispute featuring the former president, who nominated three of the current justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. But Trump lost a previous challenge in a case concerning documents related to the House January 6 select committee, with only Justice Clarence Thomas stating publicly that he would have ruled in Trump’s favor. “Even in the unlikely event that the Court sides with Trump this time, all that means is that Judge Dearie gets to look at more of the files that were seized,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “It would have no impact on whatever the Department of Justice is doing with those materials.” The criteria the court will consider includes whether there is a “fair prospect” that a majority of the court would conclude that the decision below is erroneous, and whether “irreparable harm” would result from the denial of the stay. This story has been updated with additional details. | SCOTUS |
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office for a temporary restraining order to stop a House Judiciary Committee subpoena of former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz.
District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said Pomerantz must appear for a deposition.
“The subpoena was issued with a ‘valid legislative purpose’ in connection with the ‘broad’ and ‘indispensable’ congressional power to ‘conduct investigations.’ It is not the role of the federal judiciary to dictate what legislation Congress may consider or how it should conduct its deliberations in that connection. Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Vyskocil wrote after hearing arguments in court on the matter earlier in the day.
Bragg’s office had indicated it would likely ask the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay if Vyskocil sided with the committee, but did not have an immediate comment.
Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee and Bragg’s office squared off over whether the GOP-led committee has a right to subpoena a former Manhattan prosecutor on the DA’s investigation that led to the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump.
“There’s politics going on on both sides, let’s be honest about that,” Vyskocil said during the hearing.
But the judge, who was appointed to the bench by Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2019, said she views her task narrowly as determining whether there is valid legislative purpose for the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena of Pomerantz.
“I’m talking about the subpoena. That’s what’s in front of me, not all the political rhetoric that’s been flying back and forth that’s all color, it’s all theater but it’s not what’s in front of me,” the judge said.
Out of the gate, Vyskocil questioned an attorney representing the Manhattan district attorney’s office on their arguments that Rep. Jim Jordan and the Judiciary Committee do not have a legislative purpose in subpoenaing Pomerantz.
Lawyers for Bragg’s office conceded that the use of federal funding is a valid legislative purpose but argued $5,000 in federal funds were used in the Trump Organization tax fraud case that ended in a conviction in December, not the indictment of the former president himself.
“The cases tell me, if I find a valid legislative purpose, I am not allowed to look at the motivations on either side,” Vyskocil said. “It’s not my place under all the case law to tell them what and how they ought to conduct their inquiry.”
An attorney for the Judiciary Committee said it intends to investigate what they believe is a politically motivated prosecution of Trump by Bragg’s office.
“We are looking into whether or not there is a problem with politically motivated prosecutions of former presidents and whether the motivated prosecutions of former presidents is using federal funds,” attorney Matthew Berry said.
Berry said the political motivations of Bragg’s prosecution are relevant “because it makes the case for federal action stronger.”
Vyskocil challenged, “Doesn’t it politicize it on your side as well?”
Vyskocil also questioned whether Pomerantz’s recently published book about the investigation into Trump waives the DA’s office right to confidentiality over information already published in the book. An attorney for Bragg’s office argued that the former prosecutor ignored cautions from his former employer before publishing the book, so the district attorney’s office should not be penalized.
“No, I think there are things contained in there that should not have been published and that exposed Mr. Pomerantz to criminal liability under the city charter,” attorney Leslie Dubeck said. “He has not waived our privileges and confidences because they were unauthorized disclosures.”
Should Vyskocil side with the Judiciary Committee and allow the subpoena to go forward, its attorney described what the deposition in Washington, DC, might look like for the former prosecutor.
“Mr. Pomerantz is free to assert privilege if he shows up tomorrow with respect to particular questions, then the committee can ask questions to elicit the basis of privilege and they can adjudicate them on a question-by-question basis,” the committee attorney said.
Committee Chairman Jordan would ultimately be the decider of whether to allow Pomerantz to assert his privilege, the attorney acknowledged.
Bragg’s suit against Jordan
Bragg, a Democrat, sued Jordan, last week to block the subpoena to a former prosecutor, alleging the lawmakers are engaged in a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” the DA’s office.
Bragg is seeking judge for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to block this subpoena and any future subpoenas to him or other current or former prosecutors.
The lawsuit followed weeks of heated exchanges between Jordan and Bragg leading up to and following the indictment of Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records that was allegedly done to coverup a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public about an alleged affair a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The clash between federal and state powers began in March when Jordan asked Bragg’s office for documents and communications after news organizations reported that Bragg’s office was moving closer to seeking to indict Trump. Jordan called it an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.” Bragg’s office has alleged that a Trump attorney worked behind the scenes to enlist help from allies in Congress and called Jordan’s inquiry into the ongoing criminal investigation an unconstitutional and “unprecedented inquiry into a local prosecution.”
Bragg’s lawsuit describes Jordan’s efforts as “a direct threat to federalism and the sovereign interests of the State of New York.”
Lawyers for Jordan and the committee said they are immune from the civil lawsuit under the Speech and Debate clause of the US Constitution that protects lawmakers from being sued for actions stemming from their legislative actions. They have also argued the subpoena is valid because they are seeking the information to potentially craft legislation that would protect a president from politically motivated state and local prosecutions and allow them to move criminal actions to federal courts.
In a proposed response filed with the court, Bragg argues that constitutional immunity assumes the actions are part of legitimate legislative activity, which he argues the subpoena isn’t.
“Speech or Debate immunity is not license for Congress to disregard the very separation of powers the clause aims to secure,” he wrote.
Pomerantz is a defendant in the matter for technical reasons. Pomerantz wrote a book about the investigation after he resigned.
Pomerantz has joined Bragg in asking the judge to block the subpoena for his testimony, saying he was not involved in the decision to seek an indictment of Trump since he resigned more than a year before the indictment was returned.
Vyskocil’s prior Trump-related case
Before Vyskocil was confirmed as a US district court judge, she was appointed as a federal bankruptcy judge in 2016 by the Judicial Council of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to that, Vyskocil was a litigator who worked primarily on insurance cases over a 33-year career at New York law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. She attended Dominican College of Blauvelt and received her law degree from St. John’s University.
The judge had a notable ruling in September 2020 when she dismissed a defamation lawsuit that former Playboy model Karen McDougal brought against Fox News alleging she was defamed by host Tucker Carlson when he suggested she extorted Trump when she obtained a $150,000 payment from American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer, for her life story, which included allegations of a long affair with Trump. AMI never published an article and said McDougal was paid to write health and fitness columns.
The judge ruled, “The context in which the offending statements were made here make it abundantly clear that Mr. Carlson was not accusing Ms. McDougal of actually committing a crime. As a result, his statements are not actionable.”
“But there can be no doubt that Mr. Carlson did so as hyperbole to promote debate on a matter of public concern,” the judge wrote.
Prosecutors did not charge Trump with crimes related to the AMI deal to buy and bury McDougal’s story, but they included it in a statement of facts accompanying the indictment as part of a “catch and kill scheme” to suppress negative stories before the 2016 presidential election.
This story has been updated with additional details. | US Congress |
Advocates for domestic violence survivors are worried that a controversial federal court ruling striking down a gun control measure will discourage victims from coming forward.
Earlier this month, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said that those under domestic violence restraining orders have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, saying a federal law barring those alleged abusers from possessing guns is unconstitutional.
The risk of homicide in a domestic violence situation increases by 500% if a gun is present, according to research cited by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Though some of the states covered by the appeals court have similar state law restrictions, the new ruling undermines a crucial tool that survivors have in protecting themselves from their abusers. If the 5th Circuit’s logic was adopted nationwide by the US Supreme Court, the consequences would be devastating, advocates say.
“People are going to know that their abuser still has their gun. They’re going continue to live in absolute, abject fear,” said Heather Bellino, the CEO of the Texas Advocacy Project, which works with victims of domestic violence. “They are going to be afraid to get a protective order, because now that gun’s not going away, and now [the abuser is] real pissed. So, it’s going to have an absolute chilling effect on survivors.”
Guns are used to commit nearly two-thirds of intimate partner homicides, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. A 2021 study found that the majority of mass shootings are also linked to domestic violence.
“There’s a clear connection between intimate partner homicide and the accessibility of firearms,” said Kelly Roskam, director of law and policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. “And not just to murder partners, but abusers use guns or even the mere presence of a gun to coerce, threaten and terrorize their victims of all genders.”
The ruling only applies in the circuit – which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi – and, for now, doesn’t affect the similar state laws that two of those three states have on the books.
The 5th Circuit said the federal law is unconstitutional because it lacked an adequate parallel to the firearm regulations that were in place at the time of Constitution’s framing. That historical test was laid out in a blockbuster US Supreme Court opinion last year that has since led lower courts to knock down various kinds of state and federal gun restrictions across the country.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has signaled the Justice Department will appeal the 5th Circuit’s ruling.
‘A control mechanism’
The federal law in question was passed in 1996. Several states have similar prohibitions, though if the Supreme Court were to agree with the 5th Circuit’s reasoning, they, too, would be unconstitutional, according to Roskam.
Unlike some of the state laws that restrict the access those under domestic violence protective order have to firearms, the federal law does not lay out a specific process for forcing an alleged abuser to turn over his weapons once he is placed under a protective order. However, some local jurisdictions have used the federal law to implement such procedures, according to Julia Weber, director of the National Center on Gun Violence in Relationships at the Battered Women’s Justice Project.
That makes the federal law a critical tool for urging survivors to leave their abusive situations, advocates say, even if the law’s enforcement has been inconsistent across the country.
“In Texas, taking away somebody’s gun is not easy … it shouldn’t be super easy,” Bellino said. “But we were always able to say, ‘federal law trumps state law, so guess what? You’re going get rid of your gun.’ And in as many cases as possible, we made that happen.”
According to experts and advocates who have worked directly with survivors, abusers can use guns to make explicit threats of violence against their victims and also wield their weapons in lower-key ways that are implicit acts of intimidation.
Ruth Glenn, a domestic violence survivor who was shot by her estranged spouse, recalled to CNN how simply being aware that her abuser owned a firearm made her fearful – even when he wasn’t actively wielding it against her.
“The entire idea that there was always a threat and knowing that the firearm was there, was such a control mechanism,” said Glenn, who is now president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
When a victim decides to come forward and seek a court’s intervention, it is a particularly vulnerable time for her, advocates say, and victims feel safer when protective orders come with a two-prong effect of both keeping their abuser away and depriving of them of a lethal weapon.
“This timeframe when they’re accessing that order of protection is so critical,” said Monica McLaughlin, the senior director of public policy at the National Network to End Domestic Violence. “So, the ability to remove firearms at that time, we think, is one of the most critical components to a survivor’s safety.”
What happens next
In the short term, the 5th Circuit’s ruling wiped away the conviction of a defendant who challenged his prosecution under the federal law. As long as that ruling is in effect, federal prosecutors will be unable to bring charges under the federal law within the circuit. Others who have been convicted under the federal law within the 5th Circuit may also ask that the courts throw out those convictions under the appeals court ruling that the law in question is unconstitutional.
The 5th Circuit ruling does not apply to states in other federal circuits. Nor does it block the enforcement of state laws in the 5th Circuit targeted at those accused of domestic abuse – though those laws might soon see court challenges citing the 5th Circuit’s opinion.
Texas law bars the those under a protective order from possessing firearms but has only limited mechanisms for forcing the surrender of a gun – and only once a permanent order is issued.
Louisiana’s prohibitions create a firearm removal process once a permanent injunction against an abuser is obtained.
The third state within the circuit, Mississippi, has no state law restricting firearm ownership by those under domestic violence protective orders, according to Disarm Domestic Violence, which tracks state and federal policy on the issue.
What happens next in the case could have broader consequences for domestic abuse victims. The case could potentially land in front of the Supreme Court and if the high court adopts the 5th Circuit’s reasoning, it will control nationwide.
“People have to make choices about whether they come forward and where they go for help,” said Weber, of the Battered Women’s Justice Project. “And they’re not going to go to our courts, or reach out to law enforcement, or even perhaps reach out to community-based organizations, if they don’t think the risks that they’re living with will be taken seriously.” | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
Apple said it has asked the US Supreme Court to review a judge's ruling from two years ago that could diminish the billions of dollars in revenue its App Store generates by letting app developers direct users to alternative payment methods. From a report: Apple's request to the high court on Thursday is its latest salvo in a drawn-out battle with Epic Games over how the iPhone maker runs its app marketplace. App Store revenue is lucrative for Apple, with developers charged a commission of as much as 30% for sales of digital goods and services -- a fee that the maker of the popular Fortnite game is trying to avoid paying. At the same time, years of complaints from app developers and scrutiny from governments globally have already forced Apple to rewrite some of the rules protecting its dominance in the $160 billion app distribution marketplace.
Apple's request comes a day after Epic petitioned the Supreme Court to review a separate part of the ruling, that App Store policies don't violate federal antitrust laws. Apple's filing couldn't immediately be confirmed in court records. The Supreme Court, per its regular schedule, could decide by the end of the year or early next year whether it will take up either or both of the petitions. In a mixed ruling in September 2021 following a trial, a federal judge in Oakland, California, largely rejected Epic's claims that Apple's online marketplace policies violated federal law by barring third-party app marketplaces on its operating system. But she also found that Apple flouted California state law by blocking developers from letting consumers know about alternative payment methods. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial judge's decision in April.
Apple's request comes a day after Epic petitioned the Supreme Court to review a separate part of the ruling, that App Store policies don't violate federal antitrust laws. Apple's filing couldn't immediately be confirmed in court records. The Supreme Court, per its regular schedule, could decide by the end of the year or early next year whether it will take up either or both of the petitions. In a mixed ruling in September 2021 following a trial, a federal judge in Oakland, California, largely rejected Epic's claims that Apple's online marketplace policies violated federal law by barring third-party app marketplaces on its operating system. But she also found that Apple flouted California state law by blocking developers from letting consumers know about alternative payment methods. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial judge's decision in April. | SCOTUS |
Published December 18, 2022 11:35AM January 6th panel to hold final hearing on Monday The final hearing from the January 6th Committee will be Monday. Peter Loge, an associate professor at The George Washington University, spoke with LiveNOW from FOX's Josh Breslow about the highlights of the hearings. The House committee investigating the Capitol riot will make its final public presentation Monday about the unprecedented effort by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the presidential election he lost in 2020. The committee has called it an "attempted coup" that warrants criminal prosecution from the Justice Department. That is expected to be the committee's closing argument as it wraps up a year-and-a-half-long inquiry and prepares to release a final report detailing its findings about the insurrection in the nation's capital on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying Joe Biden's presidential victory. The committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans is set to dissolve at the end of the year. (L-R) U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) (L), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Vice Chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), listen during a hearing on the January 6th in Monday's meeting will be the committee's 11th public session since forming in July 2021. One of the first hearings, on June 9, was viewed by more than 20 million people. RELATED: The Capitol Riot evidence video: A harrowing American moment, repackaged for prime time What to watch for in Monday’s meeting at 1 p.m. EST: Referring a president The committee is expected to make both criminal and civil referrals against the former president and his allies, who, according to lawmakers, broke the law or committed ethical violations. The committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the referrals may include criminal, ethics violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations. Lawmakers have suggested in particular that their recommended charges against Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United State, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and insurrection. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday that he believes Trump committed multiple crimes. Pointing specifically to insurrection, Schiff said that "if you look at Donald Trump’s acts and you match them up against the statute, it’s a pretty good match." "This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist, this is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol," Schiff told CNN's "State of the Union." "If that’s not criminal then I don’t know what it is." RELATED: Jan. 6 committee may recommend insurrection charge against Trump Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said last week that the committee's actions will focus on "key players" where there is sufficient evidence or abundant evidence that they committed crimes. It will fall to federal prosecutors to decide whether to bring charges. Even though they are non-binding, the recommendations by the committee would add to the political pressure on the Justice Department as special counsel Jack Smith conducts an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions. ___ Complicit lawmakers? The committee on Monday could also make ethics referrals involving fellow lawmakers. "We will also be considering what’s the appropriate remedy for members of Congress who ignore a congressional subpoena, as well as the evidence that was so pertinent to our investigation and why we wanted to bring them in," Schiff said. "We have weighed what is the remedy for members of Congress. Is it a criminal referral to another branch of government, or is it better that the Congress police its own?" He said the committee considered censure and ethics referrals and will be disclosing their decision Monday. Lawmakers who did not comply with subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee included House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, as well as GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama. RELATED: Jan. 6 committee to vote Monday on Capitol riot criminal referrals ___ A record for history Lawmakers have promised that Monday's session will include a preview of the committee's final report, expected to be released Wednesday. The panel will vote on adopting the official record, effectively authorizing the release of the report to the public. The eight-chapter report will include hundreds of pages of findings about the attack and Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy, drawing on what the committee learned through its interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses. It will roughly mirror the series of public hearings the committee held in the summer that detailed the various facets of the investigation, including the role of extremist groups in the violence on Jan. 6, Trump's attempt to enlist the Justice Department in his schemes and Trump’s coordination with GOP lawmakers to overturn the election results. Additional evidence, including some of the massive trove of video footage and testimony the committee collected, is expected to be released publicly before the end of the year. Anticipation for the final report is high. Book publishers are already offering pre-release versions for sale to the public. ___ Legislative changes As the committee convenes one final time, a major legislative response to the insurrection could be on the fast-track to passage. Lawmakers are expected to overhaul the arcane election law that Trump tried to subvert after his 2020 election defeat by including legislative changes in a year-end spending bill. The proposed overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is one of the many byproducts of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A group of bipartisan lawmakers has been working on the legislation since the insurrection. Trump and his allies tried to find loopholes in that law before the congressional certification of the 2020 vote as the former president worked to overturn his defeat to Biden and unsuccessfully pressured Pence to go along. The bill, if passed, would amend the 19th century law that, along with the Constitution, governs how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential election winners, ensuring the popular vote from each state is protected from manipulation and that Congress does not arbitrarily decide presidential elections. The committee is also expected to release its own legislative proposals in its final report, with ideas for how to strengthen and expand the guardrails that protected the Electoral College certification in 2021. RELATED: Officers who defended Capitol on January 6 awarded Congressional Gold Medals ___ Closing arguments Since its formation, the Jan. 6 committee has strived to build a record for history and deepen the public's understanding of what led to the Capitol attack and the individuals involved in it. "We obviously want to complete the story for the American people," Raskin said. "Everybody has come on a journey with us and we want a satisfactory conclusion, such that people feel that Congress has done its job." After conducting thousands of interviews — ranging from Trump Cabinet secretaries to members of his own family — and obtaining tens of thousands of documents, congressional investigators say they have created the most comprehensive look at the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries. But the 16-month investigation has also provided a road map of sorts for criminal investigations, influencing the probes of Trump and Jan. 6 that are progressing at the local, state and federal level. There is some question whether the Justice Department will act with Trump announced as a 2024 presidential candidate. Schiff expressed worry on Sunday that federal prosecutors may be slow to move on charges as long as Trump is politically relevant. "I think he should face the same remedy, force of law, that anyone else would," Schiff said. Still, Monday's session remains the last word for the committee as its temporary, or "select," committee status expires at the end of the current Congress. Once Republicans take the majority next year, they are not expected to renew the committee, instead launching a slew of investigations that will focus on the Biden administration and the president's family. | US Congress |
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The possibility of a 2023 market rally ground to a halt last week amid an onslaught of unfortunate inflation and economic data that spooked investors and increased the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will continue its economically painful rate hikes campaign for longer than Wall Street hoped.
All major indexes notched their largest weekly losses of 2023 on Friday. The S&P 500 fell by 2.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.3%.
What’s happening: It appears that after months of steady decline, the pace of inflation is going sideways. January’s Personal Consumption Expenditures price index – the Fed’s favored inflation gauge – came in hotter than expected on Friday.
Prices rose a whopping 5.4% in January from a year earlier, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reported. In December, prices rose 5.3% annually.
In January alone, prices were up 0.6% from the prior month, a higher monthly gain from December’s increase of 0.2%.
This inflationary crab walk is almost certainly causing Fed officials to rethink their policy.
A paper presented Friday at the Booth School of Business Monetary Policy Forum in New York argued that disinflation will likely be slower and more painful than markets anticipate.
“Significant disinflations induced by monetary policy tightening are associated with recessions,” said the paper. “An ‘immaculate disinflation’ would be unprecedented.” (Immaculate, in this instance, refers to the possibility of inflation falling quickly to the Fed’s 2% goal without any serious economic damage).
Several Fed presidents, governors and top economists were on hand at the Booth School forum to discuss the paper and monetary policy on Friday. The majority of those speaking expressed deep concern about the stubbornness of inflation and general market reaction.
Inflation won’t quit: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said that while price growth has moderated from its recent high, the overall pace of inflation remains too high and could be more persistent than her colleagues currently anticipate.
“I anticipate further rate increases to reach a sufficiently restrictive level, then holding there for some, perhaps extended, time,” echoed Boston Fed President Susan Collins at the conference.
Collins referred to inflation as “recalcitrant,” a loaded million-dollar word that means uncooperative, or defiant to authority.
Fed Governor Philip Jefferson struck a more befuddled stance on Friday, observing that inflation continues to baffle economists. “The inflationary forces impinging on the US economy at present represent a complex mixture of temporary and more long-lasting elements that defy simple, parsimonious explanation,” he said. Parsimonious being another million-dollar word for frugal.
Economists stressed that more pain lies ahead. “It’s important that markets understand that ‘no landing’ is not an option,” said Peter Hooper, vice chair of research at Deutsche Bank, an author of the report.
While recent data has signaled that the US economy remains strong, “by the time we get to the middle of this year we expect to see some bad news coming and the sooner the markets get that message the more helpful it will be to the Fed,” he said.
The final word: Former Bank of England Governor Lord Mervyn King summed up what many were thinking on Friday: Given the complexity of the current monetary situation, he said, “I wouldn’t want to give advice to any central banks about what we should do.”
Are we on the brink of another credit crunch?
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have issued a dire warning: If President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan doesn’t come to fruition, the US could face another credit crisis.
Some background: The Covid-19 crisis triggered a sudden shift in student loan policy and a new openness to forgiveness. In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, which automatically paused required payments on all federally held student loans.
That forbearance has since been extended eight times and is set to end as late as August, 40 months after it began.
The Biden Administration had announced an unprecedented debt cancellation proposal which would provide relief to more than 40 million borrowers. An analysis by the New York Fed found that roughly $441 billion of federal student loans are eligible for forgiveness under the proposal, canceling about 30% of all outstanding federal student loan debt.
That forgiveness proposal is now on hold after an injunction by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, The Supreme Court of the United States will hear the case with its decision expected by June 2023.
What’s on the line: If the Biden Administration’s forgiveness plan survives the court challenge, it will mark the largest mass discharge of consumer debt in modern history, according to the New York Fed. About 40% of those with federal student loan debt would have a zero balance; even more would have a much smaller monthly payment.
But, “if payments resume without debt relief, we expect both student loan default and delinquencies to rise and potentially surpass pre-pandemic levels,” warned Fed researchers.
“We note a stark increase in new credit card and auto loan delinquency for borrowers with eligible student loans over the past few quarters, growing at a faster pace than those without student loans and those with ineligible loans,” they wrote.
Those missed payments suggest that some federal student loan borrowers are having trouble meeting their monthly debt obligations. “We expect these delinquency patterns to worsen if federal student loan payments resume without relief,” said the report.
The data “may be suggestive of problems to come, a sign of economic distress that may appear particularly concerning when the burden of student loan payments resumes.”
Future concerns: If student loan borrowers expect future debt cancellation, they may borrow even more, said researchers, which would increase debt balances even more sharply. “Absent direct policies to address this growing burden, taxpayers may be again called to for relief in the future,” they concluded. | US Federal Policies |
Plaintiff in same-sex marriage Supreme Court case says decision is moving country 'backward'Christopher Cicchiello0m ago / 4:54 PM UTCJim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that established the right for same-sex marriages across the nation, called today's verdict "a sad day for women's rights.""This Supreme Court continues to erode the rights of citizens at an alarming rate," Obergefell said in a tweet. "Women deserve responsive leaders who support reproductive justice. Leaders who respect their fundamental right to have control over their own bodies."In a separate statement reacting to Justice Clarence Thomas’ call to reconsider the holding in Obergefell v. Hodges in his concurring opinion, Obergefell said that "the millions of loving couples who have the right to marriage equality to form their own families do not need Clarence Thomas imposing his individual twisted morality upon them."U.S. Capitol public tours halted after SCOTUS decision Public tours of the U.S. Capitol were abruptly halted Friday after the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, allowing Capitol Police to shift some of their resources to the court complex, a source familiar with the decision said.Capitol Police were also concerned about members of the public lining up at the entrance of the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC), which is close to where thousands of protesters were assembling in front of the court building."It's because of the CVC entrance's proximity to activity at SCOTUS and the general need to shift U.S. Capitol Police manpower to respond to SCOTUS activity," the source said.So far, the protests have been peaceful.Scotland's leader calls out Roe decisionScotland's leader on Friday warned that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would "embolden anti-abortion and anti-women forces" beyond the United States."One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime," Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, said in a tweet. "Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US — but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now — but it is necessary."McCarthy praises court's decisionHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised the decision of the court during a Friday press conference. "By a vote of 6-3 the court affirmed that the power to protect unborn life is returned to the people by their elected representatives," McCarthy said. "This great nation can now live up to its core principal that all people are created equal — not born equal, created equal."He added that the decision would "save the lives of millions of children" and "give families hope."Sharpton says court's decision brings us 'back to the dark ages' Tat Bellamy-Walker8m ago / 4:46 PM UTCThe Rev. Al Sharpton, the longtime civil rights advocate, said Friday that Black women and poor women will be disproportionately affected by the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. "The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe vs Wade is a blatant attempt to bring us back to the dark ages," Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, wrote in a tweet. "It will disproportionately impact Black women, and poor women. This must be resisted aggressively. States must enact laws to protect women." British doctors union calls Roe decision 'deeply worrying'A senior official at the British Medical Association, the United Kingdom's doctors union, on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision overturning abortion rights could have an impact beyond the United States. “The news that restrictions to abortions could be made law in some U.S. states ... is deeply worrying for the future of women’s reproductive health," Zoe Greaves, chair of the group's medical ethics committee, said in a written statement. "The BMA, along with multiple other health organizations, is concerned that this will remove women’s access to essential medical care, a fundamental human right as stated by the U.N., both in the U.S. and potentially more widely," she said. The organization added in a statement that it would be weighing the decision's implications to determine how best to support the American Medical Association in its opposition to the "criminalization of reproductive health."First lady Jill Biden was with DeSantis when Roe decision came downJosh Lederman14m ago / 4:40 PM UTCFirst lady Jill Biden was with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis when she learned of the Supreme Court ruling, a White House official told NBC News.The first lady was preparing to go onstage at the memorial for the one year anniversary of the Champlain Tower collapse in Surfside, Florida, along with DeSantis and his wife in a holding room. Moments before the first lady walked on stage, the news alerts popped up on everyone’s phones.In April, DeSantis signed a Florida law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Democratic governors in the West pledge to stand up for abortion rightsDemocratic governors in California, Oregon and Washington said Friday they will continue to "protect" patients seeking reproductive care, including those from other states seeking abortions.California's Gavin Newsom, Oregon's Kate Brown and Washington's Jay Inslee made the announcement in a video message released after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, presenting themselves as a counterweight to "red states and Republican-stacked courts.""California, Oregon and Washington are building the West Coast offense to protect patients' access to reproductive care," Newsom said.Inslee said: "We're going to work with our legislators, with our providers, with our patient advocates."Brown said: "We will not stand on the sidelines."'With sorrow...we dissent': Court's liberal wing says majority decided women not deserving of equal protectionIn a blistering dissent to the court's decision reversing abortion rights, the justices on the bench’s liberal wing slammed the majority opinion as one that would curtail women's rights.“It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in the lengthy dissent."With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent," they added.Read the full story here.Planned Parenthood Wisconsin temporarily suspends abortion servicesAntonio Planas19m ago / 4:35 PM UTCPlanned Parenthood Wisconsin announced Friday it was “temporarily suspending” abortion services in response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In a video statement on the organization’s website, the group's president, Tanya Atkinson, lamented the Supreme Court’s decision because it has taken away a constitutional right from women and instead placed health care decisions in the hands of politicians.“Because Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban remains in effect, Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is temporarily suspending abortion services,” she said. “Please know that we are looking at all legal options available. This news is so incredibly devastating. The decision of whether or not to become a parent can be one of the most life-changing decisions a person can make,” she said. “You should be able to make the very personal, very needed health care decisions.”Atkinson added that although abortion services are not available in Wisconsin, the organization is still there for people who need abortions and will counsel them on finding options where abortions are safe and legal. The group, she said, will also be available for “after-care” services. Other services provided by the organization are also available at its centers or through telehealth, she said.“Planned Parenthood Wisconsin stands for health care, and we will not give up, not now, not ever,” she said.Anger and joy outside Supreme CourtTears flowed and voices bellowed outside the Supreme Court early Friday, as activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered to bear witness to the end of the Roe era. "It's really a visceral issue," said Mai El-Sadany, a human rights lawyer who opposes Friday's decision. "The people who showed up here are really angry and they didn’t want to be alone." Paige Nelson, 20, cried tears of joy on the street in front of the Supreme Court, where the grounds long used for demonstrations have been closed off for weeks as a security precaution."I’m just so happy that no matter who you are and whatever extra chromosomes or whatever disability you might have, you get the chance to live this amazing life, and I will continue advocating until abortion is completely gone," said Nelson, a Washington state resident who is participating in a summer program with the conservative Concerned Women of America.Canadian PM Justin Trudeau calls Roe decision 'horrific'Reuters24m ago / 4:30 PM UTCCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called the Supreme Court decision "horrific."“The news coming out of the United States is horrific. My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion,” Trudeau said on Twitter.“No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he said.GOP Sen. Mitt Romney says he supports Roe's reversalSen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, praised the Supreme Court's ruling Friday in a brief statement. "The sanctity of human life is a foundational American principle, and the lives of our children—both born and unborn—deserve our protection," Romney said. "I support the Court’s decision, which means that laws regarding abortion will now rightfully be returned to the people and their elected representatives," he added.AG Merrick Garland says states cannot ban access to medications for abortionsAttorney General Merrick Garland vowed to protect access to Mifepristone, which is used along with another medication to end early pregnancies.“In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," he wrote in a statement.The Food and Drug Administration approved in 2016 the use of the medications in terminating abortions.The "Department will continue to protect healthcare providers and individuals seeking reproductive health services in states where those services remain legal," his statement added. "This law prohibits anyone from obstructing access to reproductive health services through violence, threats of violence, or property damage."Decision a 'dark moment,' British rights group says The Supreme Court’s decision is a “dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” the chair of a British rights group said Friday. ‘This is a hugely significant set back for abortion rights. Not just in the U.S. but it will embolden anti-abortion activists here and in Poland, Malta and other places where the struggle for access is already desperate,” Kerry Abel of Abortion Rights said in a statement. “Any chink in the legislative armour that undermines the right to privacy, makes access more difficult or puts abortion funding out of reach will impact poorer and marginalised women and pregnantpeople and will encourage yet more anti-abortion legislation and action,” she said. “This is a dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” she added.Rep. Jamie Raskin knocks Thomas, says they are not 'like real judges at this point'Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., knocked Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he is trying to "demolish the constitutional right to privacy" while blasting the high court's justices as an "instrument of the right-wing Republican agenda." "Roe versus Wade was built on Griswold versus Connecticut, which asserted a constitutional right to privacy for women and men to obtain contraception and birth control," Raskin said Friday. "They might like to pretend as if this is some kind of singular strike against just women's right to abortion, but it has implications for contraception. It has implications for the right of gay people to get married under the Obergefell decision. It has implications for the right of people not to be sterilized by the government against their will."Raskin added that the justices are "not like real judges at this point." "I mean, they’ve got the power of it, but they basically have turned themselves into partisans," he said.Sen. Susan Collins calls ruling 'not conservative' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh who were part of Friday's majority opinion, said in a statement that the ruling was an "ill-considered action" and "not conservative." "The Supreme Court has abandoned a fifty-year precedent at a time that the country is desperate for stability. This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show both consistency and restraint," Collins said. "Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government."Collins said that the ruling was "inconsistent" with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their congressional testimony and in meetings with her where, she said, "they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon."Collins said she is working on a bill with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would codify Roe, Casey, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and Griswold v. Connecticut."Our legislation would enshrine important abortion protections into law without undercutting statutes that have been in place for decades and without eliminating basic conscience protections that are relied upon by health care providers who have religious objections to performing abortions," she said.U.K.'s Boris Johnson calls Roe decision 'a big step backward'British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would have a "massive" impact around the world. “This is not our court, it’s another jurisdiction, but it clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world," he said during a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda. "It’s a very important decision." "I think it’s a big step backwards," Johnson, who leads the Conservative Party, added. "I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the U.K. has the laws that it does.”Missouri governor signs state proclamation banning most abortionsChristopher Cicchiello36m ago / 4:19 PM UTCMissouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a proclamation Friday to activate its trigger law, banning most abortions.“Nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the United States Constitution gave un-elected federal judges authority to regulate abortion. We are happy that the U.S. Supreme Court has corrected this error and returned power to the people and the states to make these decisions,” Parson, a Republican, said in a news release.This law makes it illegal for doctors to perform abortions and also makes anyone who knowingly induces an abortion guilty of a class B felony. Doctors can have their licenses revoked for their involvement. However, a woman who has an abortion will not be prosecuted "for a conspiracy to violate the provisions" of this act. No mention of an exception for a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest was provided in the act.Upon Parson’s signature, the act takes effect immediately.Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton says abortions are 'now illegal in Texas'Texas' GOP attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced Friday that abortion is now illegal in Texas as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling. "SCOTUS just overruled Roe & Casey, ending one of the most morally & legally corrupt eras in US history. Praise the Lord. Abortion is now illegal in Texas," he said in a tweet. Texas had on the books a trigger law, which immediately banned abortion once Roe came down.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed into law one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans last year, which took effect in September. It had banned abortions as early as six weeks, which effectively banned all abortions because most women don't know they're pregnant that early in the process. Whole Women's Health, an organization that has operated four clinics providing reproductive health services in Texas and other states, said it has stopped providing abortion procedures as a result of Friday's ruling, according to the Texas Tribune. In guidance posted on the organization's website Friday, it said that its clinics "are still operating in Baltimore, MD; Bloomington, MN; Alexandria, VA; and Charlottesville, VA." It also said that it offers medication abortion pills by mail to patients in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.It also said Whole Women's Health "is exploring plans to expand both our in-clinic and mail services into additional states where abortion is legally protected."Democratic lawmakers march to Supreme Court in support of abortion rightsAt least 150 Democratic lawmakers marched to the Supreme Court on Friday to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told NBC News the decision marked "a sad day for American jurisprudence.""Never did I envision that this court would reverse 40 or 50 years of precedence, but they did it," he said. "And they did it in utter disregard for the 60% of the American people who support Roe and did not want it overturned."Conservative Hispanic group lauds court decisionBienvenido, a conservative Hispanic group, said the court's decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision was "correct as both a legal and a moral matter.""Today we join millions of Americans — including the majority of Hispanics who value human life — in celebrating the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling overturning 'Roe' and 'Casey,'" a statement from the group said. "It was always a lie that the Constitution guaranteed the right to kill unborn children and this Court has just exposed this lie for the shameful farce that it always has been," the statement continued. "As we commemorate this historic decision, let us remember these children who were denied the right to live, pray for forgiveness, and give thanks to God." According to Pew Research Center, 60% of Hispanics in 2022 said abortion should be legal. Transgender Law Center denounces Supreme Court decision as "despicable" Tat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 3:51 PM UTCThe Transgender Law Center, one of the nation's largest transgender rights groups, slammed the court's decision, calling it "despicable" and a "politically-motivated" attack.In a statement, the organization stressed that the majority opinion will have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups, including Black women, disabled people, migrant women, poor people and individuals living in rural communities.“Today we loudly affirm and pledge our solidarity with all people working for Reproductive Justice in this country,” the group's executive director, Kris Hayashi, said. “Whether it is a right to an abortion, the right to affirming medical care, or the right to learn about your own history in schools, our collective rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy are inexorably entwined.”'God made the decision': Trump praises the ruling overturning RoeFormer President Donald Trump praised the Supreme Court's ruling in a statement to Fox News on Friday, saying that it's "following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago."Trump was asked if he played a role in the decision because he nominated three of the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett."God made the decision," Trump told Fox. Asked to address any of his supporters who support abortion rights, Trump said, "I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody ... This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged."Trump had previously supported abortion rights years ago, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" in 1999 that he was "very pro-choice" at the time.Susan B. Anthony List celebrates overturning of Roe v. WadeThe anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List celebrated news Friday of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, calling it a "historic victory for human rights." Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the group, said in a video message outside the Supreme Court that it was a moment of "great gratitude and resolve." "This Court has just overturned the wrongly decided Roe versus Wade decision. Let those words sink in," she said. "Roe versus Wade is overturned after 50 years of lobbying, building centers of hope to serve pregnant women, on our knees praying, off our knees marching and ensuring the powerful pro-life voice could be heard in our elections. We have arrived at this day, a culminating day of so much and the first day of a bright pro-life future for our nation."She said the decision allows the "will of the people to make its way into the law through our elected officials" and declared that "our best days are ahead."Attorney General Merrick Garland vows to 'use every tool' to protect abortion rightsAttorney General Merrick Garland, who as Barack Obama's 2016 Supreme Court nominee was denied a confirmation vote by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, vowed to put the full weight of the Department of Justice behind protecting abortion rights."The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision," he said. "This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect — with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means."“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom. And we will not waver from this Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans," he added.Mayor Eric Adams says people around the country 'welcome' to access abortion care in New York City New York City Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at the Supreme Court on Friday, saying that "politics came before people at the highest court in the land." "What the court has done today ignores the opinions of the majority of Americans, as it helps states control women’s bodies, their choices, and their freedoms," the Democrat said in a statement, adding that the decision puts lives at risk."There is nothing to call this Supreme Court opinion but an affront to basic human rights and one that aims to shackle women and others in reproductive bondage."Adams sought to reassure New Yorkers, saying that they can still access safe, legal abortions in the city. He also said that people around the country seeking the procedure are "welcome here" to access those services.Massachusetts Gov. Baker signs executive order protecting abortion providersAntonio Planas1h ago / 3:39 PM UTCIn response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who is not running for re-election, signed an executive order Friday protecting health care providers performing abortions from losing their licenses or receiving other discipline based on potential charges from out of state, he said in a statement.“Under the executive order, the Commonwealth will not cooperate with extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against individuals who received, assisted with, or performed reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts,” the statement said.The order, he said, also prohibits any “Executive Department agencies” from assisting another state’s investigation into a person or entity for receiving or delivering reproductive health care services that are legal in Massachusetts.“This executive order will further preserve that right and protect reproductive health care providers who serve out of state residents. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, it is especially important to ensure that Massachusetts providers can continue to provide reproductive health care services without concern that the laws of other states may be used to interfere with those services or sanction them for providing services that are lawful in the Commonwealth,” Baker said.Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said: “We are proud of the Commonwealth’s history of ensuring access to reproductive health care, and will continue to do so, despite today’s ruling from the Supreme Court.”Michigan Gov. Whitmer says ruling means her state's 1931 law banning abortion takes effect Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement Friday it was a "sad day for America" and that her state's "antiquated" 1931 law banning abortion without exceptions for rape or incest will take effect. The law also criminalizes doctors and nurses who provide reproductive care, she said. "For now, a Michigan court has put a temporary hold on the law, but that decision is not final and has already been challenged. The 1931 law would punish women and strip away their right to make decisions about their own bodies," Whitmer said. "I want every Michigander to know that I am more determined than ever to protect access to safe, legal abortion."She said she filed a lawsuit in April to urge her state's Supreme Court to determine whether the Michigan Constitution protects the right to an abortion. "We need to clarify that under Michigan law, access to abortion is not only legal, but constitutionally protected," she said. Barack Obama calls Roe v. Wade reversal an attack on millionsTat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 3:33 PM UTCFormer President Barack Obama said the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade targets the freedom of millions of Americans in the U.S. "Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans," he wrote in a tweet. He noted that states across the country have already passed bills restricting abortion rights, and pointed people who want to fight against these restrictions toward Planned Parenthood and the United State of Women.In a statement, former first lady Michelle Obama said she was "heartbroken for people around this country who just lost the fundamental right to make informed decisions about their own bodies."Recent NBC News poll showed a majority of people in U.S. didn't want Roe v. Wade overturnedA majority of people in the U.S. — 63 percent — said in a recent NBC News poll in May that they didn't believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, compared to 30% of people who wanted the abortion rights ruling to be reversed.Additionally, a combined 60% of Americans across the country said abortion should be either always legal (37%) or legal most of the time (23%) — the highest share believing it should be legal on this question, which dates back to 2003. By party, 84 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Independents want abortion to be legal, versus just 33 percent of Republicans. The poll was conducted after the draft opinion of Alito's Roe opinion leaked.NAACP calls decision 'egregious assault on basic human rights'NAACP General Counsel Janette McCarthy Wallace said in a statement Friday the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade as "marks a significant regression of our country.""As a legal professional, I am horrified by this decision. As a Black woman, I am outraged to my core," Wallace said. "There is no denying the fact that this is a direct attack on all women, and Black women stand to be disproportionately impacted by the court's egregious assault on basic human rights. We must all stand up to have our voices heard in order to protect our nation from the further degradation of civil rights protections we have worked so hard to secure."Separately, Portia White, the NAACP vice president of policy and legislative affairs, said: "This Supreme Court is turning back the clock to a dangerous era where basic constitutional rights only exist for a select few. They've stripped away our right to vote, and now women have lost their right to their own body. What’s next?"White added: "We cannot allow our future to rest in the hands of those determined to crush every bit of it. We need to fight back."Biden to address Supreme Court ruling in remarks at 12:30 p.m. ETPresident Joe Biden will address the Supreme Court's ruling in remarks at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET, according to the White House.The guidance said that Biden will deliver his response in the Cross Hall.Durbin announces Judiciary hearing to explore "grim reality of a post-Roe America"Christopher Cicchiello2h ago / 3:20 PM UTCSenate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next month to "explore the grim reality of a post-Roe America."Durbin, who chairs the committee, made the announcement in a series of tweets in which he vowed to keep "fighting to enshrine into law a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices.” "The Court’s decision to erase the right to an abortion will not only lead to the denial of critical health care services, but also criminal consequences for women & health care providers in states eager to embrace draconian restrictions," Durbin wrote. "We cannot let our children inherit a nation that is less free and more dangerous than the one their parents grew up in."He also urged voters to elect "pro-choice Democrats who will write abortion protections into law" in the midterm elections.LGBTQ rights could be at risk post-Roe, advocates warned before rulingJulie Moreau2h ago / 3:18 PM UTCThe leaked initial draft of the Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade had advocates worried about what the precedent’s reversal could mean for the LGBTQ community’s recently gained rights. Cathryn Oakley, an attorney with the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, stressed that the high court’s decision would have a direct impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. “The LGBTQ community relies on reproductive health care. LGBTQ people seek and receive abortions, they seek and receive and use contraception,” she said. The willingness of the court to overturn precedent could, some advocates fear, signal that other federally protected rights of minorities may be in jeopardy, such as same-sex marriage, which became the law of the land with the Obergefell v. Hodges case. Read more about what LGBTQ rights advocates warned before Friday's ruling.Virginia Gov. Youngkin says Supreme Court ruling 'rightfully returned power to the people'Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade "has rightfully returned power to the people" and the elected officials of each state. "I’m proud to be a pro-life Governor and plan to take every action I can to protect life," he said in a statement Friday. "The truth is, Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions. We can build a bipartisan consensus on protecting the life of unborn children, especially when they begin to feel pain in the womb, and importantly supporting mothers and families who choose life."Youngkin, a Republican, said he has called on several lawmakers, including state Sens. Siobhan Dunnavant and Steve Newman, to help "find areas where we can agree and chart the most successful path forward."The Virginia Assembly is controlled by Republicans and the Senate has a narrow 19-21 Democratic majority. Manchin says he's 'alarmed,' had trusted Gorsuch and Kavanaugh when they said Roe was settled precedentSen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in a statement that he is "deeply disappointed" by the Supreme Court's decision and "alarmed" that the two Trump-appointed justices that he voted to confirm supported it."I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations | SCOTUS |
Stocks tumbled on Thursday after strong labor data spurred fears around further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, reviving concerns about the impact of those hikes on the economy.
All three major benchmarks logged losses Wednesday, after surprisingly hawkish minutes from the Fed's June meeting showed some policymakers were reluctant to back a pause as finally decided. Almost all backed more increases in 2023.
Markets are now seeing an 95% chance of a hike at the Fed's July meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool, after fresh data reports Thursday signaled the US labor market is still robust. ADP private-sector payrolls came in well above estimates.
Given stocks have previously faced headwinds from concerns the Fed's rate hikes could tip the economy into recession, the data will serve as an appetizer for the crucial June jobs report out on Friday.
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Sad desk salad making a comeback?
Hybrid and remote work may have once spelled the demise of the $15 sad desk salad. But its future isn't looking so dark anymore.
As Yahoo Finance’s Brooke DiPalma reports, Sweetgreen (SG) stock gained more than 15% on Thursday after Bank of America (BAC) upgraded shares of the fast casual salad chain to Buy from Neutral, with the firm nearly doubling its price target from $9 to $17.
A spike in foot traffic is part of what drove the upgrade. Investors had been worried about the chain's urban footprint and a slower return to office post pandemic.
Per data citied by BofA from the data intelligence platform Placer.ai, visits to Sweetgreen are up 46% year over year in the second quarter of 2023 so far. In the first quarter, visits were up 39%. The analysts said the data is "removing a key overhang on the stock."
CEO Jonathan Neman addressed the recovery of the chain's urban locations on its Q1 earnings call.
"We're really starting to see the urban stores and particularly the Central Business District stores come back and come back fairly strongly on a 4-day a week basis," he said. "I could say Mondays today are starting to level off at the same volume we see Tuesday through Thursday. ... We're actually pretty pleased with what we've been seeing in the urban stores."
Strong services data sends GDP, jobs projections higher
The strong economic data continues to roll in as investors await Friday's highly anticipated June jobs report. On Thursday, the Institute for Supply Chain Management Services Index ticked up from 50.3 in May to 53.9 in June. Expectations for the index had been for a reading of 51.2, per Bloomberg consensus data.
In reaction, the Atlanta Fed pushed up its expectations for second quarter GDP from 1.9% to 2.1% on Thursday, citing "recent releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management."
Any reading above 50 for the index is considered to be a sign of economic expansion. Thursday's data comes after Monday's ISM Manufacturing Index showed that portion of the economy contraction in June. The dichotomy leaves economists to believe services continue to buoy economic expansion in the US economy, backstopping calls for a positive Q2 GDP growth reading incoming from the likes of the Atlanta Fed.
"Services growth is keeping the economy afloat," Oxford Economics Lead US economist Oren Klachkin wrote in a note on Thursday.
The economics teams at both Citi and Wells Fago noted the services strength could lead to an upside surprise for nonfarm payrolls in June. Wells Fargo went as far as to update their nonfarm payrolls projection after the release of the ISM Services Index. Wells Fargo now expects 260,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added to the US Economy in June, up from their initial projection of 245,000.
"The service sector continues to benefit from robust demand; that is pushing many businesses to staff up in a way that has been lacking in recent months," Wells Fargo senior economist Tim Quinlan wrote. "Mercifully, service prices are rising at their slowest pace in years, though sustained demand highlights the upside risk for prices."
Q3 off to an inauspicious start
The second half of 2023 is already shaping up a bit differently than the first two quarters.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury-Note yield (^TNX) is screaming higher, resting comfortably above 4.0% again and threatening new highs for the year. It's up 20 basis points over two days, which is the biggest such jump since the March Federal Reserve meeting began.
S&P 500 sector heat map on day 3 of Q3 2023
Meanwhile, cyclicals, value and growth -- just about everything else -- are tumbling.
Looking at the megacaps over these three short days, Tesla (TSLA) is up over 5% and Meta (META) is up 2.5% (buoying the communications sector). Losses are contained, though, as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Nvidia (NVDA) are each down a modest 1.5% or so.
In my basket of sentiment ETFs, alternative energy (TAN), crypto (BITO), gambling (BETZ), homebuilders (XHB) and chip stocks (SOXX) are all down 3% or more. In that group, only cannabis (MJ) is green, which happens to be the second-worst performer of the year, next to regional banks (XRE).
Stocks off lows in midday trading
The three major averages began to pare losses on Thursday afternoon after strong economic data prompted fears of more interest rate hikes, sending stocks lower during morning trading.
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Dallas Fed's Logan wanted to raise rates in June
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said she wanted to raise interest rates another 0.25% last month at the Fed's policy meeting.
Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger reports:
"In my view, it would have been entirely appropriate to raise the federal funds target range at the FOMC's June meeting, consistent with the data we had seen in recent months and the Fed’s dual-mandate goals," Logan said in a speech at Central Bank Research Association Annual Meeting at Columbia University on Thursday.
"But in casting my vote, I was mindful of several factors," Logan added. "In a challenging and uncertain environment, it can make sense to skip a meeting and move more gradually. [Also], financial conditions matter more for the economy than the precise path of the policy rate."
Minutes released Wednesday from the Fed's June meeting showed that several central bank officials wanted to raise rates but agreed to a pause.
Logan also said it's important for the Fed to follow through on its projections. The Fed's updated economic forecasts suggest two more rate hikes are likely this year.
Stocks extend losses
The three major averages hit new lows on Thursday around 11 a.m. ET as investors digested a slew of strong economic data including signs of a tight labor market and strength in the services sector.
Job openings decrease to 9.8 million in May
Job openings fell to 9.8 million in May, down from 10.3 million in April, according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). April is now the only month in 2023 that job openings increased from the month prior, according to the survey.
"While job openings declined in May, the drop erased only a portion of April's increase, and they remain above March levels - highlighting the continued tightness in the labor market," Oxford Economics' Ryan Sweet and Matthew Martin wrote on Thursday. "The moderation in labor market data is unlikely to be strong enough to keep the Fed on pause and we expect the FOMC to raise rates at the upcoming meeting in July."
But the trend lower in job openings, a potential sign of softening in the labor market, came as other labor indicators remained strong, including 497,000 private jobs added in June, per the latest ADP report.
Also in Thursday's JOLTS release, the quit rate increased to 2.6%, its highest level since February. Given the potential risk of leaving a job amid an uncertain labor environment, the quit rate is often seen as a sign of how Americans are feeling about the economy.
"Workers continue to shrug off any worries of a labor market downturn and businesses are hesitant to let go of any of their workforce," Sweet and Martin noted. "The separation rate increased 0.2ppts to 3.8%, driven entirely by an increase in the quits rate as the layoffs and discharges rate was unchanged."
Instagram's Threads hits 10 million signups overnight
Meta launched its Twitter competitor Threads on Wednesday night. The app, which is linked to Instagram accounts, garnered 10 million signups within seven hours of launch, according to a thread from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
As Yahoo Finance's Allie Garfinkle reports, the launch of Threads comes at a crucial time for Elon Musk's Twitter makeover:
Some forecasts have suggested that tens of millions have and will continue to flee Twitter in the aftermath of Musk's acquisition of the company last October. Within the two years following Musk's buyout of Twitter, it's estimated that more than 30 million users will leave the platform, per Insider Intelligence. Even now, the platform's most active users have started tweeting less and have grown more likely to take a Twitter break, according to Pew Research. The concerns surrounding Twitter's product likely aren't helped by a substantially smaller staff than the company has had in recent memory — in the first few months of Musk's leadership, Twitter shed 80% of its employees.
"Twitter is quite vulnerable," said Arun Sundararajan, professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. "Threads is their first real competition since Musk took over. The decentralized alternatives like Mastodon aren't yet ready for prime time."
Two-year treasury hits highest level in 16 years
Two-year treasury yields rose to 5.07% on Thursday, marking their highest level since 2007. The move upward comes following data released Thursday revealing a labor market that remains tighter than economists had expected.
The two-year is closely tracked as an indicator for where the Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rate will land. After the strong data, investors are increasingly betting the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its July meeting.
Futures tied to the Fed's benchmark rate now show a 95% chance the Fed raises rates to a range of 5.25% - 5.5% at the next meeting.
Stocks open lower after strong labor data
Stocks fell at Thursday's open after strong labor data spurred fears around further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, reviving concerns about the impact of those hikes on the economy. | US Federal Policies |
Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has provided a public accounting of his firm’s work at the Supreme Court that began five years ago with security at justices’ homes, for their travels and in courtroom operations, confirming CNN’s exclusive reporting related to Chertoff’s endorsement of the court’s investigation of a leaked abortion decision.
In a new letter to congressional Democrats, he also provides some details and the timing of Chief Justice John Roberts’ request to The Chertoff Group for its review of the court’s inquiry into the source of the unprecedented leak of the Dobbs decision reversing nearly a half century of abortion rights.
Chertoff was first contacted by Chief Justice John Roberts in November 2022 and received investigative files and interview transcripts, he said in a March 15 letter provided to CNN by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs a subcommittee overseeing the judiciary. Chertoff said his firm conducted no additional investigation or interviews.
“Some of the investigative files included transcripts or summaries of phone conversations that were provided to investigators, but our primary focus was on a review of documentary evidence,” Chertoff wrote.
Chertoff did not provide details about those summaries or any information about the money his firm was paid for work on its review or its prior services. CNN earlier had reported that the firm’s contracts with the Supreme Court exceeded $1 million.
The Chertoff Group earlier referred questions about its business with the court to court officials. The court had no immediate response to questions about Chertoff’s work. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing.
The high court enlisted Chertoff to publicly vouch in January for the court’s inconclusive report on the premature disclosure of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was published by Politico last May. Neither the court nor Chertoff disclosed their prior financial relationships, which might have undercut Chertoff’s seal of approval in the public eye.
Responding to Whitehouse and Georgia Democratic Rep. Henry “Hank” Johnson, who questioned Chertoff after CNN’s report on a potential conflict of interest, Chertoff wrote that Roberts’ staff had earlier sought the firm’s assistance beginning in 2018 “on a variety of matters related to protecting the Justices, including at their homes and while travelling.”
“In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he continued, “the Court requested that we assist them in developing a pandemic risk management plan for Court employees and their courtroom operations. In 2021, the Supreme Court asked that we again advise on matters designed to protect the Court premises, employees, and members of the public.”
The congressional letter came after CNN reported that Chertoff’s financial relationship was kept confidential as the justices touted him as an expert who had independently validated its leak investigation, which failed to turn up any culprit.
Their February 23 letter said, “The Court’s failure to explain adequately why it felt a third-party review was necessary, how it chose that reviewer, and its preexisting relationship with the reviewer all warrant additional clarity.”
The early leak of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by four fellow conservatives, represented an unprecedented disclosure of a draft document. It had the effect of hardening that narrow 5-4 vote and stymieing internal debate in the case.
The investigation, overseen by the court’s marshal, Gail Curley, failed to identify anyone responsible for the disclosure. Her 20-page report detailed some of the steps in the inquiry, including 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, but also noted some of the loose protocol that might have contributed to the leak. For example, about 100 people had access to the draft opinion at the outset and many employees printed out multiple copies.
In a one-page statement issued with the report in late January, Chertoff wrote that Curley “undertook a thorough investigation” and said he could not identify any other measure that should have been taken.
Chertoff wrote at the time that Roberts had asked him “to independently review and assess the thoroughness of the investigation into the Dobbs draft opinion leak and to identify any additional useful investigative measures as well as actions that would improve the handling of sensitive documents in the future.”
The Supreme Court’s own statement on the matter emphasized Chertoff’s seal of approval. Nowhere in the materials provided did the justices mention Chertoff had previously been on previous security-related contracts.
CNN had learned from sources familiar with the arrangements that the court had privately contracted with The Chertoff Group for security assessments at the justices’ homes and separately related to Covid-19 protocols. Chertoff in his March 15 letter did not disclose the amounts of the contracts for his work.
He said the firm was retained for the leak investigation review as in an addendum to a prior contract.
Chertoff, who has run a security firm since 2009, also acknowledged but minimized his relationships with justices in the letter to Capitol Hill, writing that he does “not maintain regular social relationships” with any of them. But, he said that over nearly 50 years in the law and public service he has “had periodic interactions with many of them, mostly in public social settings.” More than 15 years ago he served as a judge with now-Justice Samuel Alito on the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals and also had worked with Alito when Alito was the US attorney for New Jersey.
“Lastly, I have had occasional social exchanges with several Justices over the past 15 years, mostly at widely attended events.” | SCOTUS |
Two weeks after President Joe Biden’s nominee for a prized federal judgeship appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a majority of Democrats on that panel have yet to commit to supporting his nomination.
The White House is standing by its nominee, raising the possibility that Biden will face his first public judicial setback at the hands of his own party.
Former New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney, Biden’s nominee for the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals, is facing serious questions about his handling of a 2016 civil suit related to the sexual assault of a minor.
Representing the boarding school where the assault took place, Delaney argued that the victim should only remain anonymous if certain conditions were met. In the event the case went to trial, Delaney argued she should be stripped of her anonymity entirely, which the victim’s family believes was intended to have a chilling effect.
Delaney has defended his approach to the case, arguing it was in line with how another court handled a similar dispute and promising that, if confirmed, he would follow newer precedent from the 1st Circuit concerning anonymity in sexual assault cases. After Delaney’s filing, the victim, Chessy Prout, decided to identify herself publicly; her family withdrew their motion for anonymity and the case was ultimately settled with a confidential agreement.
Prout said she was inspired to seek justice at the time by the “It’s On Us” sexual assault prevention campaign Biden had led as vice president.
“And now, to have the very person who inspired me to seek justice nominate the attorney who tried to tamper and take away my right to anonymity in my search for justice is just astounding,” Prout told CNN in an interview. “And really disappointing.”
The current uncertainty around Delaney’s nomination comes after months of efforts by Prout and her family to raise concerns about his selection – before the choice was even publicly announced – with the Biden administration and New Hampshire’s senators, who submitted Delaney’s name to the White House to fill the judicial vacancy in their state.
After catching wind last April that Delaney was slated to be nominated for the position, the Prouts sought meetings with the staff of Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, the Democratic senators from New Hampshire, and reached out to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, which is responsible for vetting judicial nominees and submitting a report to the White House.
Following the outreach, the Prouts said a DOJ official contacted them last April and interviewed them all extensively about Delaney’s involvement in the 2016 lawsuit. The parents also met via Zoom in April with Shaheen’s and Hassan’s staff to express their concerns, hoping the senators would withdraw their support and seek a different nominee.
“We wanted to give them the opportunity to withdraw this nomination,” Alexander Prout, Chessy’s father, said. “We felt strongly that if they just understood what Delaney had done, that they would very quickly pull back this nomination.”
Instead, Delaney’s nomination sat on ice for months, until he was officially nominated in January.
Now, the Prouts have turned their focus to other Senate Democrats and have spoken with the offices of nearly every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, hoping to convince at least one to oppose the nomination.
“He is being looked at very closely now,” Alexander Prout told CNN in an interview. “We have seen a number of the Senate staffers say, ‘We are taking this very seriously. This is something that I will personally speak to the senator about.’ We take that as very encouraging language.”
While a majority of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee – including its chairman – are noncommittal about supporting Delaney’s nomination, none has expressed outright opposition.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, told CNN he intends to vote for Delaney. And Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said she was “prepared to vote for him” but is in the process of reviewing Delaney’s written responses to senators’ follow-up questions.
Delaney still has the firm backing of Hassan and Shaheen, who, as home state senators, are given significant sway by the White House over judicial nominations in their state. Both have been working behind the scenes to win over their Democratic colleagues.
Shaheen, in particular, has mounted a forceful campaign to ensure Delaney makes it out of committee and is ultimately confirmed, two sources familiar with the process said, meeting with her colleagues, reminding them of his broader record as New Hampshire attorney general and encouraging colleagues to look the totality of his career, not just his actions in one civil lawsuit.
Democrats reviewing Delaney’s record
Delaney struggled to assuage concerns and parry criticism from Republicans about his handling of the case during his hearing before the Senate panel last month, leaving even the committee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, to call it “a pretty rough hearing” and to vow to “take a closer look at his record.”
Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said he is “having discussions” about the nomination “with a lot of different people” but declined to outline any specific concerns.
“I don’t want to get into it yet. I want to make my mind up, and then I am happy to discuss it,” Booker said.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island who is an alumnus of the boarding school in the case, said he had “not caught up on the legendary Mr. Delaney.”
“I don’t want to offer opinions until I have looked into it,” Whitehouse said. “I missed the hearing and am not up to speed.”
Another one of the senators still undecided is Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who told CNN in an interview he was still reading up on dozens of responses from Delaney following the hearing.
“We need to be very frank and say we want satisfactory answers to these questions about some of what he did while he was in private practice,” Blumenthal said.
For now, senators mostly say they are digging into hundreds of questions for the record that Delaney returned to them on Monday.
“I review all nominees on the merits. I look closely at their qualifications and their record . I consider them all carefully and consider the interests of the state of Georgia,” Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff told CNN.
Pressed on if he had concerns over the handling of the St. Paul’s case specifically, he said, “I will look carefully at every aspect of every nominee’s record.”
California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla and Vermont Sen. Peter Welch said they were still reviewing Delaney’s nomination.
Asked several times about Delaney’s record over the course of a few days, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said she was reviewing his responses to questions for the record.
Earlier this month, just two Democrats questioned Delaney in the hearing. While several of the Democrats CNN spoke with said they had scheduling conflicts, Republicans senators seized on the lack of attendance as a sign of trouble for Delaney.
“They’re avoiding. They didn’t want to be there,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican member on the committee who opposes Delaney’s nomination and hopes he will be pulled from consideration.
“I know what the facts are, and I heard his responses to them, and I talked to her parents, and her by the way, and they are not conservatives at all,” Hawley said. “This isn’t a partisan thing.”
The White House declined to answer a series of questions about Delaney’s nomination and the process of vetting him, pointing instead to a previous statement of support following Delaney’s February hearing that called attention to his “strong track record of upholding the rule of law, including taking action to protect vulnerable victims.”
“The White House has the utmost respect for sexual assault and domestic violence survivors, and expects senators to take Mr. Delaney’s full record into account when considering his nomination – as the White House did before nominating Mr. Delaney to the First Circuit,” White House spokesperson Seth Schuster said in the statement.
Questions over handling of 2016 case
Delaney’s nomination controversy stems from a 2016 motion he filed in federal court on behalf of St. Paul’s School, in which Delaney urged the court to only grant Chessy Prout’s request for anonymity on the condition that her attorneys “refrain from making any further public statements about” the case “until the litigation is complete.”
He also argued that Prout should not be allowed to proceed anonymously during an eventual trial, arguing that “only in ‘exceptional’ cases may a court grant a party anonymity in an otherwise public proceeding.”
While explaining during last month’s committee hearing the legal position he took on behalf of the school, Delaney stressed he was acting as an advocate and his considerations as a judge would be different. He also pointed to his experience as a prosecutor working with victims and said it had taught him “how important the interaction between the judge on the bench and the victim of the crimes is.”
Stacy Malone, executive director of the Victim Rights Law Center, said motions like the one Delaney filed can have a chilling effect on survivors of sexual assault. She said the use of pseudonyms in civil cases related to sexual assault is so routine that defendants rarely oppose them.
“When you look at how important anonymity is for rape and sexual assault survivors … their privacy is so critical, and if we don’t allow them to do these cases anonymously, then we are going to decrease the chances of holding perpetrators and institutions accountable when it comes to instances of sexual violence,” Malone said.
Chessy Prout told CNN she interpreted Delaney’s motion at the time as “an attempt to silence me and intimidate me into not pursuing justice.” It came as she and her family were already facing death and sexual violence threats after her name leaked out onto the darker corners of the internet.
“It read to me like, if you want to proceed, if you want to fight this and take it to the furthest legal extent that I could, then I would have to do it publicly,” she said.
In written responses to follow-up questions from senators, Delaney acknowledged that “there is no doubt that civil litigation can have a chilling effect on women who come forward to risk privacy and advance civil claims following a sexual assault” but argued that his motion “did not seek to compel the Prout family to give up anonymity at pretrial stages of the case.” Instead, he said he was trying to ensure a potential jury pool wouldn’t be influenced by public comments by the Prout’s attorneys.
As for his motion to strip Prout of anonymity during an eventual trial, Delaney said “that request was consistent with how other trial courts had handled the use of pseudonyms at public trials.”
Malone rejected the distinction, arguing that Delaney was “weaponizing (Prout’s) own privacy against her.”
“It’s a tactic,” Malone said. “This is definitely an attempt to silence her and an attempt to intimidate her.”
Delaney maintains his role in the civil suit would not affect his handling of cases as a federal judge, noting repeatedly that his “role would be very different.”
“I do not believe my role as an advocate for the school in this case would compromise my ability to be a fair and impartial judge,” Delaney told senators.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Nicky Robertson contributed to this report. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
With more than 340 victories at Starbucks stores across the US, the campaign to organize the coffee chain’s workers is one of the most successful union drives in a generation. But Starbucks’ fierce union-busting campaign has badly slowed its momentum and exposed deep flaws in US labor law that threaten other promising unionization efforts.
Two years on since workers at a Buffalo Starbucks started the first successful campaign to form a union at a company-run store, labor experts say the coffee chain’s aggressive union-busting is shining a harsh light on the shortcomings of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and how that 88-year-old law which governs unionization campaigns is proving far too weak to stop a powerful, multibillion corporation from using an arsenal of illegal tactics to stifle a highly promising union drive.
Many labor experts say the unionization campaign at Starbucks has done more than any other effort to inspire union drives, whether at Trader Joe’s, Apple or elsewhere, but if Starbucks succeeds in quashing its baristas’ organizing efforts and prevents them from ever getting a first contract, that would be a major symbolic and substantive blow to the hopes for a union rebirth in the US.
Even strong union supporters admit that Starbucks’ “union avoidance” tactics have severely cut into the union’s momentum and win rate.
“Starbucks has figured out an ingenious plan to get around labor law, which is: break so many labor laws so fast that the National Labor Relations Board simply can’t keep up in enforcing the law,” said Jaz Brisack, a fired barista who worked at the first company-run Starbucks – the Elmwood Avenue store in Buffalo – where workers voted in favor of unionizing.
The regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have brought 100 separate cases against Starbucks – an extraordinarily high number – which together allege more than 1,000 illegal actions, many of them in retaliation against workers for unionizing: from closing stores because they had unionized to reducing workers’ hours after their stores unionized. The NLRB has also filed an unusual nationwide complaint accusing Starbucks of refusing to bargain at 163 unionized stores across 28 states.
All told, rulings by various judges and the five-person labor board have ordered reinstatement of 28 Starbucks workers they found to have been illegally fired in retaliation for union activity. Dozens more pro-union baristas are awaiting rulings about whether they, too, were fired illegally – the NLRA prohibits employers from retaliating against workers for backing a union. Their union, Starbucks Workers United, asserts that nearly 200 workers have been fired in retaliation for union activity.
“If Starbucks had not engaged in this ferocious, unlawful campaign, they would have 3,000 unionized stores by now, not 300,” said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University and an expert on corporations’ anti-union strategies. The number of unionization petitions filed by Starbucks workers has plummeted from 71 a month in March 2022 to around a dozen a month today.
Logan said the NLRA aims to let workers freely choose whether they want a union to represent them. “The problem,” he said, “is companies like Starbucks have turned it into a choice by the companies, not by the workers.”
When Starbucks’ former CEO, Howard Schultz, testified before a Senate committee in March, he asserted that the company had not broken the law even once in battling against the union. Starbucks continues to maintain that position, asserting that any pro-union worker who was fired was not dismissed for union activity, but for violating company rules, such as arriving late to work.
Labor leaders often complain that the NLRA’s weaknesses give a bright green light to anti-union companies to break the law. The NLRA doesn’t allow for any fines, not even one dollar, if a company is found to have, for instance, illegally fired the four workers leading a union drive. Nor can a company be fined for closing a store or operation in retaliation for its workers unionizing. When the NLRB rules that a company broke the law by refusing to bargain, it can’t order the company to reach a first contract. All it can do is order the company to return to the bargaining table, but when that happens, many companies resume doing everything they can to avoid ever reaching a first contract. Even though the first Starbucks store unionized 20 months ago, the company hasn’t reached a contract with workers at any of its 340-plus unionized stores.
“The remedy that’s ordered for a failure to bargain in good faith is an order to bargain more. That just doesn’t work,” said Benjamin Sachs, a labor law professor at Harvard.
In response to the Guardian’s questions, Starbucks said it “is committed to progress negotiations towards a first contract”. The company accused the union of dragging its feet in bargaining, saying the union “has only responded to 25% of the more than 465 bargaining sessions that Starbucks has proposed for individual stores”.
The union responded that Starbucks is the one under scrutiny for refusing to bargain. The union added that it hasn’t responded to many of Starbucks’ requests to bargain because the company has sought to “impose illegal conditions” intended “to prevent us from designating members of our own bargaining teams”. The union says Starbucks has failed to make even one counterproposal to its many bargaining proposals.
“Starbucks is proof that a concerted effort by a corporation to delay and violate the law too easily succeeds under the rules of the game we have today,” Sachs said. “We need new rules of the game.
“Starbucks isn’t the only one to blame,” he added. “The legal system bears responsibility for enabling corporations to act this way.”
Criticizing the system’s delays, Sachs noted that after a fired worker asks the NLRB for reinstatement, it can take up to five years of litigation – including a decision by an NLRB administrative law judge, then an appeal to the five-person labor board, then an appeal to a federal circuit court of appeals – before a worker wins reinstatement, and by then the union drive has often fallen apart because workers were frightened off or discouraged from joining.
“You can have all the labor protections in the world, but if you don’t have an effective enforcement and remedies scheme, then it’s virtually worthless,” said Wilma Liebman, who served as chair of the NLRB under Barack Obama.
Schultz and his company continue to assert that Starbucks has not violated the law even though judges have ruled that Starbucks illegally closed a store in Ithaca in retaliation for unionizing; illegally threatened workers in Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and Buffalo with loss in pay and benefits because of union activity; illegally reduced the hours of Wichita baristas; illegally spied on workers in Pittsburgh; and illegally called police because baristas in Kansas City had congregated outside their store.
“Howard Schultz will say to the grave that Starbucks hasn’t broken the law, but that’s factually inaccurate,” San Francisco State’s Logan said, pointing to the many rulings that Starbucks has violated the law.
Starbucks has appealed ruling after ruling that found it has acted unlawfully. Schultz maintained that just because a trial judge had found illegalities doesn’t mean Starbucks did anything wrong – that finding might be overturned on appeal.
Acknowledging that appeals can last years, Starbucks said: “The process for reviewing the merits of these allegations is multi-step, includes several layers of review by the NLRB and the federal court system, and usually takes years to complete. Where claims have been filed against Starbucks that we believe are unfounded, we continue to defend the company.”
Starbucks workers see a clear objective behind Starbucks’ retaliatory moves: to frighten and even terrorize workers – to make workers too scared to support or work for unionization. Pro-union workers further assert that what they see as Starbucks’ refusal to bargain aims to deter workers at additional stores from unionizing by sending a loud message that if they unionize, there’s no guarantee their store will negotiate a first contract anytime soon to deliver better wages and benefits. Workers at many stores allege that after their stores voted to unionize, management cut back on their weekly hours (and weekly pay) and cut their store’s staffing to make their jobs more stressful and to show that unpleasant things happen if they unionize.
“Starbucks has taken a scorched-earth policy to target union leaders and union stores for retaliation,” said Richard Bensinger, an adviser to the Starbucks’ unionization drive. “Starbucks is starving out union supporters. They’re cutting their hours and starving the stores by cutting staff. They’re starving the unionized workers by not giving them credit card tips. They’re doing everything they can at union stores to be as nasty as they can to undermine the union, to say to non-union workers, ‘‘Look what’s happening there.’ In some cases, they’re even closing unionized stores, like in Ithaca.”
Starbucks closed all three of its stores in Ithaca, New York, the first city in the US where every Starbucks was unionized. The company said the closings were for business reasons and had nothing to do with the union. But Kolya Vitek, a barista who worked at two of the Ithaca stores, said: “The closures are very blatantly union-busting. There is no reason they needed to close those stores.” Stephanie Heslop, another barista in Ithaca, added: “They wanted to burn the union to the ground here.”
After nearly four years as a barista, Quinn Craig led the effort to unionize a Starbucks in San Antonio, Texas. “As soon as we filed our petition, I started preparing to get fired. I knew that it was coming,” said Craig, who often wore a cap saying “Scary Union Organizer”. “I saw that Starbucks was firing lead organizers in stores all across the country. By the time we won our election, we saw 30 or 40 worker-organizers fired across the country.”
The San Antonio organizing drive was fueled by dismay with constantly changing work schedules and what workers said was systematic understaffing, which made their jobs far more stressful. “We also wanted to advocate for a better benefits system,” Craig said. “More than half the people at our store didn’t qualify for all the benefits that Starbucks is bragging about.”
On 23 June 2022, the San Antonio workers voted 10 to 6 to unionize. Soon after, workers said, Starbucks began reducing their weekly hours and pay – a move many saw as punishment for unionizing and a stratagem to get them to quit.
On the first anniversary of their union victory, the store’s workers walked out, protesting what they said was understaffing. That same day, Craig was fired. “They fired me on the one-year anniversary of our store winning a union election,” Craig said. “They fired the lead organizer on the day we were celebrating. That’s villainous. They’re not sneaky about their retaliatory actions.”
To explain the firing, Starbucks said Craig had failed to secure the store’s cash or set the security alarm before the walkout. “I called the manager to say we were walking out,” Craig said. “Her response was ‘OK’ and [she] hung up” – without giving any instructions.
Alleging unlawful retaliation, Craig has asked the NLRB for reinstatement. Craig says Starbucks’ tactics – the firings, closings and reduced hours – “have really had a chilling effect. I personally saw several stores in my region lose interest in unionizing. Without all the union-busting, we could have had double the number of stores in my region organized.”
Many baristas say one Starbucks strategy in particular has discouraged workers from unionizing. In May 2022, Schultz announced that Starbucks would give certain raises and benefits to workers at its more than 9,000 non-union stores, but not offer those raises and benefits to its unionized workers. Starbucks insists it would be illegal to impose any raises or benefits on its unionized stores without first negotiating about them, but the NLRB’s general counsel asserts that this policy constitutes unlawful discrimination against Starbucks’ unionized workers. Under this policy, Starbucks has given its non-union workers, but not its unionized ones, a more relaxed dress code, increased training, faster sick leave accrual and, most important, credit card tipping. (Workers at the first few Starbucks stores to unionize had asked early on for credit card tipping.)
Baristas say credit card tipping can boost pay by $5 an hour, often meaning a 30% pay increase. Starbucks’ refusal to give many raises and benefits, including credit card tipping, to workers at its unionized stores has fueled decertification efforts at more than a dozen stores. Decertification is a process to vote out the union. Pointing to the denial of credit card tipping, San Francisco State’s Logan said: “Starbucks is offering the workers a $5-an-hour bribe to vote out the union.”
Federal law prohibits companies from aiding decertification efforts. Starbucks has referred workers interested in decertification to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a group long funded by rightwing billionaires, including the Koch brothers. But the coffee company says it hasn’t joined in that foundation’s efforts to assist decertification petitions. The NLRB has blocked several of the decertification petitions because it says Starbucks had failed to bargain in good faith, preventing workers from getting a fair shot at reaching a first contract. Starbucks has criticized the labor board for not giving its workers a free choice to decertify the union – a claim many workers ridicule, saying that Starbucks, with its aggressive union-busting, hasn’t given its workers a free choice on whether to unionize.
Labor experts have long proposed ways to revamp the NLRA so that it truly discourages illegal actions by anti-union employers. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (Pro Act), which President Biden backs, but Senate Republicans have blocked, calls for substantial fines against companies that fire pro-union workers or commit other illegal actions.
“Unless Starbucks is made to pay a real price for its illegal conduct, there will be no reason for it not to violate the law,” Logan said. “I would like to see a discussion of having criminal penalties for CEOs whose companies engage in egregious unlawful practices.”
Many labor leaders say that to prevent years of delay before negotiating a first contract – that is, if one is ever negotiated – the NLRA should provide for compulsory arbitration if the two sides fail to reach a first contract within a few months. The Pro Act calls for mandatory arbitration. Some labor experts look to Alberta, Canada, as a model; there, if the two sides fail to reach a first contract within 90 days after bargaining begins, the dispute goes to a neutral arbitrator who determines the contract’s provisions.
But every time Democrats have pushed to amend the NLRA to make it easier to unionize, Republicans have used filibusters to block the legislation. That happened under presidents Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden.
Short of overhauling the NLRA, union supporters say the NLRB should obtain a nationwide injunction to order Starbucks to cease and desist from firing pro-union baristas. The NLRB’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, has repeatedly sought such an injunction, but judges have thus far failed to grant it, evidently not convinced that Starbucks is systematically taking illegal actions.
Starbucks baristas applauded a NLRB decision from last Friday that some labor experts say could go far to discourage companies like Starbucks from violating the law when battling against unionization. Under the board’s decision, if a majority of workers sign cards saying they want to unionize and the employer insists on holding a union vote and then is found by the NLRB to have broken the law in fighting unionization, the labor board will order the company to grant union recognition based on the signed cards.
But labor experts fear that conservative, corporate-friendly federal judges may overturn the NLRB’s decision.
With labor leaders complaining that Starbucks’ illegalities continue unabated, many pro-union workers are pushing for more militant action to get Starbucks to stop the firings and negotiate a first contract. Some have called for more strikes or civil disobedience outside Starbucks cafes or a nationwide consumer boycott – or a combination of all three strategies.
Despite Starbucks’ aggressive tactics, many workers remain optimistic. “They’re doing everything they can to crush our organizing effort. What they’re doing is terrible, closing stories and firings,” said Casey Moore, a union spokesperson and fired Buffalo barista. “But every day we still have stores filing for elections and workers emerging with new energy.” | Labor Activism |
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has reached a settlement agreement to pay $8.9 billion to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that talc in its iconic Baby Powder and other products caused cancer, according to a statement from the company. The settlement amount is significantly higher than J&J's original offer of $2 billion, reflecting the escalating legal challenges the company has faced.
The agreement comes after a January appeals court ruling invalidated J&J's controversial "Texas two-step" bankruptcy maneuver, in which it sought to transfer the talc liability to a subsidiary that immediately filed for Chapter 11. The subsidiary, LTL Management, has now filed for bankruptcy protection for a second time with the intention of presenting a reorganization plan containing the proposed settlement to a judge as early as May 14, according to a court filing.
J&J stated that approximately 60,000 talc claimants have agreed to the proposed settlement. However, there is still a significant risk that other plaintiffs could continue to oppose the settlement and appeal the case to the same court that has already rejected the subsidiary bankruptcy - the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
J&J has maintained that its talc products are safe and do not cause cancer, with company lawyers arguing that talc claims lack scientific merit and accusing plaintiffs' lawyers of seeking large financial sums by advertising for clients. Nevertheless, attorneys representing thousands of plaintiffs have issued a release opposing the settlement, calling it a "sham deal" that does not adequately compensate victims for their medical bills, according to Jason Itkin, founding partner of the Houston-based personal injury law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP.
The proposed settlement would provide payouts from a bankruptcy trust for plaintiffs diagnosed with cancer before April 1 within one year of a judge approving the Chapter 11 plan, with access to funds set aside in the trust for the next 25 years for plaintiffs diagnosed later, according to Mikal Watts, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers who helped negotiate the deal.
The massive settlement comes after the legal failure of J&J's original Texas two-step bankruptcy, which was filed in October 2021. The tactic, seen as an abuse of the bankruptcy system by critics, involved dividing the company being sued into two using a Texas state law and shifting liability to one of the newly created entities. LTL Management, the new subsidiary that absorbed the liability, filed for bankruptcy almost immediately after its creation.
J&J and its subsidiary have argued that the bankruptcy served the greater good for all parties, including plaintiffs, as the restructuring could deliver settlement payouts more fairly, efficiently, and equitably compared to trial courts where awards can vary significantly. However, the appeals court denied the J&J subsidiary's bid to delay the ruling from taking effect while seeking a review from the US Supreme Court, and US Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in New Jersey has now dismissed the previous LTL bankruptcy, complying with the appeals court ruling that reversed his earlier decision endorsing the maneuver.
Plaintiffs' attorney Mikal Watts believes that enough plaintiffs have agreed to the settlement to convince a bankruptcy judge to approve it, but the high bar of needing 75% of plaintiff-creditors to approve a restructuring plan in asbestos-related bankruptcies adds further complexity to the situation. A 2018 Reuters investigation revealed that J&J knew for decades about tests showing its talc sometimes contained carcinogenic asbestos but kept that information from regulators and the public. J&J announced in 2020 that it would stop selling its talc Baby Powder in the US and Canada due to "misinformation" about the product and later announced its intent to discontinue it worldwide in 2023. | US Federal Policies |
US Jobs Seen Growing In Tune With Resilient Economy: Eco Week
Upcoming readouts of the US labor market are projected to show more moderate yet still healthy job growth, an historically low unemployment rate, cooler wage gains and fewer vacancies.
(Bloomberg) -- Upcoming readouts of the US labor market are projected to show more moderate yet still healthy job growth, an historically low unemployment rate, cooler wage gains and fewer vacancies.
The jobs report will be front and center in a holiday-shortened week, with economists forecasting nonfarm payrolls increased by 225,000 in June. While still considered generally strong, it would be one of the smallest advances since the end of 2020.
Friday’s data are forecast to show the unemployment rate eased to 3.6%, while average hourly earnings grew 4.2% from June 2022 — the smallest annual advance in two years.
A slew of other labor-related indicators will come in the lead-up to Friday’s report, including the latest figures on job cut announcements, private payrolls from ADP, weekly unemployment claims, and May job openings.
What Bloomberg Economics Says:
“Wall Street analysts and economists are increasingly optimistic that the US economy is heading for a soft-landing scenario — a sentiment shared by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in his comments during a June 28 panel discussion. We disagree. A key source of past resilience in the economy – households’ financial buffer – is fast disappearing. As a result, consumer delinquencies and small business bankruptcies are rising fast.”
—Anna Wong, Stuart Paul, Eliza Winger and Jonathan Church, economists. For full analysis, click here
The robust labor market has been a key source of fuel for the economy as the Federal Reserve kept tightening monetary policy to put a lid on inflation. As currently forecast, the June data would be consistent with recent reports showing a resilient economic expansion.
Read More: Surprisingly Strong Economic Data Keeps Recession Fears at Bay
The Institute of Supply Management will also release figures on manufacturing and services activity. Sandwiched between the two will be Wednesday’s release of minutes from the Fed’s June meeting, at which policymakers left interest rates unchanged. Investors will look for clues on when hiking may resume.
Read More: Powell Says Likely Need Two or More Hikes to Cool Inflation
Looking north, Canadian job numbers for June will offer a final look at how the economy there is faring ahead of the central bank’s rate decision the following week. Statisticians will also release consumption, savings and wealth data for different household income levels for the first quarter of 2023.
Elsewhere, a possible rate hike in Australia, a measure of China’s economic health, and inflation reports from Switzerland to Turkey to Brazil will keep investors busy.
Click here for what happened in the past week, and below is our wrap of what’s coming up in the global economy.
Asia
China’s Caixin PMI reading on Monday will offer an unofficial snapshot of how the factory sector in the world’s second-largest economy is faring amid concern Beijing is running out of stimulus tools to support growth.
PMIs from around Asia on Tuesday will show how the wider region is faring.
The Reserve Bank of Australia also meets that day, with another rate hike likely, although opinion is split following weaker-than-expected monthly inflation figures for May.
Malaysia’s central bank is seen holding rates steady on Thursday, with Sri Lanka’s policy decision also due out that day.
The Bank of Japan’s Tankan report at the start of the week will show the latest on corporate sentiment, while wages at the end of the week will give further pointers for the BOJ to mull as it heads toward its next policy meeting at the end of the month.
Inflation readings are largely expected to show a further slowdown in Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand.
The Philippines also releases inflation data in the first week of new central bank Governor Eli Remolona’s six-year term.
- For more, read Bloomberg Economics’ full Week Ahead for Asia
Europe, Middle East, Africa
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, will be in the spotlight as reports show how the industrial machine that motors it fared in May.
Exports on Tuesday, factory orders on Thursday and industrial production on Friday may illustrate the extent to which a recession earlier this year still overhangs growth prospects.
With German inflation having re-accelerated in June, helping to drive an underlying measure higher in the wider euro region, European Central Bank officials are moving toward a rate increase in July that could well be followed up with further action.
Appearances by policymakers, including Vice President Luis de Guindos and Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau, may offer clues on the monetary outlook.
Elsewhere, Swiss data on Monday will reveal if inflation there slowed below the 2% ceiling targeted by the central bank.
A quiet week in the UK features little on the calendar other than an appearance by Bank of England official Catherine Mann on Friday.
Data in the Nordic region, where monetary tightening is still in full swing, will draw scrutiny, including monthly gross domestic product on Friday in both Sweden and Norway.
Turning east, Romania’s central bank is expected on Wednesday to keep its rate unchanged for a fourth meeting. Officials are waiting for inflation to ease convincingly before embarking on loosening.
In Poland the following day, monetary officials are also anticipated to keep borrowing costs unchanged. Governor Adam Glapinski, with a new set of staff projections in hand, may be more forthcoming with a guidance on possible rates cuts.
For Turkey, where inflation was close to 40% in May, data on Wednesday might show slowing price growth. The report will be closely watched after tightening finally resumed there following its election in May.
And after six successive rate hikes of a combined 475 basis points, a sharp appreciation in Sierra Leone’s currency against the dollar in June may help to slow runaway inflation, giving the central bank room to keep borrowing costs unchanged on Monday.
- For more, read Bloomberg Economics’ full Week Ahead for EMEA
Latin America
Inflation forecasts in the Brazilian central bank’s Focus survey of economists may edge lower for a seventh week, following the National Monetary Council’s decision to set the inflation target at 3% for the coming years.
Forecasts for June monthly inflation tumbled from 0.52% in early May to -0.09% in the June 23 survey — implying a 3.15% annual print, 10 basis points below target.
Colombia’s central bank on Thursday posts the minutes of Friday’s meeting, at which policymakers ended a record hiking campaign to leave the key rate at 13.25%. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect easing to start in the fourth quarter.
With Chile’s central bank poised to begin unwinding its longest and sharpest hiking cycle, the minutes of its June meeting aren’t likely to serve up surprises. The June inflation report is expected to show prices slowed for a ninth month in 10.
In Mexico, the June consumer price report should back Banxico’s June 22 decision to end a record hiking cycle: economists see the headline and core prints coming in below the central bank’s forecasts.
Look for the minutes of Banxico’s June meeting to find policymakers reiterating the need “to keep the interest rate at its current level for a prolonged period,” while providing little if any guidance on the potential timing of any easing.
- For more, read Bloomberg Economics’ full Week Ahead for Latin America
--With assistance from Robert Jameson, Patrick Donahue, Laura Dhillon Kane, Paul Jackson and Monique Vanek.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Labor Activism |
Alphabet Inc. illegally ended contract employment for a majority of Google Help workers as they were trying to unionize, organizers alleged in a complaint to the US labor board.
The Alphabet Workers Union accused the internet giant of violating federal labor law, which prohibits retaliation against employees for organizing. More than 70% of the proposed bargaining unit — which includes 118 writers, graphic designers and launch coordinators who create internal and external Google content — were told in July that they will lose their jobs, according to a Thursday filing with the National Labor Relations Board.
The workers, whose jobs have included improving the quality of answers in Google’s search engine and artificial intelligence chatbot, are employed through the vendor Accenture Plc. But the union contends Alphabet is also legally their boss. It has asked the NLRB to designate the internet giant a “joint employer” of the Accenture staff, meaning a company that exercises enough control over a group of workers to be liable for their treatment and, if they choose to unionize, obligated to negotiate with them.
The decision to cut people’s jobs “feels retaliatory,” said Anjail Muhammad, who was told her role as a writer with Accenture will be eliminated. “It’s obvious that this timing is incredibly suspicious, and that is why we are filing an unfair labor practice charge — to hold Google and Accenture accountable for their behavior.”
Accenture didn’t immediately provide a comment. When Accenture announced it was cutting the workers’ jobs in July, a company spokesperson said in a statement that Accenture supports the rights of its people to form or join unions. They added: “As conveyed to our people recently, these workforce decisions were made prior to any notification to us of potential union activity.”
A spokesperson for Google said in July that the company respects the workers’ rights but that organizing was “a matter between them and their employer, Accenture,” and that “Google does not control their employment terms or working conditions.” The company on Thursday said it still stands by that statement, and rejected the idea that changes for the Accenture Google Help contract were for any purpose other than savings and efficiency. Google said it chooses its partners and staffing agencies carefully and reviews their compliance with the company’s Supplier Code of Conduct.
The workers, who are based in Austin, Texas; the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the US, were told about the cuts during a livestreamed “town hall” that did not allow questions or comments, according to several employees who attended the session, who declined to be identified sharing non-public information. Later, they received a follow-up about “the Content Creation team supporting Google,” according to an email reviewed by Bloomberg. “As discussed during the townhall, the account team has adjusted our support for this project to meet the needs of our client,” it said. The team would be reduced on a rolling basis through November, according to emails from Accenture, with the first round of terminations coming on August 7.
Tahlia Kirk, a writer and team trainer, said that with the layoffs, employees working on the Accenture contract for Google will be reduced to 40 US-based people, from about 130. She said they have been instructed to train their replacements who work in the Philippines and India. But even with the reduced headcount, Kirk said, “I’m confident that we have such strong support that we will win the union election, no matter what.”
The dispute is the latest controversy over what Alphabet owes its vast army of contract staff, who in 2018 became the majority of its global workforce. Another group of Alphabet contract staff, employed by Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. to work on YouTube Music in Texas, voted 41-to-0 to unionize in April. On July 19, NLRB members in Washington DC upheld a regional director’s ruling that Alphabet was a joint employer of those workers, meaning the company is required to collectively bargain with them, a first in its history. But Alphabet has signaled it will still refuse to negotiate with the workers, who it contends are not its employees, meaning the issue is likely to end up in federal appeals court. “We’ll continue to assert our position that we’re not a joint employer,” spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said last month.
In interviews, workers disputed the idea that Google had little control over their jobs. Laura Greene, a multimedia team leader, said she spent her time at work coordinating with full-time Google employees on content strategy, and that she had created internal white papers and infographics for people who report directly to Alphabet’s chief executive officer.
“Most of my work week, I am talking to Googlers, working with Googlers,” Greene said. “I’ve worked with them a lot more closely than I do Accenture managers. I have a Google email, I use their proprietary systems and equipment. And if I have a problem with my equipment, I call Google tech support.” Google said it was not abnormal for some contract staffers to work with Googlers or communicate on Google systems to perform their assignments.
Complaints filed with the NLRB are investigated by regional officials, whose task in the Google Help case would include determining whether Alphabet is in fact a joint employer. If a regional director finds merit in the union’s claims and can’t secure a settlement, they would prosecute the case before an agency judge, whose ruling could be appealed to the NLRB members in DC and from there into federal appeals court.
Kirk, the team trainer, said Google and Accenture’s decision to cut the majority of jobs on the team would cause “irrevocable damage” to the quality of the content work, given the loss of institutional knowledge and the substitution of US employees for overseas workers who will need to be rushed through training.
“I think a lot of people are going to say about the layoffs, ‘Well, what do you expect from a big tech company?’” Kirk added. “But people constantly forget that unionizing is a federally protected right. If these companies are trying to lay us off to prevent us from voting in our union election — and that is what appears to be happening — they are breaking the law.” | Labor Activism |
(Bloomberg) -- Recruitment companies are abandoning annual earnings forecasts, squeezed by a softening labor market in which employers are paying for fewer job listings.
Most Read from Bloomberg
ZipRecruiter Inc. withdrew its annual guidance citing “atypical hiring patterns” in the first half after cutting 20% of its staff in May. Recruit Holdings Co., the owner of Indeed and Glassdoor, warned it was “not sure yet” when growth would return despite expecting $500 million of annual cost savings after chopping about 2,400 jobs, including about 15% of Indeed’s workforce.
“We are expecting decreasing revenue and profit at this moment. And we have uncertainties with regards to the external environment. So we are not announcing full-year guidance,” Recruit’s Corporate Executive Officer, Junichi Arai, said on its earnings call last week. Tokyo-based Recruit gets more than half of its sales from the US and other markets outside Japan.
The recruiters’ struggles offer a front-line look at a softening US labor market that’s confounded Wall Street’s expectations of a slowdown for months. While demand for employees remains strong, the number of job openings has been dwindling for months. Layoffs in finance, technology and consulting — usually hot destinations for top graduates and experienced hires — are piling up.
Equity investors have been hurt by the tumultuous year these companies have endured. ZipRecruiter is up just 2% this year versus the S&P500 Index’s almost 17% gain. Recruit Holdings is up 10% year to date, while staffing companies Robert Half Inc. and Manpower Group Inc. are up 3% and down 8% respectively.
“I’d say broadly, clients were more cautious, more conservative, more tentative than we had counted on,” Robert Half Chief Executive Officer M. Keith Waddell said on the company’s recent earnings call after its second-quarter profit and third-quarter outlook missed estimates. Forecasts from ASGN Inc. and ManpowerGroup also missed estimates, weighing on staffing stocks in the US and Europe.
“We are already operating in an environment that is indicative of what we would call a garden variety recession level for now,” Manpower’s chief executive officer Jonas Prising said on a recent earnings call, adding that while rates stay high, the labor market can be expected to decline further.
Though the US Federal Reserve may pause rate hikes next month, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists don’t anticipate cuts until the end of next June.
“We’re not expecting stabilization if you will in the very short-term. And I’m certainly not a macro A, expert, or B, fortune teller. And so, I’m not sure I have a great answer to when,” Robert Half’s Waddell added on the call.
--With assistance from Matthew Boyle.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials stressed the need to keep raising interest rates while acknowledging recent encouraging news on US consumer prices.Most Read from BloombergUkraine Latest: Biden Says Missile Likely Not Fired From RussiaPoland Says Russian-Made Missile Hit Territory and Killed Two PeopleMusk Steps Up Purge of Twitter Engineers Who Criticize HimTrump Makes His 2024 Run Official, Defies Calls to Move OnBiden Says Unlikely Rocket That Hit Poland Was Fired From RussiaThe remarks on Tuesday, from two regional Fed presidents and two governors, maintained a carefully hawkish tone from policymakers that inflation remains too high, even as they signal a readiness to moderate the size of their rates hikes.“There are glimmers of hope,” said Atlanta Fed chief Raphael Bostic in an essay posted on the Atlanta Fed Website Tuesday, citing signs including slowing increases in goods prices. “I will need to see indicators of broad-based easing of inflation.”The US central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points on Nov. 2 for the fourth straight time, lifting the target range to 3.75% to 4% from near zero in March as it fights to curb the highest inflation in four decades. While Bostic didn’t comment specifically on the December policy meeting, markets broadly expect a half-point hike next month.Bostic said the goal of monetary policy is to be “sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to our target,” adding that “we are not there now, and so I anticipate that more rate hikes will be needed.”Financial markets were cheered by milder-than-expected consumer inflation last month, which provided hope that price pressures are starting to ease.Data released last week showed consumer prices cooled by more than expected in October, with the consumer price index rising 7.7% from a year earlier versus 8.2% the month before.Bostic highlighted that he wants to see slowing in the price gains of services as well as goods.“So far, we haven’t,” he said, adding that the key may be a better balance in the labor market, because service industries are labor intensive. But for now, “the labor market remains tight as openings still far exceed the number of job seekers. That creates upward pressure on wages,” he said.He also noted that the Fed’s policy committee added to its most recent statement a comment that monetary policy works with a lag. He said that the precise lag between policy action and impact on prices is uncertain and that by some estimates it could be “18 months to two years” to bring down inflation.That means the Fed will need to “calibrate policy today knowing we won’t see its full impact on inflation for months. In those circumstances, we must look to economic signals other than inflation as guideposts along our path.”The tightening campaign is the most aggressive since the 1980s and several Fed officials have begun suggesting that the moment to moderate is growing near, while stressing that this won’t signal an end to rate hikes.Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said earlier Tuesday that he expects officials to slow the pace of their interest-rate increases “in the upcoming months,” as monetary policy approaches a sufficiently restrictive level.That echoed Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard, who told a Monday event at Bloomberg’s Washington bureau that “it will probably be appropriate soon to move to a slower pace of increases,” while noting that officials have additional work to do.Rate hikes have yet to cool the hot US labor market. Employers added 261,000 new jobs in October while unemployment at 3.7% remains low -- helping support consumer confidence and spending.Harker said there are signs that the economy is starting to decelerate, even as the job market remains hot.“Credit card purchase data indicate that consumer spending, which comprises around 70% of economic activity in the United States, is slowing, with services and retail leading the decline,” he said. “Investment in housing has weakened, and even the boom in manufacturing, which has buoyed the economy, is starting to wane.”During testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington that was mostly focused on financial regulation, Fed vice chair for supervision Michael Barr cautioned the US economy would take a hit as the central bank confronts high inflation.“I think that it is the case that we are going to see significant softening in the economy,” he said during a lively exchange with Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy, who pressed him on the question of how high the unemployment rate could rise as the central bank tightens policy.Fed officials in September forecast that unemployment will advance to 4.4% in 2023, according to their median projection.Barr declined to comment on more pessimistic predictions that the jobless rate will in fact go much higher as a consequence of Fed actions, though he did agree that it would go up.Kennedy’s response was concise: “Duh.”--With assistance from Matthew Boesler.Most Read from Bloomberg BusinessweekGoogle’s Moonshot Lab Is Now in the Strawberry-Counting BusinessHow Apple Stores Went From Geek Paradise to Union Front LineAmericans Have $5 Trillion in Cash, Thanks to Federal StimulusOne of Gaming’s Most Hated Execs Is Jumping Into the MetaverseThe Golden Era of AI Chess Makes Things Tricky for Players©2022 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- President Joe Biden on Monday announced the appointment of former Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Steve Benjamin as a top adviser, filling a key White House role from a state that has become crucial to the Democratic Party ahead of the 2024 election cycle.
Benjamin will become director of the White House Office of Engagement. He takes over from another former mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who had assumed the role in June and is returning to Atlanta, officials said.
Benjamin will oversee White House efforts “to ensure community leaders, diverse perspectives, and new voices have the opportunity to inform the work of the President in an inclusive, transparent and responsible way,” according to the White House. In a release, Biden called Benjamin a “longtime public servant” whose “deep relationships across the country” would well serve the administration.
Benjamin, 53, has long been considered a rising star in Democratic politics, serving three terms as Columbia’s mayor, and the first Black mayor in the city's history. Serving as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and African Americans Mayors Association, Benjamin spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and was among the candidates considered for Hillary Clinton’s running mate that year. He opted not to run for a fourth term in 2021.
The appointment comes at a time when Benjamin's home state is becoming even more critical to Democrats as they face the 2024 presidential campaign. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee voted to hold their first nominating contest of the next cycle in South Carolina, supplanting Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in an effort to more deeply represent the desires of Black voters.
In South Carolina's 2020 primary, Benjamin met with nearly all of the 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls, offering advice as they wound their way through South Carolina, a state in which support from Black voters is critical to Democratic candidates' success. Benjamin initially gave his endorsement to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg before supporting Biden, who scored a thundering win in the state's primary.
Benjamin also served in the administration of Gov. Jim Hodges, who in 1998 was the most recent Democrat elected to South Carolina's highest office. Earlier this year, his wife, DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, was sworn in as a judge on the 4th US. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, appointed to the post by Biden.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP | US Federal Policies |
The Secretary of the Navy has censured five officers in a 2020 training accident in which nine men died when the amphibious assault vehicle they rode in sank off San Clemente Island.
It was the deadliest accident in the decades the Marine Corps has used the vehicles that can carry troops on land and in the sea. Three of the Marines who died hailed from Southern California: Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21, of Riverside, Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21, of Montebello and Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, 19, of Corona.
Censure letters detailing leadership failures written by Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro will go permanently into the service records of the five officers – two members of the Navy, which was supporting the training exercise, and three members of the Marine Corps – Navy officials announced Monday, June 13.
“When leaders’ actions or inactions result in the loss of life or capital resources, the senior leadership of the Department of the Navy has a responsibility to determine the root cause and hold those accountable,” Del Toro said in a message sent to the Department of the Navy on June 2, adding that after a thorough review the officers received the censure “due to their inadequate leadership and execution of their oversight duties.” Del Toro is the Navy’s top civilian leader.
Receiving the censure letters are retired Lt. Gen. Joseph Osterman, Col. Christopher Bronzi, Navy Capt. Stewart Bateshansky, Navy Capt. John Kurtz and Marine Lt. Col. Keith Brenize.
Officers cannot appeal the censure, but they can rebut in writing and have it included in the record. Officials with the Secretary of the Navy office said “it is unclear what effect the letters will have on the officers’ careers.”
Three separate investigations – two by the Marines and one by the Navy – agreed a domino of failures in training, equipment and adherence to safety protocols and standard procedures occurred leading up to the accident, which military leaders have called preventable.
Where the previous Navy investigation put little fault of the accident on its commanders and crews, Del Toro said he did see “gaps and seams” in planning the exercise, its execution and attention to safety, which he said “could have been controlled.” Del Toro also has before him the recommendations of six weeks of review boards on whether several officers and enlisted Marines should be removed from the Corps for substandard leadership. No decision on those has been announced, but the boards only recommended one removal.
Monday’s announcement was met with some relief by family members of those killed in the AAV.
Peter Ostrovsky, father of Lance Cpl. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, 20, of Bend, Oregon, said he was “heartened” to see the action taken by Del Toro “to ensure all of those responsible are held accountable,” adding that of the five to receive the censures, four never went before any board hearings.
“It shows me the civilian leader wasn’t satisfied with the accounting of the Marine Corps and Navy,” he said.
Ostrovsky said in reading the letters, he saw details he had pointed out during Congressional hearings held last year.
“I guess someone is paying attention to all of it,” he said. “That’s a good thing.”
Carlos Baltierra, father of Pfc. Baltierra, said he received only limited information on the secretary’s decision.
“I’m disappointed, there was no written document provided to the families,” he said. “We’re still fighting to get information on what happened and what occurred that they’re not telling us.” | US Federal Policies |
Associated Press/Patrick Semansky President Biden on Monday signed legislation to study the creation of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture, saying efforts to establish the museum come at a “critical time” in the U.S. “Today’s clear that the battle for the soul of America continues, that’s why a museum like this is going to matter so much,” Biden said at the White House. “Museums of this magnitude and consequence are going to inspire and educate. More than anything else, it’s going to help people see themselves in the story of America,” he added. The president noted that it’s been one year since the Atlanta spa shootings that killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, and 80 years since the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II in internment camps. Bill sponsors have also previously spoken about violent attacks against Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the museum idea has taken on added significance in recent years. “It comes at a critical time,” Biden said at the bill signing on Monday. Biden called the bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Grace Meng (D-Calif.) and Sen Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), “long overdue.” It will establish a commission made up of members appointed by the House and Senate majority and minority leaders. The commission will study the cost of such a museum, whether it should be part of the Smithsonian, and how best to engage Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the study. “I look forward one day to visiting the national museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture with all of you,” Biden said. He said he was focused on having an administration that looks like America. “To teach this history is to help all of us as Americans understand where we come from and to teach this history is to help us understand who we are,” Vice President Harris, who is the first person of South Asian descent to become vice president, said at the event. Biden and Harris last month held a celebration for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at the White House, during which they condemned violence and hateful rhetoric toward minority communities. Tags AAPI heritage anti-Asian hate crimes Asian American | US Federal Policies |
The joy of love, a healthy childbirth, connecting with dear friends, a beautiful sunset—these are things that all people can feel. But Black joy is mined from a different vein of human experience.Black joy concedes that, yes, we are a happy people. But don’t get it twisted. We are happy that we can function in a system that was designed to keep us obedient, invisible, and disenfranchised. Happy that we are strong, that we can fight, tooth and nail, be it for our communities, our rights, our health—and yes, for our country. Happy that we can move forward after witnessing one brutally televised police-related murder after another. Happy that we can bend a knee, but still be unbowed.Black joy is the Fourth of July firecracker of human emotions. Intentional, symbolizing independence, blazing fierce, shooting sparks that sear the memory.Black artists channel, nurture, and reveal Black joy. They paint, sing, weave, and knit. They make, and they build. They write, and they play. They tell the stories that only we know—and they keep alive our history.In the images and videos that follow, Black visual artists and photographers chronicle the untold stories, traditions, and celebrations that compound into the bittersweet experience of Black joy.Black joy is telling our storiesPerhaps another photographer would have recognized the look Leila Jackson gave her mother during the hearings that would make Ketanji Brown Jackson the first Black woman to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. But Sarahbeth Maney—Black and Latina—was the one who captured the pert smile that told the world, “Mama, you’ve got this. History is yours.”Growing up in a predominantly white area, “I struggled to feel seen,” says Maney. “I didn’t know many people who could relate to my experience.” Now she’s finding untold stories through her own lens.George McKenzie Jr. uses his lens to insert the Black community into a field where it has little representation: wildlife photography. “I discovered a greater appreciation of the natural world through the lens of a camera in largely urban surroundings,” he says. “I wanted to share stories that were not being told from my perspective, not only through a camera lens, but through my cultural lens as well.”Black joy is living our traditionsBathe the chicken in buttermilk overnight. Trace the pattern for the next square of that quilt. Palm and roll the roots of a coily crown of locs until they’re secure. Such traditions and rituals bring joy.“My family and I enjoy traditional cook outs, jumping double Dutch rope,” says photographer Dee Dwyer, whose work is rooted in Southeast Washington, D.C.—the capitol being the first major city in the United States with a majority Black population. “The music plays loudly through speakers, and dirt bikers [and] ATV riders come through sprinkling their good energy in the neighborhood. It's a vibe only for real folks to enjoy.”For Akilah Townsend, Black joy is the tradition of empathy and compassion that she says she has witnessed throughout her life.“From my family, strangers, aunties, etc.—I'm reminded of it when I see our capacity to give, even when we may lack,” she says. “In times of tragedy, when the victims are those who may have even been violent to us, we have a capacity to seek healing even for them. There is a certain quality of grounded-ness that we have, that expresses itself in forms of love.”Black joy is celebrating our cultureI am the dream and the hope of my mother’s grandparents Henry and Mary Jen Jessie, both born to former slaves in South Carolina during the 1870s. I did not expect to wipe tears from my laptop keyboard on the day the U.S. Senate confirmed the first female African American Supreme Court Justice. I did not expect to lift both arms over my head, palms facing upward, and shout “Hallelujah!”Black joy is a stamped ticket that the foremothers and forefathers scrimped to buy for us. You can see it in the glide and stride of HBCU band members, whose frenetic precision seems fueled by Terpsichore herself. It’s in the painted and bejeweled faces of Afro-Caribbean dancers during parades in Flatbush, Brooklyn.Though trouble may come, Black joy provides freedom. “As Nina Simone stated, ‘I’ll tell you what freedom is to me. No fear!’” Dwyer says. “That’s what you’re experiencing while in these moments or state of mind. It’s peace! … a mixture of your best summer day in your most stylish outfit topped with revolution to put humanity first.”Because that humanity was always there, even when others tried to kill it. Maybe we’re just giddy that we made it through.Rachel Jones is Director of Journalism Initiatives for the National Press Foundation and a frequent contributor to National Geographic. | SCOTUS |
Teachers from around the country told our team of producers they have long been frustrated with the larger public response to shootings and school safety and many have been particularly angry about the way this has long played out in Washington and state capitals. Tragically, the shooting in Uvalde reinforced and exacerbated many of these concerns. Here's what some of them had to say. Judy Woodruff: If Congress and the president approve a bipartisan agreement on guns and school safety, it would provide new resources to try to prevent school shootings, like the massacre in Uvalde, and would likely mean new money for mental health care, violence prevention, and more training for educators.Many educators want to see more action.Stephanie Sy picks up the conversation from there.Judy, teachers from around the country told our team of producers they have long been frustrated with the larger public response to shootings and school safety. And many have been particularly angry about the way this has played out in Washington and state capitals.Tragically, the shooting in Uvalde reinforced and exacerbated many of these concerns. Trina Moore, High School Teacher: I have been teaching now for 27 years, and I have never had such a stressful time teaching as I have now. Jean Darnell, Librarian Educator: In the era of school shootings, every day is a nervous wreck sometimes. Sarah Lerner, Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Shooting Survivor: Prior to the shooting at my school, it was always this kind of looming thing that happened in other places.And then, once it happened to us, now we're part of this terrible club of gun violence survivors. Immediately after we returned after the shooting here, I still felt safe. But I did not sign up to have all of these added asks and responsibilities put upon me, outside of what I am contractually obligated to do. Sari Beth Rosenberg, High School Teacher: A term I have been using a lot to describe how I'm feeling and other teachers, and people who work in schools and students across America, we're all feeling like we are sitting ducks. Abbey Clements, Sandy Hook School Shooting Survivor: To the person who tells me, you just need training and this is all you need to know, with the amount of ammunition that you can get and the power and lethality of the weapons that we have, like, it happens so fast.Prior to surviving a school shooting myself, personally, I watched on the news. I knew that they happened occasionally. But I never really had this impending sense that it was going to happen to me. Jean Darnell: I was teaching standing in a cafeteria one time when there was a school shooting. Never once did I think, I'm going to have to take safety measures and learn how to pack a wound that's bleeding too much. I'm going to have to figure out how to turn my desk into a door anchor to kind of prevent someone from going in.This is something that was never taught in a class, that was never explained to any of the educators coming out during my era. Tim Smyth, High School Teacher: We have all run through the drills. They are very scary to do, but very important to do. Trina Moore: You want to know what it does to kids? I'm with high school kids. And the last time we had one, they — the people who were checking the doors had a flashlight.And so we were in my room, in this back room, and we could see the flashlight shining through the shades. And I had several — several kids just burst out in tears. And, honestly, I felt — I felt like crying too. Abbey Clements: I don't think we should drag children through these horrendous drills. And we certainly shouldn't have them endure active — active simulations that mimic real trauma and death, because this onus of gun violence is on the adults. And so how dare we put this on kids. Sari Beth Rosenberg: I'm so angry that I know how to have conversations with young people about school shootings. Trina Moore: I'm a teacher because, whether I like it or not, I can't help but see the good in people. And every one of my kids, I see the good in them.And I am being asked now to not do that, to look for the red flags, to see them as potential enemies, which goes against everything I am as a teacher. Tim Smyth: That will be the day that I retired from teaching, if not only for me, if I was forced to be armed in the classroom. But even if other teachers volunteer to be armed, I would — I would retire from teaching. Sarah Lerner: If the shooter had gotten into my room that day, I mean, I don't have a gun, but, if I did, I wouldn't have been able to access it. I would have been shot and killed. Trina Moore: I would feel better prepared. If I felt that society cared more about teachers than they do right now.I have felt so much hatred towards teachers that I haven't felt, even last year, nothing like this. Abbey Clements: The teachers are not OK. They're not OK in Uvalde.They need an incredible amount of care and support. They cannot be told that you just need to kind of suck it up and move on. And I don't think anybody actually says that to survivors, but that's how it often feels. Jean Darnell: I'm 20 years into this. And I can tell you 20 years as an educator is hard, 20 years as a Black educator is even harder, and the repercussions on my health, irreplaceable. | US Federal Policies |
The White House is considering whether to subject some of Elon Musk’s business ventures to national security reviews, including his proposed acquisition of Twitter and his satellite internet company Starlink, according to a report.Bloomberg wrote on Friday that Biden administration officials are concerned by the Tesla chief executive’s plan to buy Twitter in a deal part-funded by non-US investors and his recent threat to pull the plug on the Starlink service to Ukraine, as well as the publication of a series of tweets containing proposals over the Ukraine conflict favourable to the Putin regime.The report said US officials are concerned by Musk’s plans to buy Twitter with the financial support of non-US investors, including: the Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud; Qatar Holding, which is part of the Qatar Investment Authority; and Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, whose holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands. At the time, the financial support of Musk’s co-investors was worth around $7bn.Musk is working to complete a proposed $44bn acquisition of Twitter ahead of a court-imposed deadline of 28 October, after which he faces the threat of legal action from the social media platform to force him to close the deal.Bloomberg wrote that one avenue available to the Biden administration to investigate Musk’s ventures is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United State C(FIUS), which can review business deals and recommend that the president suspend or block a transaction.In response, Elon Musk flagged a tweet on Friday that cited the Bloomberg report and said it would be “hysterical if the government stopped Elon from over paying for Twitter”. Musk responded with a laughing emoji and the 100 emoji, indicating support for the post.It would be hysterical if the government stopped Elon from over paying for Twitter 😂— Nik “The Carny” Lentz (@NikLentz) October 21, 2022
It is not clear on what basis Starlink, part of Musk’s Space X rocket business, would be scrutinised by the committee.On Saturday, Elon Musk announced SpaceX would continue to pay for Starlink’s internet service in Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project, which he said was losing around $20m a month. Starlink, which operates via a constellation of 3,000 small satellites in low-Earth orbit, has become a key communications link for the Ukrainian army in its fight to repel the Russian invasion. There are now about 25,000 Starlink ground terminals in Ukraine, according to Musk.Musk alarmed the government in Kyiv this month when he published a Twitter poll on the future of the country, with options including formalising Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In response, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tweeted “Which @elonmusk do you like more?” and offered two responses: the Musk who supports Ukraine, or supports Russia.The US Treasury said: “CFIUS is committed to taking all necessary actions within its authority to safeguard U.S. national security. Consistent with law and practice, CFIUS does not publicly comment on transactions that it may or may not be reviewing.”Elon Musk has been contacted for commented. | US Federal Policies |
Last month’s upheaval within the banking sector hasn’t pushed America off course from achieving a soft landing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an exclusive interview Friday.
“I do think there’s a path to bring down inflation while maintaining what I think all of us would regard is a strong labor market,” Yellen said. “And the evidence that I’m seeing suggests we are on that path.”
She added: “Are there risks? Of course. I don’t want to downplay the risks here, but I do think that’s possible.”
Yellen cited that the factors that have pushed up inflation go well beyond the tightness seen in the US labor market, notably Russia’s war in Ukraine, which raised food and energy prices; and pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, which caused key material shortages that gummed up critical pieces of the economy, such as the auto industry.
“We’re seeing those supply chain bottlenecks that boosted inflation, they’re beginning to resolve,” she said. “We had big shifts in the way people live and low interest rates, and housing prices rose a lot. Now, housing prices have essentially settled down.”
To watch Fareed Zakaria’s exclusive interview with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, tune in to “Fareed Zakaria GPS” this Sunday at 10 a.m. ET/PT.
Yellen said she is seeing some easing of stress in the labor market, including increases in unemployment claims, declines in job openings, and upticks in labor force participation. The labor market gaining more slack will help bring inflation down, but it doesn’t mean there needs to be a significant jump in unemployment, she said.
“I think the strong labor market and bringing down inflation are compatible goals,” she said.
US economic data released last week showed continued signs of cooling in areas such as inflation and consumer spending.
Last month, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank triggered a crisis in the US banking sector, roiled financial markets and fueled uncertainty about the potential for negative ripple effects to spread throughout the broader economy.
Treasury, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, intervened after the regional bank failures to ensure bank customers could access all their money and to stave off future bank runs.
The actions taken by the Treasury, Fed and FDIC “stemmed the systemic threat that existed,” Yellen told Zakaria.
“Americans should note that America has a safe, strong banking system,” she said. “Our banking system is well capitalized and liquid, and the problems that a couple of banks faced — this is not a general problem throughout the banking system. We took steps to make sure that depositors feel that their savings are safe, and the tools that we used to do that are ones that we could and would use again if difficulties in a single bank or a couple of banks were to create a risk of contagion to the system.”
Banks are likely to be “somewhat more cautious” in their operations and, as a result, could lead to reining in credit availability. Fed officials have noted that credit tightening could assist in efforts to cool inflation.
The bank failures, however, have fueled uncertainty about the potential for additional bank collapses as well as possible aftershocks that could tip the US economy into a recession while the Fed is nearing the tail end of a historic rate-hiking campaign to bring down inflation.
That’s not the case currently, Yellen said.
“I’m not seeing anything at this time that is dramatic enough or significant enough in my view to significantly change the outlook,” Yellen said. “I think the outlook remains one for moderate growth and a continued strong labor market with inflation coming down.”
Yellen’s interview with Zakaria came near the tail end of a jam-packed week of meetings, public appearances and speeches for the Treasury Secretary in conjunction with the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, where Ukraine was a key focus.
In the interview with Zakaria, Yellen said that Russia should pay for the damage caused in Ukraine and talks are ongoing as to potential mechanisms to make that happen.
“That’s a responsibility that I think the global community expects Russia to bear,” she said. “This is something we’re discussing with our partners, but there are legal constraints on what we can do with frozen Russian assets.” | US Federal Policies |
The US Air Force has found that air crew members acted appropriately and were not at fault for some deaths during the fraught evacuation from Afghanistan last year, when desperate Afghans hung from a military plane as it was taking off or became trapped in the wheels.Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the air force, said that investigations into the deaths found the crew “exercised sound judgment in their decision to get airborne as quickly as possible when faced with an unprecedented and rapidly deteriorating security situation”.Video and other reports from that day vividly depict Afghans crowding around the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, eager to leave the country when the Taliban took over and US forces were withdrawing. The C-17 transport aircraft | US Involvement in Foreign Conflicts |
Inflation data and the start of second quarter earnings season await investors in the week ahead with markets expecting a solid crop of results in the coming weeks and another rate hike from the Federal Reserve later this month.
Wednesday morning will feature the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for June, with June's Producer Price Index (PPI) out Thursday, and the initial July reading for the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index on Friday.
Markets enter the week after a shortened trading week saw stocks edge lower as the June jobs report reflected a "lukewarm" US labor market, but with the economy adding more than 200,000 jobs last month another rate hike from the Fed — or more — is all but certain.
Stocks enter second quarter earnings season after a strong first half of 2023, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) leading gains, rising more than 30%. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) is up nearly 15% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) has risen just 1.7%.
Friday's jobs report showed the US economy added 209,000 jobs in June, missing Wall Street estimates and reflecting a slowdown from the previous month, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Friday.
The unemployment rate now stands at 3.6% while hourly wages rose 4.4% over the same month last year.
Economists and market strategists were largely in agreement that although nonfarm payrolls decreased from May, the 0.1% drop in unemployment and a continued increase in hourly wages warrant additional action from the Fed.
"The Fed would need to see more evidence of a sustained cooling of wage growth for it to stay on the sidelines," economists at Oxford Economics wrote on Friday. "That was not evident in the latest jobs report, which included another month of sturdy wage increases. Workers are still in the driver’s seat as labor conditions, while easing, remain historically tight."
Entering the week, data from the CME Group showed investors pricing in a ~93% chance the Fed raises rates this month and a roughly 40% chance at least two more 0.25% rate hikes are announced by the central bank through November.
This week shape expectations around the Fed's longer term plans, with CPI data expected to show a continued slowdown in inflation pressures. Wall Street economists expect headline inflation rose just 3.1% annually in June, a slowdown from the 4% rise seen in May. May's data was the slowest year-over-year inflation reading since April 2021. Prices are set to rise 0.3% on a month-over-month basis.
On a "core" basis, which strips out food and energy prices, CPI is forecast to rise 5% over last year in June, a slowdown from the 5.3% increase seen in May. Monthly core price increases are expected to clock in at 0.3%.
"We look for the core CPI to downshift alongside a decline in core goods prices," Wells Fargo's team of economists wrote on Friday.
"The ongoing improvement in supply chains has helped to ease pressure on goods, and we expect vehicle prices to contract in June. At the same time, core services are likely to stay firm. Shelter inflation is only slowly cooling off, while medical care and recreational services have scope to rebound in June. The Fed will welcome the continued moderation in price growth, though the road back to 2% inflation remains long."
On the corporate side, earnings from Delta Air Lines (DAL) and PepsiCo (PEP) are expected on Thursday, followed by a slew of earnings from the financial sector on Friday morning with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi, and BlackRock all set to report.
Investors will be keenly focused on how banks continue to grapple with the fallout from this spring's bank failures and the subsequent deposit drains across the system. As ever, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's comments on the state of the US economy and banking sector will be closely monitored.
"JPM could surprise to the upside in terms of the revenue synergies from the [First Republic] deal," Goldman Sachs managing director Richard Ramsden wrote in a note on July 5. "WFC should benefit from less capital markets exposure, given expected weakness in these businesses in the quarter, as well as potentially better, idiosyncratic margin trends."
Entering second quarter earnings season, investors will be watching to see if S&P 500 companies register an earnings decline for the third straight quarter.
Strong economic data reported over the past two weeks has indicated the consumer remains resilient, but what companies signal about a potential slowdown in the second half will be in focus.
Data from FactSet published Friday showed S&P 500 companies are expected to report a 7.2% drop in earnings from the same period last year, which would mark the largest annual drop since the second quarter of 2020.
However, we'd note that Energy is expected to see earnings drop 48.3% from a year ago, while sectors like Consumer Discretionary and Communication Services — which have been key to this year's rally — are forecast to see earnings rise 26% and 12% in the second quarter, respectively.
Weekly calendar
Monday
Economic data: Wholesale inventories month-over-month, May (-0.1% expected, -0.1% previously); Wholesale trade inventories month-over-month, May (0.3% expected, 0.2% previously)
Earnings: WD-40 (WDFC)
Tuesday
Economic data: NFIB Small Business Optimism, June (89.9 expected, 89.4 prior)
Earnings: No notable earnings
Wednesday
Economic data: Consumer Price Index, month-over-month, June (+0.3% expected, +0.1% previously); CPI excluding food and energy, month-over-month, June (+0.3% expected, +0.2% previously); Consumer Price Index, year-over-year, June (+3.1% expected, +4% previously); CPI excluding food and energy, year-over-year, June (+5% expected, +5.3% previously); Real Average Hourly Earnings, year-over-year, June (+0.2% previously); Real Average Weekly Earnings, year-over-year, June (-0.6% previously); Federal Reserve's Beige Book
Earnings: No notable earnings
Thursday
Economic data: Initial jobless claims, week ended July 8 (250,000 expected, 248,000 previously); Producer Price Index, month-over-month, June (+0.2% expected, -0.3% previously); PPI, year-over-year, June (+0.4% expected; +1.1% previously); Core PPI, month-over-month, June (+0.2% expected, +0.2% previously); Core PPI, year-over-year, June (+2.6% expected; +2.8% previously)
Friday
Economic data: Import prices, month-over-month, June (-0.1% expected, -0.6% previously); Export prices, month-over-month, June (0.0% expected, -1.9% previously); University of Michigan consumer sentiment, July preliminary (65.5 expected, 64.4 previously) | US Federal Policies |
The U.S. teachers shortage could be getting worse.A March 2022 survey from the National Education Association (NEA) showed that more than half of teachers (55%) intend to leave the profession earlier than they planned, and that was before the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.“90% of teachers are saying they’re really thinking about what happened in Uvalde and what that means for them,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “It doesn’t mean they’re going to leave. It doesn’t mean they’re going to stay. But the impact has been huge across the country.”The NEA survey showed an increase in the percentage of teachers likely to retire early. (Chart: NEA)In response to the devastating shooting, a bipartisan group of 20 senators recently agreed on framework for a gun safety bill that would include enhanced background checks for those under 21 purchasing guns, funding for mental health and school safety, and state grants for red flag laws.Though he said the bill isn't as progressive as he'd like, President Biden pledged to sign it into law, stating it would be the "most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in decades.”“What [teachers] really want is they want us to do the common sense gun safety precautions that are being talked about in Washington right now, that Governor Hochul did in New York state with the legislature just a few days ago, that GOP Governor Baker did in Massachusetts a few years ago, what the overwhelming number of Americans — Republican, Democrat, Independent — want us to do: They want something done," Weingarten said.Some conservative politicians have proposed increasing police presence in schools or even arming teachers. Weingarten said she is strongly against this idea.A group of local public school teachers from nearby schools use rubber training guns as they practice proper firearms handling during a teachers-only firearms training class in Sarasota, Florida January 11, 2013. REUTERS/Brian Blanco“We need to keep our schools safe for our kids and for our teachers,” she said. “They can’t be human shields. They got enough that they have to do. We have to keep guns out of schools.”Weingarten was also adamant about the fact that the common sense gun safety rules she’s hoping for are not “about taking away guns from responsible gun owners.”“The smearing of saying that we’re going against the Second Amendment, that’s not anything that I’ve heard from the majority of both my members and the conversations around the country,” she said.'Can we get the politics out of the classroom?'There has been a profound teacher shortage in the U.S. for quite some time, and gun violence isn’t the only factor.Politics in general have made its way into the classroom, affecting how many teachers communicate with their students.For example, in states like Texas and Florida, many books are banned from being taught while critical race theory — the understanding of America’s history as seen through the lens of historical racism — is currently prohibited from being discussed in the classroom in 17 states, according to Education Week.American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten speaks during 'March for Our Lives', one of a series of nationwide protests against gun violence, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 11, 2022. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts“Can we get the politics out of the classroom?” Weingarten said. “Teachers and parents want to work together. Trust us to actually teach kids what we need to do instead of banning books and censoring every word we say. That would help.”According to Weingarten, some teachers are unsure over whether or not they’re allowed to explain to their students what the racial motivations were behind the shooting in Buffalo, New York.“How do I not teach about the Buffalo manifesto that kid did?” she said. “If you trust us enough to hold guns, trust us enough to do the stuff that we have been trained to do.”The coronavirus pandemic has been a component of political debate as well, and trickled down to teachers as many states debated whether or not to resume in-person learning. According to the NEA report, 91% of educators cited pandemic stress as a reason why they’re considering another profession. Additionally, there are 600,000 fewer teachers in the U.S. today than prior to the pandemic.Bryson Dalrymple, a teacher, stands in a classroom at the Utopia Independent School on May 26, 2022 in Utopia, Texas. (Photo by ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images)“We have about 300,000 teachers who actually leave every single year, many before retirement,” Weingarten said. “It’s not just about new teachers. It’s also a retention issue … we need to retain teachers. And we’re facing a retention crisis as well as a recruitment crisis.”Low pay isn’t helping the situation. The average entry level teacher salary in the U.S. is $41,388, according to Salary.com, as of May 2022. And according to Weingarten, for teachers who have been in the profession for a while, their pay hasn’t kept up with inflation or being able to raise a family."So it's really a matter of, what are the conditions?" she said. "Do we have low enough class sizes? Do we have the guidance counselors and the social workers that we need to help with emotional social issues? Do we have the pay that's commensurate with being able to raise a family? Can we deal with student debt?"—Dave is an anchor for Yahoo Finance Live.Click here for politics news related to business and moneyRead the latest financial and business news from Yahoo FinanceDownload the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or AndroidFollow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube | US Federal Policies |
Back in August 2022, the number of people employed in the US officially overtook pre-pandemic highs reached in February 2020.
But the headline recovery in the labor market papered over weakness that remained in the industries hardest hit by the pandemic. Namely, restaurants and hotels.
The September jobs report showed employment in the accommodations industry — which covers hotels — remains the last major holdout in restoring the labor market to its pre-pandemic status.
In September, employment in the food services and drinking places industry rose by 61,000, returning this industry to its February 2020 level. As of September, 12,368,400 people worked in this industry; in February 2020, 12,338,900 people were employed in this line of work.
Accommodations employment, in contrast, stood 10.3% below levels that prevailed just before the pandemic. Last month, the industry added 16,000 workers, bringing the employment total for this industry to 1,895,500; in February 2020, there were 2,054,500 people employed in this industry.
And this weakness in accommodations employment accounts for more than all of the gap in leisure and hospitality, the only major industry tracked by the BLS that has not recovered its pandemic-induced losses.
As of September, leisure and hospitality employment was just 184,000 jobs short of February 2020 levels. Accommodation and food services — a sub-industry within leisure and hospitality — employment was 187,500 jobs shy of these levels. And as we saw above, that gap is solely attributable to the shortfall in accommodations.
Overall, the US labor market added 336,000 new jobs in September, nearly double the 170,000 that were forecast by Wall Street. This report served as the latest sign the economy remains more resilient than expected by many economists.
"The labor market remains robust," wrote Bank of America economist Stephen Juneau in a client note on Friday.
Juneau also noted that hiring in "high-touch services sectors [like] education and health, leisure and hospitality, and other services" accounts for 55% of the job gains we've seen this year. "In short, the sectors that lagged behind the broader labor market recovery continue to hire at a rapid clip."
And that we're slicing the industry data on employment this finely to find the remaining cracks in the labor market speaks to the strength of this recovery and the encouraging dearth of residual damage lingering from the pandemic. | Labor Activism |
No normal person who drives a car, eats three meals a day, and lives under a roof needs to see the latest Consumer Price Index to know that it takes an ever-increasing stack of dollars to fund a no-frills family budget. But it bears repeating that May’s CPI just registered an 8.6% year-over-year increase, the largest jump since 1981. Gasoline, food, and shelter were the big drivers. Quite understandably, the University of Michigan’s much-followed consumer sentiment index has also fallen — and to the lowest level since it was first published in the late 1970s. The average wage-earner is getting poorer, the pace of change is quickening, and the prospects for enrichment are not very bright. This, coupled with mass shootings, the continuing war turmoil in Ukraine, and constant discussion of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, make it hard for even the most committed optimist to keep a happy face. Of these maladies, inflation is perhaps most frequently encountered by the average person and the easiest to understand and resolve, at least theoretically. But for reasons to be discussed here, political incentives make it practically impossible. Why do politicians in power ignore genuine solutions and therefore refuse to take meaningful action to lift the burden of inflation from the shoulders of ordinary citizens? First off, we should again acknowledge that finding inflation’s source is not that complicated. Credible analysts who focus on the role played by the amount of money circulating in the economy, determined by the Federal Reserve in conjunction with government stimulus programs, have warned for months that an inflation calamity was in the making. After all, an inflated money supply chasing the same (or fewer) goods causes inflation. Controlling it requires controlling the rate at which printing-press money enters the economy. This is all perfectly logical to students of monetary economics and, really, to anyone paying attention. But as set forth in 1911 by economist Irving Fisher, knowing as much provides little succor for politicians whose stock-in-trade involves shipping money to consumer interest groups, an example of the phrase “pouring oil on troubled waters.” When asked, Biden administration leaders counter that any troublesome price increases will be temporary, that supply chain hiccups (the "real" source of the problem) will soon pass, and a stronger, more resilient post-pandemic economy will surface. We are assured by the political leadership that our encounter with inflation has nothing to do with the sudden injection of trillions in stimulus dollars into the economy not long ago. Sometimes, it seems, there will be a breakthrough of enlightenment. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, once a cheerleader for the "inflation is transitory" school of thought, now admirably confesses that she was wrong and that high inflation is embedded in the economy and is not likely to pass anytime soon. Yet while recognizing the inflationary element in the room, Yellen refuses to say that the Biden stimulus program is the major source. On another front, when grilled about rapidly rising gas prices, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo admitted that there’s nothing the federal government can do to bring immediate consumer relief. If experienced political leaders understand the linkage between money and inflation, yet they won’t acknowledge it or resist the democratic clamor for government relief for every problem, what are the realistic prospects for preserving the dollar’s purchasing power? Given all this, inflation may wax and wane — but it will always be with us.
Bruce Yandle is a distinguished adjunct fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a dean emeritus of the Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences, and a former executive director of the Federal Trade Commission. | US Federal Policies |
Netflix released at least one movie a week over the past two years – I challenge you to name them all! – but for 2023, the company is changing course. According to Bloomberg, the streaming giant is restructuring its movie division and releasing fewer movies overall. Despite the sheer number of titles Netflix previously released, only a few had won accolades, attained significant hours of streaming, or had the kind of cultural impact some of the biggest blockbusters had achieved. (According to the company's Top 10 page, its most-watched movies for 2021 and 2022 include Red Notice, Don't Look Up and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.)
Netflix ramped up its film development after studios started building their own streaming services instead of licensing their movies to the company. This restructuring will combine the team working on small projects with a budget of $30 million or less and the unit that produces mid-budget films that cost $30 million to $80 million. There’s also a big-budget arm to its film development unit – likely involved with the aforementioned hits. No word yet on whether the restructuring will affect that part of the business.
– Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
Testing the limits of today's leading AI chatbots.
The generative AI race is on, and the current frontrunners appear to be Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI, which is powered by ChatGPT. But what are the limits to the questions it can answer? We asked Google’s Bard chatbots a series of questions to see which is better at delivering facts, replacing us at our jobs or participating in existential debates. We also looked at their speed, transparency and how likely they were to break if we started to push its buttons And don’t worry, Bing AI got the same treatment.
Through a technicality.
Apple won an appeal against an investigation launched by the UK’s antitrust watchdog last fall. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a full probe into Apple and Google in November. At the time, the regulator said that many UK businesses felt restricted by the “stranglehold” the two tech giants had on mobile browsing. The probe also sought to determine if Apple was restricting the cloud gaming market through its App Store rules. The company said the CMA should have opened the probe at the same time it first published its report on mobile ecosystems last June. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the court that oversees CMA cases, agreed with Apple, saying the regulator gave notice of its investigation too late.
Tesla has also been ordered to rehire a worker that it illegally fired.
According to a federal appeals court, Elon Musk broke US labor law in 2018 when he tweeted that Tesla factory workers would forgo stock options if they chose to unionize. In May 2018, a Twitter user asked Musk about his union stance. “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted,” he tweeted in response. “But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.” Tesla has argued the tweet was Musk’s way of pointing out that workers at other automakers don’t receive stock options. The court ordered Musk to delete the tweet. As of the writing of this article, the tweet is still there. | Labor Activism |
A demonstrator near the Capitol, June 8Allison Bailey/AP Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine.On Sunday, a bipartisan group of twenty US senators announced a “commonsense” proposal for making progress on gun safety, including enhanced background checks for gun buyers under 21, funding for states to implement “red flag” laws, and greater protection from gun violence for victims of domestic abuse. The proposal further contains “major investments” in mental health services and resources for communities nationwide, and funding for school security and violence prevention programs.
“Families are scared, and it is our duty to come together and get something done that will help restore their sense of safety and security in their communities,” announced the group of lawmakers led by Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican John Cornyn of Texas, who were reportedly working on the legislative text along with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Though by no means a done deal—as underscored by a somewhat tepid and hedged statement of support from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—the announcement clearly aimed to soothe a nation deeply distressed by a recent spate of mass shootings, including the massacre of 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
The agreement in principle falls well short of major legislative changes that a strong majority of Americans consistently say they want in public opinion polling, including comprehensive background checks for gun buyers. But if ultimately passed by Congress in the form outlined on Sunday, the plan would bring significant change in a political arena that has remained in an infamous state of paralysis for many years. Notably, the support of 10 GOP senators indicates a possible path to get beyond the threat of a filibuster.
Even if the full proposed set of measures goes through, however, the legislative details will of course matter greatly. Key questions hang over several in particular:
Enhanced background checks for buyers under age 21. Though still narrow in terms of overall gun buyers, the young demographic came grimly into view with the recent mass shootings in Uvalde and in Buffalo, New York, where the accused perpetrators both were 18 years old when they legally purchased AR-15-style rifles and other weapons. Senate Republicans already dismissed outright the idea of raising the gun buying age to 21; instead, the proposal describes “an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement.” But how long might that period last, and with what scope? It’s unclear how such efforts would gather information that frequently isn’t shared among disparate authorities or remains sealed under juvenile law. And many school and mass shootings have involved perpetrators who had no official record of criminal or mental health problems.
Funding for red flag laws in states. What the proposal calls “crisis intervention orders” (also known as “extreme risk protection orders”) was the subject of model legislation produced by the Justice Department in June 2021 and currently exists in 19 states. The laws seek to keep guns away from people deemed by a judge to be a significant danger to themselves or others. (A majority of mass shooters are both, being suicidal.) This policy goes straight to many Republicans’ desire to blame mental health for mass shootings—to fundamentally false effect—instead of access to guns. Initial research on the efficacy of red flag laws has shown promise for preventing violent outcomes, but there are also questions about how well the laws are understood let alone put to use. In the case of the Buffalo shooter, New York’s law was not applied. Nor was Indiana’s red flag law used in 2021 to keep legally purchased firearms from a 19-year-old who committed a massacre at a FedEx facility.
Protection for victims of domestic violence. This addresses the so-called intimate partner or “boyfriend” loophole, by expanding who can be disarmed if they are convicted for domestic violence or subject to a domestic-violence restraining order. The proposal would add to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System abusers “who have or have had a continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature”—and not just current or former spouses. Many women have been shot to death by such individuals beyond the reach of state laws, and violent misogyny is a rising behavioral factor among mass shooters. Yet, under what parameters that information in the NICS system would even be used toward possible enforcement of gun prohibition or removal remains wholly unclear.
“The language is still not negotiated” on the domestic violence measure, a person knowledgeable about the ongoing process told me on Sunday.
Additional hedging came from Republicans on Sunday. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah announced his interest in reviewing the pending legislation by first declaring that he “will always stand on the side of the Second Amendment.” According to reporting from Politico, a GOP aide warned that “the details will be critical for Republicans, particularly the firearms-related provisions,” and that “one or more of these principles could be dropped if text is not agreed to.”
Nonetheless, this may be a signal moment for one of America’s most fraught political problems. The Democrats and gun safety advocates appear to have embraced like never before a strategy of seeking incremental change at the federal level. And some Republican lawmakers appear to recognize that a nation frayed by all manner of existential turmoil may not do well to see the mass murder of innocent children again be met with congressional inaction, despite even some shocking indication of its acceptance.
If Congress does prove capable of passing bipartisan legislation that is recognizably close to the proposal announced on Sunday, that will go a long way toward breaking free from the entrenched national narrative of polarized deadlock and despair. Beyond the merits of the new measures themselves, it would create undeniable momentum for further progress on our nation’s unacceptable—and solvable—epidemic of gun violence. | US Federal Policies |
SEC Seeks To Appeal Ruling That Ripple XRP Isn't A Security
Whether cryptocurrencies are securities has long been a major question hanging over the industry.
(Bloomberg) -- The US Securities and Exchange Commission said it intends to challenge a federal judge’s ruling that Ripple Labs Inc.’s XRP token isn’t a security when sold to the general public.
US District Judge Analisa Torres in New York last month said the crypto firm’s sales of XRP to sophisticated investors met the test for an investment contract under federal securities law because those buyers “would have understood that Ripple was pitching a speculative value proposition for XRP with potential profits.” But the judge said that didn’t apply to programmatic investors, meaning the broader public buying crypto on exchanges.
Whether cryptocurrencies are securities has long been a major question hanging over the industry, which has argued it’s not subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC and other regulators. The Ripple case is one of several that have placed the issue before judges, resulting in “varying decisions,” according to the SEC.
The agency on Wednesday told Torres it plans to seek permission to promptly appeal her ruling to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, saying a timely review is warranted because of the “number of actions currently pending that may be affected” by the way the appellate court decides. A ruling from the court could resolve legal questions and provide a measure of consistency to lower-court decisions.
Lawyers for Ripple Labs didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the move by the SEC.
The ruling in Ripple’s favor as to retail sales involves “‘controlling’ questions of law because they disposed of the SEC’s claims regarding defendants’ offers and sales at issue,” the SEC said, and resulted in dismissal of claims involving more than half of XRP offers and sales.
The dispute raises important enforcement issues for the agency in many pending cases, including one recently brought against Coinbase, according to the filing. In that suit, the SEC claims Coinbase is illegally operating an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. Coinbase last week asked a judge to dismiss the case, citing the Ripple decision.
Read More: Crypto Surges and Sinks on the Words of Two New York Judges
The SEC said an appeal could also affect its suit accusing crypto exchange Binance Holdings Ltd. and its Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao of violating securities laws, mishandling customer funds and misleading investors and regulators.
Because Torres’s ruling didn’t end the Ripple case, the SEC needs her permission to seek immediate review from the appeals court. The agency will have to persuade the judge that the decision involves “a controlling question of law,” that there is “substantial ground for difference of opinion” and that an immediate appeal may speed up the litigation.
The SEC noted that one judge in the same courthouse expressly rejected the approach taken by Torres. In the regulator’s case against Terraform Labs Pte and its co-founder, Do Kwon, US District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the company’s Terra USD token may indeed be a security when sold to retail investors.
An appeal could postpone a potential trial in the Ripple case by months, though the SEC argued it would be quicker to resolve the legal issues now rather than after a final decision in the trial court.
XRP fell as much as 4.3% before paring some of the drop to trade at about 64 US cents as of 10:17 a.m. in Singapore on Thursday.
The case is SEC v. Ripple Labs Inc., 20-cv-10832, US District Court, Southern District of New York.
--With assistance from Allyson Versprille.
(Updates with the XRP token’s drop in the penultimate paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
The Florida Senate on Thursday passed a bill repealing a law requiring a unanimous jury recommendation for the death penalty, a reaction to the life sentence handed to the man who massacred 17 people at a Parkland high school.
The bill passed on a 29-10 vote and will allow the death penalty with a jury recommendation of at least 8-4 in favor of execution. The House still needs to approve the bill. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis supports the proposal.
The bill was proposed after a divided 9-3 jury spared Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz in November from capital punishment for killing 17 at the school in 2018. The Parkland school shooter instead received a life sentence.
"What happened in Parkland was abhorrent. What happened in Parkland was a tragedy that will forever stain this state," said Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, the bill sponsor. "That verdict shocked the conscience not only of the people of Parkland, not only the people in Florida, but people across the United State of America."
Only three states out of the 27 that impose the death penalty do not require unanimity. Alabama allows a 10-2 decision, and Missouri and Indiana let a judge decide when there is a divided jury.
For decades, Florida had not required unanimity in capital punishment, allowing a judge to impose capital punishment as long as a majority of jurors were in favor of the penalty. But in 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court threw out state law, saying it allowed judges too much discretion.
The state Legislature then passed a bill requiring a 10-2 jury recommendation, but the state Supreme Court said such recommendations should be unanimous, prompting lawmakers in 2017 to require a unanimous jury.
Three years later, the state Supreme Court, with new conservative jurists appointed by DeSantis, rescinded its earlier decision and ruled that a death recommendation does not need to be unanimous. Florida’s unanimity standard has remained untouched until now.
While Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo voted for the bill, he warned senators that they shouldn't be passing legislation like this because of one case, even if they, like he, believe Cruz deserves the death penalty.
"This deliberate body can't just immediately react to one particular horrific case," he said. "I can make the argument on either side, but let's just be intellectually honest about why we're doing it: If that verdict didn't happen, we wouldn't be having this bill." | US Federal Policies |
iStock The 2020 census occurred during a pandemic that disrupted census operations and public cooperation with the effort. The career scientists and professionals at the U.S. Census Bureau no doubt cringed at the thesis expressed in the June 1 opinion piece by Kristin Tate in The Hill and its most unfortunate headline. It is a shame that the bureau’s consistent effort to provide a report card after every decennial, not just 2020, is used in this case to advance a partisan political theory regarding the 2020 outcome, especially following a historic pandemic that disrupted census operations and public cooperation with the effort. The nation’s “largest peacetime mobilization” is always more than 10 years in the making, incredibly complex, and sensitive to all kinds of disruptive factors, including recessions, natural disasters, variable civic promotional efforts across states, and yes, even a pandemic. The fact is, it is not possible for census managers to introduce a partisan sleight of hand on such a massive undertaking, even if they were not the dedicated scientists, interested only in ground truth, that we know them to be. No American census is perfect. Trust us, we know, having held leadership positions across eight presidential administrations — four Republican and four Democratic — since the 1980 count. The Census Bureau knows this better than anyone. Bureau employees issue a post-census report card — formally known as the Post Enumeration Survey, or PES — because they are dedicated to making the next census better, more accurate and more complete than its predecessor. For the most part, they have succeeded across 24 national head counts since the first, in 1790. However, because of a number of factors — including the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire — that trend was broken in 2020. It disappoints the nation no less than the census professionals, but in fairness, not as much as most feared given the difficult challenges they faced. It’s true that 14 states were miscounted in 2020 by statistically significant margins. Overall, the PES reported a net national undercount in 2020 of just 0.49 percent. By comparison, the 2010 census, often regarded as the best count in the history of the process, had a net national overcount of just 0.01 percent, or almost zero. The 2000 census had a net national overcount of 0.24 percent. These three outcomes are in a very close range, especially when compared to the 1990 census, which had a national undercount of 1.61 percent, and every state in 1990 had an undercount of varying sizes. The large undercounts measured for the 1990 census outcome motivated the bureau, based on research, to ask Congress to fund new tools, especially the first paid advertising and promotion effort to build upon the public service ads of the 1980 effort to motivate higher levels of civic engagement and cooperation with the 2000 count. It worked. The bureau reversed a three-decade decline in census form response rates. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who was Washington’s secretary of State, reportedly expressed skepticism with the 1790 count, questioning whether it seriously undercounted the size of the fledgling nation. But in that instance, and in every census since, the nation accepted the results. They were fit for use, as are the 2020 results. The nation survived simply fine after the disappointing 1990 results with its large undercount in big cities and among minorities. No effort to redo the apportionment of Congress for the following decade was undertaken then, and none is needed now. Vince Barabba is the only Census Bureau director appointed by presidents of both parties, serving from 1973-1976 and 1979-1981, when he oversaw the 1980 decennial count. He also served as commissioner of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. John H. Thompson was the 24th director of the Census Bureau, from 2013-2017, leading the planning for the 2020 decennial. He also served in various senior leadership positions at the bureau overseeing work on the 1990 and 2000 counts. | US Federal Policies |
Fed Backs Away From Wages Focus, Bolstering Case for Rate Pause
Until recently, many top policymakers at the US central bank maintained that the road to lower inflation ran through the job market.
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials are rethinking their view that wage gains are fueling inflation, a key intellectual shift that bolsters the case for a pause in their tightening campaign this week.
Until recently, many top policymakers at the US central bank maintained that the road to lower inflation ran through the job market. The idea was that, because labor costs make up a substantial portion of the cost of providing services — an area where price pressures have been especially persistent — workers would need to feel some “pain” in the form of smaller wage increases for inflation to be brought under control.
But new research and commentary from officials and economists suggest the link between wages and prices may not be so direct. And it’s arriving just as the Fed is nearing the likely end of what has been a historic cycle of interest-rate increases over the past 15 months.
“If the link between wages and inflation isn’t as strong as policymakers believe, then you do run the risk of softening the labor market significantly without seeing much progress on inflation from that end,” said Preston Mui, a senior economist for Employ America, a think tank that supports pro-labor policies. “That sort of uncertainty all around is good enough reason for them to lean toward a skip at this next meeting.”
Fed officials last month authorized a 10th straight increase in the central bank’s benchmark interest rate, taking it above 5% for the first time since 2007, and signaled they may stop raising rates at this week’s policy meeting.
That signal came despite inflation’s slow progress in returning to their 2% target after reaching a four-decade high in 2022. The latest consumer price index figures are due Tuesday, and forecasters expect them to show core inflation, excluding food and energy, moderated to 5.2% in May from a year earlier.
The prospect of tighter credit conditions in the wake of several bank failures earlier this year helps explain policymakers’ willingness to take a break. So does the tentative change in attitudes toward wages.
Read More: Powell Faces Pushback Inside Fed Over Need to Cool Wage Gains
Minutes of the Fed’s May 2-3 policy meeting hinted at a shift. When discussing services inflation in particular, only “some participants remarked that a further easing in labor market conditions would be needed” to bring it down, whereas minutes of the previous meeting in March suggested “participants generally judged” such cooling would be necessary.
“I do not think that wages are the principal driver of inflation,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters after the May meeting. “I think wages and prices tend to move together, and it’s very hard to say what’s causing what.”
Powell’s remark alluded to a crucial question in the emerging wages-versus-prices debate: Are wages a large driver of inflation, or is it more likely to be the other way around? Public comments from officials in recent months suggest the latter interpretation is gaining a following.
Lower Profits
Meanwhile, new research from within the Fed system also supports that thesis.
A statistical analysis suggests faster wage growth has contributed only minimally to faster services inflation in recent years, San Francisco Fed economist Adam Shapiro said in an article published on the bank’s website last month. He noted businesses can “absorb” those costs via lower profits or by using automation and other methods to improve efficiency, adding that “recent evidence shows that wage growth tends to follow inflation, as well as expectations of future inflation.”
Before the pandemic, Paloma Clothing in Portland, Oregon, often offered employees a pay bump of as much as 3% at the start of every year. But inflation changed that equation.
The retail store now relies on stronger wage increases and robust benefits in order to retain its roughly 20 employees, said account manager Traci Burnes.
“Inflation has a lot to do with our raises,” Burnes said. But despite the higher wages, she says the company that’s been in business for nearly five decades has managed to avoid passing those costs on to consumers when it’s not necessary. “That’s definitely a case-by-case situation. We’re not raising prices across the board,” she said.
Many companies like Paloma Clothing continue facing pressure to boost pay. A still historically elevated 41% of small-business owners on net said they raised compensation in May, according to a National Federation of Independent Business survey. The percentage of firms planning to raise wages in the next three months, however, has in recent months moderated to pre-pandemic levels, around one in five on net.
Such businesses will first try to absorb higher costs by accepting lower profit margins, and then will try to pass the costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices as they “try and balance how much they can increase compensation and stay competitive,” said Holly Wade, executive director of the NFIB Research Center.
The government’s latest monthly jobs report, meanwhile, offered mixed signals on the strength of the labor market, with job creation topping forecasts even as average hourly earnings in the 12 months through May rose at the slowest pace in nearly two years.
Read More: Looking Beyond Mixed Signals, US Labor Market Remains Strong
Omair Sharif, the president and founder of Inflation Insights LLC, said wage pressures don’t map neatly to categories of the consumer price index that have played the biggest role in boosting services inflation. But even setting the wage question aside, he sees a sharp deceleration in price increases over the next few months as momentum in travel-related industries wanes.
“We don’t know for sure, but it feels like, and the data is suggesting, that things maybe have slowed down more than you’d like to see,” Sharif said. “The risk management approach to monetary policy, especially now that you have already raised rates so much, to me suggests that this is a time for patience, and to watch the data.”
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
The House passed a bill on Tuesday that would provide security protections to family members of Supreme Court justices, sending the measure to President Biden’s desk for final approval. The legislation, dubbed the Supreme Court Police Parity Act, cleared the House in a 396-27 vote, with only Democrats objecting to the measure. Passage in the lower chamber comes more than a month after the Senate approved the bill by unanimous consent, meaning all 100 lawmakers signed off on the measure, allowing it to clear without having to go through a formal vote. The bill offers “around-the-clock security protection” to family members of Supreme Court justices and “any officer” of the bench if the court marshal deems it necessary, protections similar to those of some executive and congressional officials. Supreme Court justices already have federal protection. The monthlong delay was the result of a standoff between the House and Senate: Democrats in the lower chamber wanted to pass an expanded bill that also offered protections to Supreme Court staff, including judicial clerks, if the court marshal deemed it necessary. Senate Republicans, however, refused to pass that bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on Monday that the House version “is not going to pass the Senate.” “The security issue is related to Supreme Court justices, not nameless staff that no one knows,” he added. On Tuesday night, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) revealed that the House would vote on the Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Coons (D-Del). Asked why Democrats had decided to accept the Senate version as written, Hoyer said, “I can’t really give you an explanation, because adding more employees doesn’t seem like a very controversial thing to do.” Hoyer added that he was “surprised” by the Senate pushback to the expanded proposal. “But it is what it is. And we’re going to move the bill,” he said. The Senate introduced the security bill days after Politico sent shockwaves throughout the country by publishing a draft majority opinion that showed the bench was prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court decision that safeguards the right to abortion at the federal level. Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” adding that “a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history.” Protests broke out across the country following the leak, and abortion rights activists, the Biden administration and Democrats countrywide are reportedly preparing a range of actions should Roe be overturned. A final ruling in the case — involving a Mississippi law that outlaws nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — is expected by the end of the month. Republicans upped the pressure to pass the bill last week, after an armed man who said he wanted to kill Brett Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s home and charged with attempted murder. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made three requests to pass the bill by unanimous consent over the past week, all of which failed. In remarks from the House floor Tuesday, McCarthy said he was “glad” Democratic leadership brought the Senate bill up for a vote but questioned why it took so long. “The House Democrats have delayed it for more than a month. The question the American public asks is, why? Why would you delay it?” McCarthy said. “We have all known that additional security has been necessary since the Dobbs opinion was leaked last month,” he added, citing the Supreme Court leak before pointing to the assassination attempt on Kavanaugh. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), during debate of the bill on the House floor Tuesday, said, “In the interest of protecting the justices’ families, we can no longer delay in passing the only version of the bill [Republicans] would apparently agree to.” He called the Senate bill “the best we can get,” adding in a separate comment, “I hope we will move swiftly another bill to extend protection to families of employees as well.” The California Democrat blamed Republicans for delaying the vote, condemning his colleagues across the aisle for not getting on board with the expanded measure that also offered protection to families of employees. “Let me tell you why it took us a few weeks rather than just one week to pass this legislation. It’s because Republicans refuse to protect the families of Supreme Court employees who are at risk,” Lieu said. “Shame on you for not doing that.” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) accused Democrats of holding up the security bill as a way to protect the individual who leaked the draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. The leaker is not known to the public, and the underlying motivation remains unclear. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the leak, though no details have been provided since. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the House floor said the bill “should’ve passed a darn long time ago,” adding that it was “better late than never.” Mike Lillis contributed. | SCOTUS |
Thune: Majority of Senate Republicans disagree with DeSantis on Ukraine
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Wednesday the majority of Senate Republicans disagree with the view shared by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week that supporting the war in Ukraine is not a “vital” national interest.
“There are lots of different opinions on U.S. involvement in Ukraine but I think the majority opinion among Senate Republicans is that the United States has a vital national security interest there in stopping Russian aggression, and that’s certainly the view I have,” Thune told reporters at a Republican leadership press conference, where he stood in for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is recovering from a fall and concussion he suffered last week.
Thune is one of several Senate Republicans who distanced themselves from DeSantis’s statement minimizing the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.”
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Hill that the United State would lose credibility as an international power if it backs away from supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
“I don’ think it’s a territorial dispute. I think Ukraine is not the most important national security interest we have but it’s important because China’s chief argument that they’re using to fracture our alliances is that we’re unreliable,” he said.
“We haven’t just committed money to Ukraine, we’ve committed our prestige and our credibility. If we walk away from that now, it will have an impact on how the world views us. It will have an impact on our alliances,” he added. “If we’re not willing to stand up to Russia, we’re not going to stand up to China, which has a much larger economy and a more sophisticated military.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he “completely” disagreed with DeSantis’s statement on Ukraine.
“I completely disagree with it and the elaboration that it’s a boundary dispute between two Eastern European countries made it even more incorrect and troubling,” he said.
DeSantis’s comments are particularly troubling to many Senate Republicans because he is viewed as one of the strongest potential candidates in 2024 GOP presidential primary. Many lawmakers see him as the candidate most likely to defeat former President Trump.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also pushed back on DeSantis’s comments.
“To say this matter is to say war crimes don’t matter,” Graham warned in a CNN interview. “He’s going to go beyond Ukraine, Putin, if you don’t get that, you’re not listening to what he’s saying.”
“This is a chance to stop Putin before it gets to be a bigger war and China’s watching,” Graham added.
A Gallup poll published on Monday showed that 62 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats believe the Russia-Ukraine conflict poses a critical threat to vital U.S. interests.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Congress |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined "Hannity" on Monday to discuss what the Republican Party will do about inflation, gas prices and the border if they take back the House in November.KEVIN MCCARTHY: We are focused on making sure the country comes back to the policies that makes us strong: America first. We had low gas prices, we had a secure border, we had safe streets, we had a future for our kids to be able to grow up in. And the Democrats have now taken over. They don't want to talk about it. You just showed that graph. While they had this January 6th meeting. Here they are, a January 6th hearing, overwhelmingly people are googling about gas prices. Families are spending $311 more dollars per month. That’s paying for a new car without getting the car. Sixty-four percent of Americans are driving to the grocery store less because they can’t afford the gas to get there and the Dems won't talk about it because they have no solutions. GAS PRICES FUELING COMING DEMOCRATIC BLOODBATH IN MIDTERMS, REPUBLICANS SAY Well the first thing when we take over the House, we're going to make a commitment to America. We'll lay out exactly what we'll do. We'll make America energy independent, that will make the gas prices lower, put more money into your pocket. We will secure the border. The other thing we'll do is we'll make sure your streets are safe. We're going to go into these communities, and we'll provide them cop grants only if their D.A.'s uphold every single law. We will provide a parent’s bill of rights that you have a right to say where your kids to go to school and input into your kid's education. That’s just the start of what we'll do.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPWATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE: This article was written by Fox News staff. | US Congress |
The US labor market has kept trucking right along even as other areas of the economy have slowed.
But that once high-octane ride is showing some signs of wear and tear amid the Federal Reserve’s yearlong efforts to cool inflation by suppressing demand.
Job cuts are mounting, hiring activity is losing momentum, and uncertainty is simmering as to how the banking sector’s recent tumult could ripple through the economy.
“I think the image, for me, that most sums up where we are in the labor market is [the chart in this tweet] by Bloomberg’s chief economist [Michael McDonough], which shows that mentions of job cuts are now higher than mentions of labor shortages in earnings calls,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at online employment site ZipRecruiter. “That’s a big reversal after 2021 and 2022 were very much the years of the labor shortage and everyone was talking about how they were struggling to find workers.”
“We’re at a tipping point now,” she added.
Just how much of a shift there is could become even clearer on Friday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics drops the heavily anticipated jobs report for March.
Economists expect monthly job gains to slow, with consensus estimates landing at the 240,000 level, according to Refinitiv. That would be a notable reduction from February’s 311,000 jobs gained and a sizable drop from the monster 504,000 net gain in January.
Refinitiv estimates the monthly unemployment rate holding steady at 3.6%; average workweek hours unchanged at 34.5; and average earnings ticking up only slightly (0.1 percentage points) to 0.3% for the month, which would bring the annual average hourly earnings growth down to 4.3% from 4.6%.
‘Employers are pulling back’
If the labor market data released so far this week serves as a proxy, March’s jobs report should show some noticeable cooling:
On Tuesday, the latest read on labor turnover showed that job openings in the United States dropped below 10 million for the first time in more than a year and half. The number of available jobs fell to 9.93 million in February, according to the BLS’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
The latest decline in openings indicates the labor market is showing some slack: The number of available jobs per job seeker is now fewer than 1.7. In January, that ratio was nearly 1.9.
Online job postings show a similar, if not more elevated retreat in recent weeks. Data from the Indeed Hiring Lab shows that as of March 24, postings — both overall and new — are down from a month prior.
Additionally, the share of postings advertising benefits such as health insurance, paid time off and retirement plans has tapered off, Nick Bunker, Indeed Hiring Lab’s head of economic research, told CNN.
“That suggests that maybe there’s some fading of competition for hires right now,” he said.
On Wednesday, the latest private-sector jobs report from payroll processor ADP came in at 145,000 for March, landing below expectations.
“Employers are pulling back from a year of strong hiring; and pay growth, after a three-month plateau, is inching down,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said in a statement.
And on Thursday morning, Challenger Gray & Christmas reported that US employers announced 89,703 jobs cuts in March, a 15% pickup from February and more than three times what was reported a year before (when the labor market recovery was still in full swing).
Hiring plans fell to 9,044, marking the lowest March total since 2015, according to the Challenger Report.
The March job cuts bring the first three months’ total to 270,416, making it the seventh-highest first-quarter job cut announcement during the past 35 years.
Nearly half of the layoffs have come from the technology sector, where many firms are scaling back considerably after over-hiring during the pandemic. Financial companies announced the second-most job cuts year-to-date with 30,635, according to the Challenger Report.
Also on Thursday, the latest weekly jobless claims data showed that continuing claims, which are filed by people who have received unemployment benefits for more than one week, continued its upward march to 1.823 million for the week ended March 25, marking the highest level since December 2021. Economists were expecting 1.699 million, according to Refinitiv.
Weekly claims totaled 228,000, down from the upwardly revised total the week before but above economists’ expectations of 200,000. (Starting with Thursday’s report, the Labor Department made a series of significant revisions to recent years’ data to better account for pandemic-era dynamics).
Potential red flags
The overall strength of the job market — and ongoing demand in underemployed industries like leisure and hospitality as well as health care — more than offset the losses seen in tech and finance.
There still remains uncertainty about the extent to which those and other layoffs may ripple through the broader labor market. And that uncertainty has only grown in recent weeks as a result of the turmoil in the banking industry.
“It doesn’t necessarily require that other banks fail in order for an impact to be seen,” Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told CNN. “But if the impact is that banks pull back on lending to businesses, and that prevents businesses from continuing to expand their headcount, then we might see the impact on the labor market through those subtle ripple effects from the banking troubles that started in March.”
It’ll be far too soon to see any of those ripple effects in the March jobs report, Zhao said, adding that he’s still anticipating monthly job gains in the 200,000 to 300,000 realm. However, Zhao noted that he’ll be closely watching certain metrics within the jobs report that could show whether the US labor market is slowing from its post-pandemic highs or starting to slide into downturn territory.
Some potential red flags could include: If the headline jobs number falls between zero and 200,000, and if the unemployment rate jumps by 0.2 percentage points or more.
“I think the concern then is that starts to look more like the start of a recession, because we did already see a 0.2 percentage point increase [in the jobless rate] from January to February,” he said. “So if we see another one, that does start to add up.”
Additionally, a drop in the average workweek hours could indicate that supply sank enough to where businesses had to cut hours, he added.
Industries at risk
Economists, by and large, are still factoring in a recession later this year. And even though it’s most likely to be “short and shallow,” the recession will affect some industries more than others, according to new research from the Conference Board.
The business membership and research group this week launched the Job Loss Risk Index, which estimates what industries could suffer the largest employment losses during a recession.
According to the organization’s findings, the industries with the highest risk include information services, transportation and warehousing, and construction.
Employment in these industries ballooned during the pandemic as telework and e-commerce boomed. However, that environment has shifted as people have returned to work and shifted spending to service-oriented industries. Additionally, high interest rates have made borrowing more costly and weakened industries such as housing.
The next tier of industries classified with a “high” risk include: repair, personal and other services; manufacturing; wholesale trade; and real estate. Industries with a “very low” or “low” risk include private educational services, health care, public sector employment, retail, food services, and arts and entertainment.
What this means for future rate hikes
Friday’s jobs report will be the last monthly employment snapshot before the Fed’s next policymaking meeting on May 2-3, since April data will be released May 5.
And while the March report will likely show a continued slowing in the labor market — notably wage gains and job growth — it probably won’t dissuade the Fed from approving a third-straight quarter-point rate hike in May, Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in a note Tuesday.
“The moderation won’t be enough to convince the Fed that labor market conditions are easing enough to return inflation to its 2% target,” she wrote.
Oxford Economics expects quarter-point rate hikes at the Fed’s May and June meetings, noting the latter projected hike is more up in the air due to banking sector stress.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to release its March jobs report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. | Labor Activism |
FILE – This undated image provided by Amazon shows one of the company’s delivery drones. Amazon won approval to deliver packages by drones from the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency said Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. (Jordan Stead/Amazon via AP, File) LOCKEFORD, Calif. (KTXL) — Amazon announced on Monday that customers in one California city will be the first to receive some shipments via drone later this year. The drone delivery option is launching in Lockeford, an unincorporated part of San Joaquin County, about 50 miles south of Sacramento. Amazon said it is working to get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Lockeford to start the drone deliveries. “Lockeford residents will soon have access to one of the world’s leading delivery innovations,” said California State Assemblyman Heath Flora. “It’s exciting that Amazon will be listening to the feedback of the San Joaquin County community to inform the future development of this technology.” Amazon calls its drone delivery service Prime Air and says its drones can carry up to five pounds. According to Amazon, after a customer has been “onboarded” and orders a package, a delivery drone will fly to their backyard, descend into the yard, drop the package and then fly away. Amazon’s Prime Air service is one of three drone delivery companies that has earned an FAA air carrier certificate, according to the company. Amazon says it works closely with the FAA and other regulators throughout the country. “It took years of inventing, testing and improving to develop these breakthrough technologies and we’re excited to use them to make customer deliveries,” Amazon said in a press release. Lockeford has a history in the aviation industry, as it was the home of pioneer Weldon B. Cooke, who built and flew planes in the early 1900s, according to Amazon. According to Amazon, Lockeford residents will have an “important role in defining the future.” “Their feedback about Prime Air, which drones delivering packages in their backyards, will help us create a service that will safely scale to meet the needs of customers everywhere — while adding another innovation milestone to the town’s aviation history,” the company said. Tags | US Federal Policies |
WARRENTON, Va. – During a morning meeting in early May, staff at the federal air traffic command center rattle off a few of the day's obstacles: storms near the Florida coast and in Texas, a military aircraft exercise, and a report of a bird strike at Newark Liberty International Airport.The center, about an hour's drive from Washington, D.C., is responsible for coordinating the complex web of more than 40,000 flights a day over the U.S. Shortly after 7 a.m. ET, there were already 3,500 flights in the air. During peak travel periods, that figure can climb to more than 5,000 flights at once. LaKisha Price, the air traffic manager at the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control System Command Center, said staff are monitoring potential problems in the nation's airspace "every day, every hour."The center is staffed 24/7.The FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center.Erin Black | CNBCNow as air travel rebounds to near pre-Covid pandemic levels even as airlines remain understaffed, the agency and carriers are trying to control the rising rate of delays and cancellations that can ruin vacations and cost airlines tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The problems are coming during the high-demand spring and summer travel season, which also coincides with some of the most disruptive weather for airlines — thunderstorms.From the start of the year through June 13, airlines canceled 3% of the roughly 4 million commercial U.S. flights for that period, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. Another 20% were delayed, with passengers waiting an average of 48 minutes.Over the same period in 2019 before the pandemic, 2% of flights were canceled and 17% delayed, with a similar average wait time, according to FlightAware.LaKisha Price Air Traffic Manager at the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command CenterErin Black | CNBCTypically, the FAA manages the flow of air traffic in part by holding inbound traffic at originating airports or slowing arrivals.Flight cancellations and delays last year and in 2022 have raised concerns among some lawmakers.No easy fixesWith no quick fix in sight, the FAA and airlines are scrambling to find other solutions. One option has been allowing airlines to fly at lower altitudes to avoid weather challenges, even though the approach burns more fuel.Airlines are coming up with their own solutions, too. In April, American Airlines launched a program called HEAT that analyzes traffic and potential disruptions, which lets it identify which flights to delay as early as possible to avoid a cascade of cancellations."We can start hours in advance, in some cases five, six hours in advance of what we believe the storm is going to be," said David Seymour, American Airlines' chief operating officer."We've got to be able to be very nimble and adaptive to the scenario as it plays out," he added.The pandemic slowed air traffic controller training, but the FAA hired more than 500 new controllers last year to bring its workforce to about 14,000. The agency wants to hire more than 4,800 more over the next five years. The FAA said it is in the middle of a hiring a campaign called "Be ATC" and said it will work with social media influencers and hold Instagram Live events about the job.The job isn't for everyone. Applicants can be no older than 30 and must retire when they turn 56. Pilots in the U.S. are forced to retire at 65 and airlines are currently facing a wave of retirements, some of which were sped up in the pandemic when carriers urged them to leave early to cut their costs. Lawmakers this year have been considering a bill that would raise the pilot retirement age at least two years.Storms in TexasBack at the command center, the cavernous room where air traffic specialists, airline and private aviation industry members, and meteorologists work features large screens showing air traffic and weather high along the main wall. It shows a bird's-eye view of the country's air traffic, which has been rebounding so fast that fares are outpacing 2019 levels."The problem is Texas right now," John Lucia, national traffic management officer at the center, during one of the morning meetings. He was pointing to a cluster of thunderstorms that were threatening to delay dozens of flights at east Texas airports.He noted the weather was set to hit the Dallas-Forth Worth area at around 10 a.m."So it gives us a couple hours to worry about it," said Lucia, a more than three-decade FAA veteran.Last year, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport became the world's second busiest thanks to booming U.S. travel and a dearth of international trips. The airport is the home hub of American Airlines. Nearby is also Dallas Love Field, the home base of Southwest Airlines.Inclement weather causes 70% of U.S. flight delays in an average year, according to the FAA. But there are other reasons for delays, too."We've seen people streaking on the runway," said Price, the center's air traffic manager. "We've had wildlife on the runways. You have to be ready for everything."Florida congestionSome of the most congested airspace has been in Florida. The state has long been a top tourist destination, but became even more of a hot spot during the pandemic for travelers seeking outdoor getaways. Some airports like Tampa and Miami are seeing higher numbers of airline capacity compared with before Covid-19 hit.At the same time, the state is prone to thunderstorms that can back up air traffic for hours. Airlines and the FAA have sparred over who's at fault, with carriers sometimes blaming air traffic control, including ATC staffing shortfalls, for delays which cost them by the minute.One solution from airlines has been to pare down their flying despite surging demand. JetBlue Airways, Spirit Airlines, Alaska Airlines and most recently, Delta Air Lines, have trimmed their schedules back as they grapple with staffing shortages and routine challenges like weather, to give themselves more backup for when things go wrong.In May, the FAA organized a two-day meeting with airlines in Florida about some of the recent delays. Afterward, the FAA said it would ramp up staffing at the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center, which oversees in-air traffic in five states — Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and North and South Carolina — and tends to deal with challenges from bad weather, space launches and military training exercises.The FAA stopped short of capping flights serving Florida but had said it would help airlines come up with alternative routes and altitudes.For example, the agency is also routing more traffic over the Gulf of Mexico, Price said.Spring and summer thunderstorms are among the most difficult challenges because they can be so unpredictable.American's Seymour said the airline can still improve, "We're continuing to look to find better ways to get to manage these situations." | US Federal Policies |
The US economy added 372,000 jobs in June, an indicator of resilience despite signs of slowing economic growth.The jobs reports is seen as a key indicator on whether high inflation – and central bank efforts to tame it with interest rates rises – is beginning to bite down on the wider American economy.The US unemployment rate held steady at 3.6%, the same as month earlier, the labor department said Friday. Job growth far exceeded the projections of economists, who expected the US to add roughly 278,000 jobs last month, according to consensus estimates.The figures may ease some fears of a looming recession, but also show that the Federal Reserve has more room to raise interest rates, cooling consumer demand, in its fight against historically high inflation.Job gains in June were notable in the professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and healthcare. However, overall US labor force participation declined from 62.2% from 62.3%, the department said.“No country is better positioned than America to bring down inflation, without giving up all of the economic gains we have made over the last 18 months,” Joe Biden said in a statement.US consumer figures are showing signs of curbing spending as they face inflation at a 40-year high and rising interest rates. In May, consumer spending increase 0.2%, down from 0.6% in April. Home construction and manufacturing production is declining.“The strong 372,000 gain in non-farm payrolls in June appears to make a mockery of claims the economy is heading into, let alone already in, a recession,” said Andrew Hunter, senior US economist at Capitol Economics.“With more than 11m job openings according to the labor department’s last count, and 5.9 million persons unemployed, the job market remains strong. One factor standing in the way, labor force participation remains stuck at just above 62%, still below the pre-pandemic level,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.“The employment report does nothing to dissuade Federal Reserve officials from sticking to their interest rate raising plans, looking to send inflation down, and closer to their 2% target. The next key reading for the Fed is the Consumer Price Index due in the days ahead.”While the jobs report show that hiring is consistent with four previous months, many economists expect job growth will slow. It’s not yet clear if companies will also cut back on existing jobs as the economy softens.On Thursday, employment data showed the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits hit the highest level in almost six months at 230,000. | US Federal Policies |
Sam Bankman-Fried on Wednesday lost his bid to be freed immediately from a Brooklyn jail so he could prepare better for his criminal trial, less than a month away, over the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
In rejecting Bankman-Fried’s request, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan nonetheless said it would ask the next available three-judge panel to consider it.
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Aug. 11 revoked Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bail after finding that the former billionaire likely tampered with witnesses at least twice.
Bankman-Fried quickly appealed, arguing he would be unable to properly prepare for his scheduled Oct. 3 trial from behind bars.
Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried stole billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, his hedge fund.
They pushed for Bankman-Fried to be jailed after he shared the personal writings of Caroline Ellison, Alameda’s former chief executive and his onetime romantic partner, with a New York Times reporter.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges, and said he shared Ellison’s writings to defend his reputation, not to intimidate her.
Ellison is expected to testify against him.
In court papers on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said the arrangement to give him several hours a day to review evidence on a laptop at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn has proven inadequate. They said he lost more than four hours on Friday when he had to return to his cell for a prisoner count, and lost more time over the weekend.
The US Attorney’s office in Manhattan said the jail has authorized Bankman-Fried’s purchase of a second laptop.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have not sought to delay the trial. Kaplan said last week that he would consider such a request. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
Wall Street investors are gearing up for their version of Hell Week — a torrent of jobs data coming over the next few days could easily lead to volatile market swings.
The unflinching resilience of the US labor market is one of — if not the — greatest source of tension in today’s economy. Federal Reserve officials have said on numerous occasions that they believe elevated inflation rates will remain sticky until employment numbers, and the pace of wage increases, shift lower. That means the Fed’s already painful rate hikes are likely to continue until the job market simmers.
But it’s still boiling.
In just one year, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates from nearly zero to a range of 4.5% to 4.75% to cool the economy. Job numbers, meanwhile, have blown past expectations for the past 10 months. The labor market is stronger than ever: The US added a shocking 517,000 jobs in January and knocked unemployment down to its lowest level since 1969.
The Fed’s response has been to keep on keeping on.
“In order to put this episode of high inflation behind us, further policy tightening, maintained for a longer time, will likely be necessary,” said San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly at Princeton University on Saturday. “Absent a substantial pickup in the share of working-age adults looking to be employed or a large change in immigration flows, labor force participation will continue to decline and worker shortages will persist, pushing up wages and ultimately prices, at least in the near and medium term,” she added.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller echoed Daly’s remarks last week.
“Recent data suggest that consumer spending isn’t slowing that much, that the labor market continues to run unsustainably hot, and that inflation is not coming down as fast as I thought,” he said.
“If those data reports continue to come in too hot, the policy target range will have to be raised this year even more to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that was in place before the data for January were released.” Waller said, explaining why this onslaught of jobs data is so important to investors. If the labor market remains strong, more Fed-induced pain lies ahead.
What to expect: ADP’s private payroll report for February and the JOLTS job openings, hires and quits report for January are expected Wednesday. On Thursday, Challenger, Gray & Christmas are set to release their job cuts numbers for February, and Friday brings the main show — the Labor Department’s monthly employment report.
Analysts forecast that the economy added 200,000 jobs in February, a smaller number than in January but still historically high. The unemployment rate is expected to remain the same, at 3.4%, according to a consensus poll from Refinitiv.
The predicted lack of movement in the unemployment rate has had some economists raising their projections for economic growth higher.
“We’re stuck in the messy middle.” said Josh Hirt, senior US economist at Vanguard. “Activity has weakened in the most interest rate-sensitive sectors of the economy, but core areas are still showing resilience. We are in this in-between period where the impact of rates has not fully worked through the economy.”
Hirt said he expects the unemployment rate will likely climb from its current 54-year low, albeit slowly and modestly, to around 4.5% to 5% by the end of this year.
It’s a big week in Washington, too
Wall Street and the Beltway are set to collide this week as key events in both monetary and fiscal policy consume the Capitol.
What’s happening: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will testify in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.
Powell will deliver his “Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,” and then open himself to hours of questions from lawmakers. Expect some spicier back and forth than what we see at the press conferences that follow policy decisions: Some lawmakers aren’t fond of the Fed’s current rate hiking regimen.
A preview of the report shows that the Fed chair plans to reiterate that more needs to be done to bring down annual inflation to the Fed’s target of 2%.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden is expected to present his annual budget to Congress. The plan comes at a time of deep fiscal unrest among lawmakers as arguments over the debt ceiling — the maximum amount the federal government is able to borrow — rage on. Republicans, who control the House, say they will not raise the limit until deep cuts are made in federal spending. The White House has refused to negotiate.
The president’s budget is typically used as a guideline for Congress to help shape spending priorities for the year ahead. Wall Street investors will likely pour over the document in order to understand what market-shifting debates may be coming down the pipeline.
Biden has said his budget will help offset increasing costs for Medicare, Social Security and health care by increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy. The president also proposed a “billionaire” tax last year. Other Biden proposals, like increased tax on capital gains and on corporate stock buybacks, have roiled Wall Street.
Up next
Monday: US factory orders for January; earnings from Grindr.
Tuesday: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to testify on economic outlook and monetary policy before the Joint Economic Committee; earnings from Dick’s Sporting Goods, Caseys General Stores, Squarespace, and Dole.
Wednesday: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is to speak, February ADP Nonfarm Employment Change, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to testify on economic outlook and monetary policy before the Joint Economic Committee, February JOLTs Job Openings; earnings from Brown Forman, Campbell Soup and MongoDB.
Thursday: February Challenger Job Cuts, US Initial Jobless Claims; earnings from Ulta Beauty, DocuSign, BJ’s Wholesale Club and The Gap.
Friday: February Nonfarm Payrolls; earnings from Douglas Elliman. | US Federal Policies |
By Greg Stohr | Bloomberg
The US Supreme Court refused to insulate airlines from California’s meal and rest break requirements, leaving intact a ruling that Alaska Airlines Inc. said will mean “nationwide tumult” for the industry.
The justices, without comment, let stand a damage award against Virgin America Inc., now part of Alaska, in a class action suit by California-based flight attendants. Alaska contended that a federal airline law supersedes the California rules.
Alaska and the industry say the appeals court ruling will force airlines to add extra crew to many flights at a time companies are already suffering from a labor shortage. The industry told the justices in court papers the effect will be to drive up prices, decrease services and imperil regional routes. “California’s state-mandated breaks will make an already difficult situation completely unmanageable,” Alaska argued. “The traveling public — and our economy — will pay the price.”
The suing flight attendants say the industry was overstating the impact of the ruling, issued by the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The case centers on flights within California.
Alaska “can easily avoid all of the supposed catastrophic effects of the decision below through the simple expedient of adding an additional flight attendant to some of its longer intrastate flights so that they can rotate breaks,” argued the flight attendants, who have union backing. They said the airline had estimated that would cost only $100 per flight.
A federal trial judge awarded $1.4 million to the flight attendants for their rest-break claims as part of a broader wage-and-hour lawsuit against the airline.
Off Duty California law requires that workers get a break — during which they are off duty — at least every five hours. The requirement is tricky for airlines because federal regulations mandate that flight attendants be ready at any time to handle emergencies and remain on duty for critical phases of flight, such as landings and takeoffs.
The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to either reject the appeal or send the case back to the appeals court for a second look. The administration said it’s not clear the California law precludes flight attendants from being on call to handle emergencies even during their state-required breaks.
The core legal question is whether the California meal-and-break requirements run afoul of the US Airline Deregulation Act, which precludes state laws that are “related to a price, route or service of an air carrier.”
While the case involves only flight attendants, airlines say they fear it opens the door to mandatory rest breaks for pilots, who are permitted to eat and take restroom breaks during low-workload periods but on typical domestic flights are expected to be on duty at all times in the event of an emergency.
The case is Virgin America v. Bernstein, 21-260.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P. | SCOTUS |
A few weeks ago, I was obsessed with my nose and throat. I was on a trip to Seattle to speak at a small, masks-required virology meeting about being a journalist during a pandemic. I went to graduate school there, so I was thrilled to see old friends and colleagues. But the irony that I was risking getting infected amid rising COVID-19 cases to get on a plane to talk with virologists about the pandemic didn’t escape me. I spent the whole week on high alert for the slightest hint of a sore throat or a runny nose. Despite masking, I worried that I’d get sick and be stuck thousands of miles from home or that I’d unknowingly pass the virus on to someone else. Luckily, this story has a happy ending. I didn’t catch the coronavirus. None of my friends or former colleagues got sick. Although I didn’t escape completely unscathed; I did come down with a mystery, non-COVID cold that I suspect I caught from a friend’s baby. Still, the experience made me wonder — what if I didn’t have to worry so much about becoming a disease spreader because there were COVID-19 vaccines that helped my body control the virus in my nose? Researchers are working on vaccines that would hopefully do just that. You squirt these vaccines into your nostrils, rather than inject them into your arm muscle like the current COVID-19 shots. Sprayed up the nose, the vaccines teach our immune systems to fortify our nostrils against coronavirus, perhaps meaning we get less sick or making us less likely to transmit the virus to other people. Jabs in the arm may not be as good at preventing transmission as nasal spray vaccines, some scientists suspect. The shots are better at building defenses that circulate in the blood or fluid that surrounds cells, which makes them great at protecting the lungs. And they have done what they are designed to do: curb severe disease and death (SN: 8/31/21). Booster doses help fend off severe COVID-19 better than the first two shots — especially for older people, studies show (SN: 4/29/22). But even with death rates down, that doesn’t mean our fight with coronavirus is over. Waning immune defenses combined with slippery versions of the coronavirus that can evade parts of our immune systems leave vaccinated people susceptible to infection. So we still need additional protection. A panel of experts advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet later this month to weigh in on whether we might need a vaccine update for the fall. Updated shots may indeed be on the horizon: Preliminary data from vaccine developer Moderna show that its latest vaccine, which includes both omicron and the original virus, boosts the immune response against omicron as well as other variants such as delta, the company announced on June 8. And on June 7 the FDA advisory committee recommended that the agency authorize a new COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. This one, developed by the company Novavax, is based on a traditional method — showing the immune system purified viral proteins — which may be appealing to still unvaccinated people who are hesitant about the novel mRNA technology in Moderna’s and Pfizer’s shots (SN: 1/28/21). Other experts are working on vaccines that might hold up against an onslaught of variants, both present and future. And then, there are the nasal spray vaccines. They could not only protect our lungs, but also the mucous membranes that line the upper regions of our respiratory tracts such as the nose. Such sprays would give us not only a motion detector ready to sense an intruder in an inner room of a building but also an alarm system that goes off the second the front door opens. That type of alarm system isn’t a brand-new tool. For example, there is a nasal influenza vaccine available in the United States called FluMist, which teaches the body to recognize four different strains. And there is a similar one in Europe called Fluenz Tetra. Each flu virus included in these vaccines is weakened but can replicate in the body. The attenuated viruses grow best at cooler temperatures found in our noses, not the warm environment of our lungs, a barrier that keeps them from making it to the lungs and causing influenza. But by taking off in the nose, replicating viruses kick off an immune response, so our bodies learn to set up reinforcements there. Already roughly a dozen potential COVID-19 nasal vaccines have made it to clinical trials around the world. One developed by a company called Altimmune was abandoned after early results showed the vaccine didn’t prompt a good immune response in healthy participants. Others have shown promise when tested in animals. The prospect of having nasal vaccines that may be able to curb transmission better than existing shots is understandably exciting. But these types of vaccines still have a way to go before hitting local pharmacies or doctors’ offices. First, it’s crucial for the nasal vaccines to strike the right balance. Their sprays must be strong enough to provoke our immune systems, but still weak enough that there aren’t unwelcome symptoms or side effects. It’s also of course important to ensure the safety of vaccine candidates that include live, weakened viruses. Sign Up For the Latest from Science News Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered to your inbox Some nasal vaccine candidates are similar to the influenza vaccine and include live, weakened viruses. Most of these viruses aren’t the coronavirus itself, but rather harmless-to-human viruses that sport one coronavirus protein for our bodies to recognize. Others may not need a virus to grow in the body to work. One team is developing a nasal spray that includes only the coronavirus spike protein, which helps the virus break into cells. That spike spray could serve as a boost for people who received one of the mRNA vaccines, coaxing important immune cells to come live in the nose and other parts of the respiratory tract. Once there, those immune cells would be poised to kick into high gear if the coronavirus invades. Second, nasal sprays face the same problem as current COVID-19 vaccines. What happens when the virus evolves in ways that help it hide from our immune system? We’ve already seen the consequences of that thanks to the delta and omicron waves that raced around the globe. And from 2016 to 2018, FluMist stumbled in the face of tweaked versions of some influenza viruses. Experts recommended that people get a different type of flu shot in those seasons. Just as researchers are considering updating existing COVID-19 shots to better mimic the viral variants currently wreaking havoc, nasal vaccines may also need regular updating. If I had a choice, I would never catch coronavirus. But in the grand scheme of things, it’d be nice if a spray up my nose could drastically lower my chances of passing it on to someone else if I did get infected. If they make it to consumers, the nasal vaccines could make future COVID-19 waves much smaller than they are now. And after more than two years of navigating ever-larger waves, wouldn’t that be nice? | US Federal Policies |
Biden says Roe is 'on the ballot' this NovemberIn remarks from the White House Friday, President Joe Biden said that "voters need to make their voices heard" at the ballot box in November's midterm elections because he is unable to restore abortion protections and Congress lacks votes to take that action. "We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that. This fall, Roe is on the ballot," Biden said. Until November, Biden said he will do everything in his power to protect a woman's right to choose in states where they will face the consequences of the court's decision. He said, for example, that his administration to protect a woman's access to medications that allow them to self-manage an abortion at home. He acknowledged that a number of Republican-controlled states have already banned or restricted access to these medications. Biden expressed anger at the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that "the court has done what it has never done before — expressly take away a constitutional right." "This decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is — far removed they are from the majority of this country," he said. "You can act. You can have the final word."He blamed his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for the reversal of Roe because of his nomination of three justices at the "core of today's decision." Plaintiff in same-sex marriage Supreme Court case says decision is moving country 'backward'Christopher Cicchiello2m ago / 4:54 PM UTCJim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that established the right for same-sex marriages across the nation, called today's verdict "a sad day for women's rights.""This Supreme Court continues to erode the rights of citizens at an alarming rate," Obergefell said in a tweet. "Women deserve responsive leaders who support reproductive justice. Leaders who respect their fundamental right to have control over their own bodies."In a separate statement reacting to Justice Clarence Thomas’ call to reconsider the holding in Obergefell v. Hodges in his concurring opinion, Obergefell said that "the millions of loving couples who have the right to marriage equality to form their own families do not need Clarence Thomas imposing his individual twisted morality upon them."U.S. Capitol public tours halted after SCOTUS decision Public tours of the U.S. Capitol were abruptly halted Friday after the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, allowing Capitol Police to shift some of their resources to the court complex, a source familiar with the decision said.Capitol Police were also concerned about members of the public lining up at the entrance of the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC), which is close to where thousands of protesters were assembling in front of the court building."It's because of the CVC entrance's proximity to activity at SCOTUS and the general need to shift U.S. Capitol Police manpower to respond to SCOTUS activity," the source said.So far, the protests have been peaceful.Scotland's leader calls out Roe decisionScotland's leader on Friday warned that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would "embolden anti-abortion and anti-women forces" beyond the United States."One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime," Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a tweet. "Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US — but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now — but it is necessary."McCarthy praises court's decisionHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised the decision of the court during a Friday press conference. "By a vote of 6-3, the court affirmed that the power to protect unborn life is returned to the people by their elected representatives," he said. "This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all people are created equal — not born equal, created equal."He added that the decision would "save the lives of millions of children" and "give families hope."Sharpton says court's decision brings us 'back to the dark ages' Tat Bellamy-Walker10m ago / 4:46 PM UTCThe Rev. Al Sharpton, the head of the National Action Network and an MSNBC host, said Friday that Black women and poor women will be disproportionately affected by the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. British doctors union calls Roe decision 'deeply worrying'A senior official at the British Medical Association, the United Kingdom's doctors union, on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision overturning abortion rights could have an impact beyond the United States. “The news that restrictions to abortions could be made law in some U.S. states ... is deeply worrying for the future of women’s reproductive health," Zoe Greaves, chair of the group's medical ethics committee, said in a written statement. "The BMA, along with multiple other health organizations, is concerned that this will remove women’s access to essential medical care, a fundamental human right as stated by the U.N., both in the U.S. and potentially more widely," she said. The organization added in a statement that it would be weighing the decision's implications to determine how best to support the American Medical Association in its opposition to the "criminalization of reproductive health."First lady Jill Biden was with DeSantis when Roe decision came downJosh Lederman16m ago / 4:40 PM UTCFirst lady Jill Biden was with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis when she learned of the Supreme Court ruling, a White House official told NBC News.The first lady was preparing to go onstage at the memorial for the one year anniversary of the Champlain Tower collapse in Surfside, Florida, along with DeSantis and his wife in a holding room. Moments before the first lady walked on stage, the news alerts popped up on everyone’s phones.In April, DeSantis signed a Florida law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Democratic governors in the West pledge to stand up for abortion rightsDemocratic governors in California, Oregon and Washington said Friday they will continue to "protect" patients seeking reproductive care, including those from other states seeking abortions.California's Gavin Newsom, Oregon's Kate Brown and Washington's Jay Inslee made the announcement in a video message released after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, presenting themselves as a counterweight to "red states and Republican-stacked courts.""California, Oregon and Washington are building the West Coast offense to protect patients' access to reproductive care," Newsom said.Inslee said: "We're going to work with our legislators, with our providers, with our patient advocates."Brown said: "We will not stand on the sidelines."'With sorrow...we dissent': Court's liberal wing says majority decided women not deserving of equal protectionIn a blistering dissent to the court's decision reversing abortion rights, the justices on the bench’s liberal wing slammed the majority opinion as one that would curtail women's rights.“It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in the lengthy dissent."With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent," they added.Read the full story here.Planned Parenthood Wisconsin temporarily suspends abortion servicesAntonio Planas21m ago / 4:35 PM UTCPlanned Parenthood Wisconsin announced Friday it was “temporarily suspending” abortion services in response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In a video statement on the organization’s website, the group's president, Tanya Atkinson, lamented the Supreme Court’s decision because it has taken away a constitutional right from women and instead placed health care decisions in the hands of politicians.“Because Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban remains in effect, Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is temporarily suspending abortion services,” she said. “Please know that we are looking at all legal options available. This news is so incredibly devastating. The decision of whether or not to become a parent can be one of the most life-changing decisions a person can make,” she said. “You should be able to make the very personal, very needed health care decisions.”Atkinson added that although abortion services are not available in Wisconsin, the organization is still there for people who need abortions and will counsel them on finding options where abortions are safe and legal. The group, she said, will also be available for “after-care” services. Other services provided by the organization are also available at its centers or through telehealth, she said.“Planned Parenthood Wisconsin stands for health care, and we will not give up, not now, not ever,” she said.Anger and joy outside Supreme CourtTears flowed and voices bellowed outside the Supreme Court early Friday, as activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered to bear witness to the end of the Roe era. "It's really a visceral issue," said Mai El-Sadany, a human rights lawyer who opposes Friday's decision. "The people who showed up here are really angry and they didn’t want to be alone." Paige Nelson, 20, cried tears of joy on the street in front of the Supreme Court, where the grounds long used for demonstrations have been closed off for weeks as a security precaution."I’m just so happy that no matter who you are and whatever extra chromosomes or whatever disability you might have, you get the chance to live this amazing life, and I will continue advocating until abortion is completely gone," said Nelson, a Washington state resident who is participating in a summer program with the conservative Concerned Women of America.Canadian PM Justin Trudeau calls Roe decision 'horrific'Reuters26m ago / 4:30 PM UTCCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called the Supreme Court decision "horrific."“The news coming out of the United States is horrific. My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion,” Trudeau said on Twitter.“No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he said.GOP Sen. Mitt Romney says he supports Roe's reversalSen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, praised the Supreme Court's ruling Friday in a brief statement. "The sanctity of human life is a foundational American principle, and the lives of our children—both born and unborn—deserve our protection," Romney said. "I support the Court’s decision, which means that laws regarding abortion will now rightfully be returned to the people and their elected representatives," he added.AG Merrick Garland says states cannot ban access to medications for abortionsAttorney General Merrick Garland vowed to protect access to Mifepristone, which is used along with another medication to end early pregnancies.“In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," he wrote in a statement.The Food and Drug Administration approved in 2016 the use of the medications in terminating abortions.The "Department will continue to protect healthcare providers and individuals seeking reproductive health services in states where those services remain legal," his statement added. "This law prohibits anyone from obstructing access to reproductive health services through violence, threats of violence, or property damage."Decision a 'dark moment,' British rights group says The Supreme Court’s decision is a “dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” the chair of a British rights group said Friday. ‘This is a hugely significant set back for abortion rights. Not just in the U.S. but it will embolden anti-abortion activists here and in Poland, Malta and other places where the struggle for access is already desperate,” Kerry Abel of Abortion Rights said in a statement. “Any chink in the legislative armour that undermines the right to privacy, makes access more difficult or puts abortion funding out of reach will impact poorer and marginalised women and pregnantpeople and will encourage yet more anti-abortion legislation and action,” she said. “This is a dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” she added.Rep. Jamie Raskin knocks Thomas, says they are not 'like real judges at this point'Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., knocked Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he is trying to "demolish the constitutional right to privacy" while blasting the high court's justices as an "instrument of the right-wing Republican agenda." "Roe versus Wade was built on Griswold versus Connecticut, which asserted a constitutional right to privacy for women and men to obtain contraception and birth control," Raskin said Friday. "They might like to pretend as if this is some kind of singular strike against just women's right to abortion, but it has implications for contraception. It has implications for the right of gay people to get married under the Obergefell decision. It has implications for the right of people not to be sterilized by the government against their will."Raskin added that the justices are "not like real judges at this point." "I mean, they’ve got the power of it, but they basically have turned themselves into partisans," he said.Sen. Susan Collins calls ruling 'not conservative' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh who were part of Friday's majority opinion, said in a statement that the ruling was an "ill-considered action" and "not conservative." "The Supreme Court has abandoned a fifty-year precedent at a time that the country is desperate for stability. This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show both consistency and restraint," Collins said. "Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government."Collins said that the ruling was "inconsistent" with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their congressional testimony and in meetings with her where, she said, "they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon."Collins said she is working on a bill with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would codify Roe, Casey, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and Griswold v. Connecticut."Our legislation would enshrine important abortion protections into law without undercutting statutes that have been in place for decades and without eliminating basic conscience protections that are relied upon by health care providers who have religious objections to performing abortions," she said.U.K.'s Boris Johnson calls Roe decision 'a big step backward'British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would have a "massive" impact around the world. “This is not our court, it’s another jurisdiction, but it clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world," he said during a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda. "It’s a very important decision." "I think it’s a big step backwards," Johnson, who leads the Conservative Party, added. "I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the U.K. has the laws that it does.”Missouri governor signs state proclamation banning most abortionsChristopher Cicchiello37m ago / 4:19 PM UTCMissouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a proclamation Friday to activate its trigger law, banning most abortions.“Nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the United States Constitution gave un-elected federal judges authority to regulate abortion. We are happy that the U.S. Supreme Court has corrected this error and returned power to the people and the states to make these decisions,” Parson, a Republican, said in a news release.This law makes it illegal for doctors to perform abortions and also makes anyone who knowingly induces an abortion guilty of a class B felony. Doctors can have their licenses revoked for their involvement. However, a woman who has an abortion will not be prosecuted "for a conspiracy to violate the provisions" of this act. No mention of an exception for a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest was provided in the act.Upon Parson’s signature, the act takes effect immediately.Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton says abortions are 'now illegal in Texas'Texas' GOP attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced Friday that abortion is now illegal in Texas as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling. "SCOTUS just overruled Roe & Casey, ending one of the most morally & legally corrupt eras in US history. Praise the Lord. Abortion is now illegal in Texas," he said in a tweet. Texas had on the books a trigger law, which immediately banned abortion once Roe came down.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed into law one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans last year, which took effect in September. It had banned abortions as early as six weeks, which effectively banned all abortions because most women don't know they're pregnant that early in the process. Whole Women's Health, an organization that has operated four clinics providing reproductive health services in Texas and other states, said it has stopped providing abortion procedures as a result of Friday's ruling, according to the Texas Tribune. In guidance posted on the organization's website Friday, it said that its clinics "are still operating in Baltimore, MD; Bloomington, MN; Alexandria, VA; and Charlottesville, VA." It also said that it offers medication abortion pills by mail to patients in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.It also said Whole Women's Health "is exploring plans to expand both our in-clinic and mail services into additional states where abortion is legally protected."Democratic lawmakers march to Supreme Court in support of abortion rightsAt least 150 Democratic lawmakers marched to the Supreme Court on Friday to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told NBC News the decision marked "a sad day for American jurisprudence.""Never did I envision that this court would reverse 40 or 50 years of precedence, but they did it," he said. "And they did it in utter disregard for the 60% of the American people who support Roe and did not want it overturned."Conservative Hispanic group lauds court decisionBienvenido, a conservative Hispanic group, said the court's decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision was "correct as both a legal and a moral matter.""Today we join millions of Americans — including the majority of Hispanics who value human life — in celebrating the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling overturning 'Roe' and 'Casey,'" a statement from the group said. "It was always a lie that the Constitution guaranteed the right to kill unborn children and this Court has just exposed this lie for the shameful farce that it always has been," the statement continued. "As we commemorate this historic decision, let us remember these children who were denied the right to live, pray for forgiveness, and give thanks to God." According to Pew Research Center, 60% of Hispanics in 2022 said abortion should be legal. Transgender Law Center denounces Supreme Court decision as "despicable" Tat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 3:51 PM UTCThe Transgender Law Center, one of the nation's largest transgender rights groups, slammed the court's decision, calling it "despicable" and a "politically-motivated" attack.In a statement, the organization stressed that the majority opinion will have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups, including Black women, disabled people, migrant women, poor people and individuals living in rural communities.“Today we loudly affirm and pledge our solidarity with all people working for Reproductive Justice in this country,” the group's executive director, Kris Hayashi, said. “Whether it is a right to an abortion, the right to affirming medical care, or the right to learn about your own history in schools, our collective rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy are inexorably entwined.”'God made the decision': Trump praises the ruling overturning RoeFormer President Donald Trump praised the Supreme Court's ruling in a statement to Fox News on Friday, saying that it's "following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago."Trump was asked if he played a role in the decision because he nominated three of the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett."God made the decision," Trump told Fox. Asked to address any of his supporters who support abortion rights, Trump said, "I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody ... This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged."Trump had previously supported abortion rights years ago, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" in 1999 that he was "very pro-choice" at the time.Susan B. Anthony List celebrates overturning of Roe v. WadeThe anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List celebrated news Friday of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, calling it a "historic victory for human rights." Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the group, said in a video message outside the Supreme Court that it was a moment of "great gratitude and resolve." "This Court has just overturned the wrongly decided Roe versus Wade decision. Let those words sink in," she said. "Roe versus Wade is overturned after 50 years of lobbying, building centers of hope to serve pregnant women, on our knees praying, off our knees marching and ensuring the powerful pro-life voice could be heard in our elections. We have arrived at this day, a culminating day of so much and the first day of a bright pro-life future for our nation."She said the decision allows the "will of the people to make its way into the law through our elected officials" and declared that "our best days are ahead."Attorney General Merrick Garland vows to 'use every tool' to protect abortion rightsAttorney General Merrick Garland, who as Barack Obama's 2016 Supreme Court nominee was denied a confirmation vote by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, vowed to put the full weight of the Department of Justice behind protecting abortion rights."The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision," he said. "This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect — with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means."“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom. And we will not waver from this Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans," he added.Mayor Eric Adams says people around the country 'welcome' to access abortion care in New York City New York City Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at the Supreme Court on Friday, saying that "politics came before people at the highest court in the land." "What the court has done today ignores the opinions of the majority of Americans, as it helps states control women’s bodies, their choices, and their freedoms," the Democrat said in a statement, adding that the decision puts lives at risk."There is nothing to call this Supreme Court opinion but an affront to basic human rights and one that aims to shackle women and others in reproductive bondage."Adams sought to reassure New Yorkers, saying that they can still access safe, legal abortions in the city. He also said that people around the country seeking the procedure are "welcome here" to access those services.Massachusetts Gov. Baker signs executive order protecting abortion providersAntonio Planas1h ago / 3:39 PM UTCIn response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who is not running for re-election, signed an executive order Friday protecting health care providers performing abortions from losing their licenses or receiving other discipline based on potential charges from out of state, he said in a statement.“Under the executive order, the Commonwealth will not cooperate with extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against individuals who received, assisted with, or performed reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts,” the statement said.The order, he said, also prohibits any “Executive Department agencies” from assisting another state’s investigation into a person or entity for receiving or delivering reproductive health care services that are legal in Massachusetts.“This executive order will further preserve that right and protect reproductive health care providers who serve out of state residents. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, it is especially important to ensure that Massachusetts providers can continue to provide reproductive health care services without concern that the laws of other states may be used to interfere with those services or sanction them for providing services that are lawful in the Commonwealth,” Baker said.Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said: “We are proud of the Commonwealth’s history of ensuring access to reproductive health care, and will continue to do so, despite today’s ruling from the Supreme Court.”Michigan Gov. Whitmer says ruling means her state's 1931 law banning abortion takes effect Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement Friday it was a "sad day for America" and that her state's "antiquated" 1931 law banning abortion without exceptions for rape or incest will take effect. The law also criminalizes doctors and nurses who provide reproductive care, she said. "For now, a Michigan court has put a temporary hold on the law, but that decision is not final and has already been challenged. The 1931 law would punish women and strip away their right to make decisions about their own bodies," Whitmer said. "I want every Michigander to know that I am more determined than ever to protect access to safe, legal abortion."She said she filed a lawsuit in April to urge her state's Supreme Court to determine whether the Michigan Constitution protects the right to an abortion. "We need to clarify that under Michigan law, access to abortion is not only legal, but constitutionally protected," she said. Barack Obama calls Roe v. Wade reversal an attack on millionsTat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 3:33 PM UTCFormer President Barack Obama said the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade targets the freedom of millions of Americans in the U.S. "Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans," he wrote in a tweet. He noted that states across the country have already passed bills restricting abortion rights, and pointed people who want to fight against these restrictions toward Planned Parenthood and the United State of Women.In a statement, former first lady Michelle Obama said she was "heartbroken for people around this country who just lost the fundamental right to make informed decisions about their own bodies."Recent NBC News poll showed a majority of people in U.S. didn't want Roe v. Wade overturnedA majority of people in the U.S. — 63 percent — said in a recent NBC News poll in May that they didn't believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, compared to 30% of people who wanted the abortion rights ruling to be reversed.Additionally, a combined 60% of Americans across the country said abortion should be either always legal (37%) or legal most of the time (23%) — the highest share believing it should be legal on this question, which dates back to 2003. By party, 84 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Independents want abortion to be legal, versus just 33 percent of Republicans. The poll was conducted after the draft opinion of Alito's Roe opinion leaked.NAACP calls decision 'egregious assault on basic human rights'NAACP General Counsel Janette McCarthy Wallace said in a statement Friday the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade as "marks a significant regression of our country.""As a legal professional, I am horrified by this decision. As a Black woman, I am outraged to my core," Wallace said. "There is no denying the fact that this is a direct attack on all women, and Black women stand to be disproportionately impacted by the court's egregious assault on basic human rights. We must all stand up to have our voices heard in order to protect our nation from the further degradation of civil rights protections we have worked so hard to secure."Separately, Portia White, the NAACP vice president of policy and legislative affairs, said: "This Supreme Court is turning back the clock to a dangerous era where basic constitutional rights only exist for a select few. They've stripped away our right to vote, and now women have lost their right to their own body. What’s next?"White added: "We cannot allow our future to rest in the hands of those determined to crush every bit of it. We need to fight back."Biden to address Supreme Court ruling in remarks at 12:30 p.m. ETPresident Joe Biden will address the Supreme Court's ruling in remarks at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET, according to the White House.The guidance said that Biden will deliver his response in the Cross Hall.Durbin announces Judiciary hearing to explore "grim reality of a post-Roe America"Christopher Cicchiello2h ago / 3:20 PM UTCSenate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next month to "explore the grim reality of a post-Roe America."Durbin, who chairs the committee, made the announcement in a series of tweets in which he vowed to keep "fighting to enshrine into law a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices.” "The Court’s decision to erase the right to an abortion will not only lead to the denial of critical health care services, but also criminal consequences for women & health care providers in states eager to embrace draconian restrictions," Durbin wrote. "We cannot let our children inherit a nation that is less free and more dangerous than the one their parents grew up in."He also urged voters to elect "pro-choice Democrats who will write abortion protections into law" in the midterm elections.LGBTQ rights could be at risk post-Roe, advocates warned before rulingJulie Moreau2h ago / 3:18 PM UTCThe leaked initial draft of the Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade had advocates worried about what the precedent’s reversal could mean for the LGBTQ community’s recently gained rights. Cathryn Oakley, an attorney with the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, stressed that the high court’s decision would have a direct impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. “The LGBTQ community relies on reproductive health care. LGBTQ people seek and receive abortions, they seek and receive and use contraception,” she said. The willingness of the court to overturn precedent could, some advocates fear, signal that other federally protected rights of minorities may be in jeopardy, such as same-sex marriage, which became the law of the land with the Obergefell v. Hodges case. Read more about what LGBTQ rights advocates warned before Friday's ruling.Virginia Gov. Youngkin says Supreme Court ruling 'rightfully returned power to the people'Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade "has rightfully returned power to the people" and the elected officials of each state. "I’m proud to be a pro-life Governor and plan to take every action I can to protect life," he said in a statement Friday. "The truth is, | US Federal Elections |
A union organization filed a complaint Friday with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Apple of anti-union actions. It's the latest in a year of clashes between the company and a small number of its retail employees engaged in collective organizing. The Communications Workers of America, or CWA, which has been supporting employees of an Apple store in Columbus, Ohio, filed the complaint to the US labor board. The complaint accuses Apple of trying to get those employees to join an "employer-created / employer-dominated labor organization as a means of stifling union activities" as well as holding mandatory anti-union meetings, according to a Bloomberg report. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In May, the CWA filed a complaint with the NLRB against Apple alleging the tech company had kept workers from distributing pro-union materials in a New York City retail store break room, and in October the labor board itself filed a complaint with Apple stemming from the CWA's filing. Other complaints filed with the labor board allege unfair labor practices by Apple. Amid the complaints, workers have had mixed success organizing their stores into official unions. Employees from two stores, in Maryland and Oklahoma City, successfully voted to unionize in June and October, respectively, becoming the first two groups of Apple retail store workers to do so. But a group of workers at an Atlanta store backed out of holding a union vote in May, saying that a "free and fair election" was impossible. | Labor Activism |
Exorbitant fuel prices have forced some emergency service providers to find ways to cut costs, including by not dispatching first responders to nonemergency calls, cutting back on other operations and reassessing plans to buy new equipment.On Wednesday, the average cost of a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. was $5.01, far above the $3.07 average from the same time last year, according to AAA.The climb comes as the nation’s inflation rate further accelerated in May, with prices rising 8.6% from a year ago for the fastest increase since December 1981, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Like many Americans, agencies that provide emergency services have not been exempt from the strain of skyrocketing costs.Scott Matice, captain of the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan, said deputies won’t immediately respond to nonemergency calls and will cut back on patrols to save on gas.“We instructed our officers to not idle their vehicles and to do stationary traffic control rather than patrol and drive all over the place just trying to find violations,” he said.Matice said that calls where evidence doesn’t need to be collected will be taken by phone and that further gas increases could force the department to limit mileage on vehicles.“We want officers to be smarter about their patrol but still visible,” Matice said.In Indiana, the Honey Creek Fire Department will restrict building inspections, use smaller vehicles more frequently and won’t allow firefighters to drive to training courses to save on fuel costs, according to Chief Thomas High. He said his department has responded to 960 calls this year but projects it will get more than 2,000.Gas prices are soaring for several reasons, including more motorists hitting the road to kick off the summer.Additionally, many Western nations haven’t purchased oil from Russia, a global oil producer, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.In Colorado, John Frank, fleet manager for the South Metro Fire Rescue, said it plans to offset gas costs by having staff maintain and repair their own vehicles instead of outsourcing the work. The department also won’t upgrade its fleet.“It is important to understand, fuel is always your highest cost. It’s something that we monitor very regularly,” Frank said, adding the department doesn’t have a contract with a fuel supplier to supplement gas prices.West Virginia's Cabell County Sheriff Chuck Zerkle fears rising gas prices will put his department over its fuel budget and require it to siphon money from elsewhere. “If I can’t get any relief, I’ll have to start cutting equipment,” Zerkle said, adding that his department won't purchase at least six new cruisers at $50,000 each.Deputies could also stop responding to non-life-threatening 911 calls, he said, but noted that would be a last resort if gas prices rise further and more funds can’t be allocated from the county government.“The public expects to make a call and somebody comes,” the sheriff said. “They want to see you out on the road being visible and deterring crime. People expect us to be there, and we’re going to be there for them.”Other emergency response agencies also said they will have to find a way to continue normal operations as fuel prices rise.“We’re not really in a business where we can cut back on services,” said Greg Porter, assistant director of the Ross/West View Emergency Medical Services Authority in Pittsburgh. He projected the authority will exceed this year's fuel budget by at least $30,000 and said vehicles will now run for shorter periods of time.“If folks call 911, we have to go. That’s just the nature of the business,” Porter said, adding that inflation has also driven up the costs of their medical and cleaning supplies.Deon J. Hampton is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Cincinnati. | US Federal Policies |
Biden says no violence, urges people to 'keep all protests peaceful'President Joe Biden on Friday urged people to "keep all protests peaceful" in the wake of SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. "I call on everyone, no matter how deeply they care about this decision, to keep all protests peaceful," he said during a White House speech, reiterating: "Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. No intimidation. Violence is never acceptable." Hundreds of demonstrators have already gathered outside the Supreme Court following the historic decision with some pro-choice demonstrators chanting: "We won’t go back! We won’t go back! My body, my choice!"The scene outside the court has continued to grow but has remained relatively peaceful. "Threats and intimidation are not speech," Biden said during his speech. "We must stand against violence in any form regardless of your rationale." 'People will die because of this decision,' Ocasio-Cortez saysAntonio Planas8m ago / 5:07 PM UTCRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Friday the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will make abortions more dangerous and result in deaths.“Overturning Roe and outlawing abortions will never make them go away. It only makes them more dangerous, especially for the poor + marginalized," she tweeted. "People will die because of this decision. And we will never stop until abortion rights are restored in the United States of America.”Anti-abortion Democratic Rep. Cuellar says Roe decision leaves issues up to the statesTexas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the lone anti-abortion Democrat in the House, said Friday his position has not changed."We'll let the states make this decision now," he said. Asked by NBC News about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to the Supreme Court's decision, which she said was "cruel," Cuellar said, "Everybody has their opinion, including the speaker."Cuellar said that while he was in the minority in his caucus, he is not in his district.WHO’s Tedros disappointed by Roe v. Wade decisionReuters16m ago / 4:59 PM UTCThe head of the World Health Organization said on Friday he was very disappointed by the overturning of Roe v Wade.“I am very disappointed, because women’s rights must be protected. And I would have expected America to protect such rights,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Reuters on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda.Sanders says it is time to end the Senate filibusterTat Bellamy-Walker18m ago / 4:57 PM UTCSen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called on Democrats to end the filibuster in the Senate and solidify protections for abortion rights. "Overturning Roe v. Wade and denying women the right to control their own bodies is an outrage and in defiance of what the American people want," Sen. Sanders wrote in a tweet Friday. "Democrats must now end the filibuster in the Senate, codify Roe v. Wade, and once again make abortion legal and safe." Biden says Roe is 'on the ballot' in NovemberIn remarks from the White House on Friday, President Joe Biden said that "voters need to make their voices heard" at the ballot box in November's midterm elections because he is unable to restore abortion protections and Congress lacks the votes to take that action. "We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that. This fall, Roe is on the ballot," Biden said. Until November, Biden said he will do everything in his power to protect a woman's right to choose in states where they will face the consequences of the court's decision. He said, for example, that his administration will protect women's access to medications that allow them to self-manage an abortion at home. He acknowledged that a number of Republican-controlled states have already banned or restricted access to these medications. Biden expressed anger at the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that "the court has done what it has never done before — expressly take away a constitutional right." "This decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is — far removed they are from the majority of this country," he said. "You can act. You can have the final word."He blamed his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for the reversal of Roe because of his nomination of three justices at the "core of today's decision." Plaintiff in same-sex marriage Supreme Court case says decision is moving country 'backward'Christopher Cicchiello20m ago / 4:54 PM UTCJim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges that established the right to same-sex marriages across the nation, called today's verdict "a sad day for women's rights.""This Supreme Court continues to erode the rights of citizens at an alarming rate," Obergefell said in a tweet. "Women deserve responsive leaders who support reproductive justice. Leaders who respect their fundamental right to have control over their own bodies."In a separate statement reacting to Justice Clarence Thomas’ call to reconsider the holding in Obergefell v. Hodges in his concurring opinion, Obergefell said that "the millions of loving couples who have the right to marriage equality to form their own families do not need Clarence Thomas imposing his individual twisted morality upon them."U.S. Capitol public tours halted after Roe decision Public tours of the U.S. Capitol were abruptly halted Friday after the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, allowing Capitol Police to shift some of their resources to the court complex, a source familiar with the decision said.Capitol Police were also concerned about members of the public lining up at the entrance of the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC), which is close to where thousands of protesters were assembling in front of the court building."It's because of the CVC entrance's proximity to activity at SCOTUS and the general need to shift U.S. Capitol Police manpower to respond to SCOTUS activity," the source said.So far, the protests have been peaceful.Scotland's leader calls out Roe decisionScotland's leader on Friday warned that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would "embolden anti-abortion and anti-women forces" beyond the United States."One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime," Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a tweet. "Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US — but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now — but it is necessary."McCarthy praises court's decisionHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised the decision of the court during a Friday press conference. "By a vote of 6-3, the court affirmed that the power to protect unborn life is returned to the people by their elected representatives," he said. "This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all people are created equal — not born equal, created equal."He added that the decision would "save the lives of millions of children" and "give families hope."Sharpton says court's decision brings us 'back to the dark ages' Tat Bellamy-Walker28m ago / 4:46 PM UTCThe Rev. Al Sharpton, the head of the National Action Network and an MSNBC host, said Friday that Black women and poor women will be disproportionately affected by the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. British doctors union calls Roe decision 'deeply worrying'A senior official at the British Medical Association, the United Kingdom's doctors union, on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision overturning abortion rights could have an impact beyond the United States. “The news that restrictions to abortions could be made law in some U.S. states ... is deeply worrying for the future of women’s reproductive health," Zoe Greaves, chair of the group's medical ethics committee, said in a written statement. "The BMA, along with multiple other health organizations, is concerned that this will remove women’s access to essential medical care, a fundamental human right as stated by the U.N., both in the U.S. and potentially more widely," she said. The organization added in a statement that it would be weighing the decision's implications to determine how best to support the American Medical Association in its opposition to the "criminalization of reproductive health."First lady Jill Biden was with DeSantis when Roe decision came downJosh Lederman34m ago / 4:40 PM UTCFirst lady Jill Biden was with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis when she learned of the Supreme Court ruling, a White House official told NBC News.The first lady was preparing to go onstage at the memorial for the one year anniversary of the Champlain Tower collapse in Surfside, Florida, along with DeSantis and his wife in a holding room. Moments before the first lady walked on stage, the news alerts popped up on everyone’s phones.In April, DeSantis signed a Florida law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Democratic governors in the West pledge to stand up for abortion rightsDemocratic governors in California, Oregon and Washington said Friday they will continue to "protect" patients seeking reproductive care, including those from other states seeking abortions.California's Gavin Newsom, Oregon's Kate Brown and Washington's Jay Inslee made the announcement in a video message released after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, presenting themselves as a counterweight to "red states and Republican-stacked courts.""California, Oregon and Washington are building the West Coast offense to protect patients' access to reproductive care," Newsom said.Inslee said: "We're going to work with our legislators, with our providers, with our patient advocates."Brown said: "We will not stand on the sidelines."'With sorrow...we dissent': Court's liberal wing says majority decided women not deserving of equal protectionIn a blistering dissent to the court's decision reversing abortion rights, the justices on the bench’s liberal wing slammed the majority opinion as one that would curtail women's rights.“It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in the lengthy dissent."With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent," they added.Read the full story here.Planned Parenthood Wisconsin temporarily suspends abortion servicesAntonio Planas39m ago / 4:35 PM UTCPlanned Parenthood Wisconsin announced Friday it was “temporarily suspending” abortion services in response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In a video statement on the organization’s website, the group's president, Tanya Atkinson, lamented the Supreme Court’s decision because it has taken away a constitutional right from women and instead placed health care decisions in the hands of politicians.“Because Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban remains in effect, Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is temporarily suspending abortion services,” she said. “Please know that we are looking at all legal options available. This news is so incredibly devastating. The decision of whether or not to become a parent can be one of the most life-changing decisions a person can make,” she said. “You should be able to make the very personal, very needed health care decisions.”Atkinson added that although abortion services are not available in Wisconsin, the organization is still there for people who need abortions and will counsel them on finding options where abortions are safe and legal. The group, she said, will also be available for “after-care” services. Other services provided by the organization are also available at its centers or through telehealth, she said.“Planned Parenthood Wisconsin stands for health care, and we will not give up, not now, not ever,” she said.Anger and joy outside Supreme CourtTears flowed and voices bellowed outside the Supreme Court early Friday, as activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered to bear witness to the end of the Roe era. "It's really a visceral issue," said Mai El-Sadany, a human rights lawyer who opposes Friday's decision. "The people who showed up here are really angry and they didn’t want to be alone." Paige Nelson, 20, cried tears of joy on the street in front of the Supreme Court, where the grounds long used for demonstrations have been closed off for weeks as a security precaution."I’m just so happy that no matter who you are and whatever extra chromosomes or whatever disability you might have, you get the chance to live this amazing life, and I will continue advocating until abortion is completely gone," said Nelson, a Washington state resident who is participating in a summer program with the conservative Concerned Women of America.Canadian PM Justin Trudeau calls Roe decision 'horrific'Reuters44m ago / 4:30 PM UTCCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called the Supreme Court decision "horrific."“The news coming out of the United States is horrific. My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion,” Trudeau said on Twitter.“No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he said.GOP Sen. Mitt Romney says he supports Roe's reversalSen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, praised the Supreme Court's ruling Friday in a brief statement. "The sanctity of human life is a foundational American principle, and the lives of our children—both born and unborn—deserve our protection," Romney said. "I support the Court’s decision, which means that laws regarding abortion will now rightfully be returned to the people and their elected representatives," he added.AG Merrick Garland says states cannot ban access to medications for abortionsAttorney General Merrick Garland vowed to protect access to Mifepristone, which is used along with another medication to end early pregnancies.“In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," he wrote in a statement.The Food and Drug Administration approved in 2016 the use of the medications in terminating abortions.The "Department will continue to protect healthcare providers and individuals seeking reproductive health services in states where those services remain legal," his statement added. "This law prohibits anyone from obstructing access to reproductive health services through violence, threats of violence, or property damage."Decision a 'dark moment,' British rights group says The Supreme Court’s decision is a “dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” the chair of a British rights group said Friday. ‘This is a hugely significant set back for abortion rights. Not just in the U.S. but it will embolden anti-abortion activists here and in Poland, Malta and other places where the struggle for access is already desperate,” Kerry Abel of Abortion Rights said in a statement. “Any chink in the legislative armour that undermines the right to privacy, makes access more difficult or puts abortion funding out of reach will impact poorer and marginalised women and pregnantpeople and will encourage yet more anti-abortion legislation and action,” she said. “This is a dark moment for the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight to control our own bodies,” she added.Rep. Jamie Raskin knocks Thomas, says they are not 'like real judges at this point'Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., knocked Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he is trying to "demolish the constitutional right to privacy" while blasting the high court's justices as an "instrument of the right-wing Republican agenda." "Roe versus Wade was built on Griswold versus Connecticut, which asserted a constitutional right to privacy for women and men to obtain contraception and birth control," Raskin said Friday. "They might like to pretend as if this is some kind of singular strike against just women's right to abortion, but it has implications for contraception. It has implications for the right of gay people to get married under the Obergefell decision. It has implications for the right of people not to be sterilized by the government against their will."Raskin added that the justices are "not like real judges at this point." "I mean, they’ve got the power of it, but they basically have turned themselves into partisans," he said.Sen. Susan Collins calls ruling 'not conservative' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh who were part of Friday's majority opinion, said in a statement that the ruling was an "ill-considered action" and "not conservative." "The Supreme Court has abandoned a fifty-year precedent at a time that the country is desperate for stability. This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show both consistency and restraint," Collins said. "Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government."Collins said that the ruling was "inconsistent" with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their congressional testimony and in meetings with her where, she said, "they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon."Collins said she is working on a bill with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would codify Roe, Casey, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and Griswold v. Connecticut."Our legislation would enshrine important abortion protections into law without undercutting statutes that have been in place for decades and without eliminating basic conscience protections that are relied upon by health care providers who have religious objections to performing abortions," she said.U.K.'s Boris Johnson calls Roe decision 'a big step backward'British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would have a "massive" impact around the world. “This is not our court, it’s another jurisdiction, but it clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world," he said during a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda. "It’s a very important decision." "I think it’s a big step backwards," Johnson, who leads the Conservative Party, added. "I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the U.K. has the laws that it does.”Missouri governor signs state proclamation banning most abortionsChristopher Cicchiello56m ago / 4:19 PM UTCMissouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a proclamation Friday to activate its trigger law, banning most abortions.“Nothing in the text, history, or tradition of the United States Constitution gave un-elected federal judges authority to regulate abortion. We are happy that the U.S. Supreme Court has corrected this error and returned power to the people and the states to make these decisions,” Parson, a Republican, said in a news release.This law makes it illegal for doctors to perform abortions and also makes anyone who knowingly induces an abortion guilty of a class B felony. Doctors can have their licenses revoked for their involvement. However, a woman who has an abortion will not be prosecuted "for a conspiracy to violate the provisions" of this act. No mention of an exception for a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest was provided in the act.Upon Parson’s signature, the act takes effect immediately.Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton says abortions are 'now illegal in Texas'Texas' GOP attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced Friday that abortion is now illegal in Texas as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling. "SCOTUS just overruled Roe & Casey, ending one of the most morally & legally corrupt eras in US history. Praise the Lord. Abortion is now illegal in Texas," he said in a tweet. Texas had on the books a trigger law, which immediately banned abortion once Roe came down.Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed into law one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans last year, which took effect in September. It had banned abortions as early as six weeks, which effectively banned all abortions because most women don't know they're pregnant that early in the process. Whole Women's Health, an organization that has operated four clinics providing reproductive health services in Texas and other states, said it has stopped providing abortion procedures as a result of Friday's ruling, according to the Texas Tribune. In guidance posted on the organization's website Friday, it said that its clinics "are still operating in Baltimore, MD; Bloomington, MN; Alexandria, VA; and Charlottesville, VA." It also said that it offers medication abortion pills by mail to patients in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.It also said Whole Women's Health "is exploring plans to expand both our in-clinic and mail services into additional states where abortion is legally protected."Democratic lawmakers march to Supreme Court in support of abortion rightsAt least 150 Democratic lawmakers marched to the Supreme Court on Friday to protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., told NBC News the decision marked "a sad day for American jurisprudence.""Never did I envision that this court would reverse 40 or 50 years of precedence, but they did it," he said. "And they did it in utter disregard for the 60% of the American people who support Roe and did not want it overturned."Conservative Hispanic group lauds court decisionBienvenido, a conservative Hispanic group, said the court's decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision was "correct as both a legal and a moral matter.""Today we join millions of Americans — including the majority of Hispanics who value human life — in celebrating the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling overturning 'Roe' and 'Casey,'" a statement from the group said. "It was always a lie that the Constitution guaranteed the right to kill unborn children and this Court has just exposed this lie for the shameful farce that it always has been," the statement continued. "As we commemorate this historic decision, let us remember these children who were denied the right to live, pray for forgiveness, and give thanks to God." According to Pew Research Center, 60% of Hispanics in 2022 said abortion should be legal. Transgender Law Center denounces Supreme Court decision as "despicable" Tat Bellamy-Walker1h ago / 3:51 PM UTCThe Transgender Law Center, one of the nation's largest transgender rights groups, slammed the court's decision, calling it "despicable" and a "politically-motivated" attack.In a statement, the organization stressed that the majority opinion will have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups, including Black women, disabled people, migrant women, poor people and individuals living in rural communities.“Today we loudly affirm and pledge our solidarity with all people working for Reproductive Justice in this country,” the group's executive director, Kris Hayashi, said. “Whether it is a right to an abortion, the right to affirming medical care, or the right to learn about your own history in schools, our collective rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy are inexorably entwined.”'God made the decision': Trump praises the ruling overturning RoeFormer President Donald Trump praised the Supreme Court's ruling in a statement to Fox News on Friday, saying that it's "following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago."Trump was asked if he played a role in the decision because he nominated three of the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett."God made the decision," Trump told Fox. Asked to address any of his supporters who support abortion rights, Trump said, "I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody ... This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged."Trump had previously supported abortion rights years ago, telling NBC News' "Meet the Press" in 1999 that he was "very pro-choice" at the time.Susan B. Anthony List celebrates overturning of Roe v. WadeThe anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List celebrated news Friday of the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, calling it a "historic victory for human rights." Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the group, said in a video message outside the Supreme Court that it was a moment of "great gratitude and resolve." "This Court has just overturned the wrongly decided Roe versus Wade decision. Let those words sink in," she said. "Roe versus Wade is overturned after 50 years of lobbying, building centers of hope to serve pregnant women, on our knees praying, off our knees marching and ensuring the powerful pro-life voice could be heard in our elections. We have arrived at this day, a culminating day of so much and the first day of a bright pro-life future for our nation."She said the decision allows the "will of the people to make its way into the law through our elected officials" and declared that "our best days are ahead."Attorney General Merrick Garland vows to 'use every tool' to protect abortion rightsAttorney General Merrick Garland, who as Barack Obama's 2016 Supreme Court nominee was denied a confirmation vote by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, vowed to put the full weight of the Department of Justice behind protecting abortion rights."The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision," he said. "This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect — with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means."“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom. And we will not waver from this Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans," he added.Mayor Eric Adams says people around the country 'welcome' to access abortion care in New York City New York City Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at the Supreme Court on Friday, saying that "politics came before people at the highest court in the land." "What the court has done today ignores the opinions of the majority of Americans, as it helps states control women’s bodies, their choices, and their freedoms," the Democrat said in a statement, adding that the decision puts lives at risk."There is nothing to call this Supreme Court opinion but an affront to basic human rights and one that aims to shackle women and others in reproductive bondage."Adams sought to reassure New Yorkers, saying that they can still access safe, legal abortions in the city. He also said that people around the country seeking the procedure are "welcome here" to access those services.Massachusetts Gov. Baker signs executive order protecting abortion providersAntonio Planas2h ago / 3:39 PM UTCIn response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who is not running for re-election, signed an executive order Friday protecting health care providers performing abortions from losing their licenses or receiving other discipline based on potential charges from out of state, he said in a statement.“Under the executive order, the Commonwealth will not cooperate with extradition requests from other states pursuing criminal charges against individuals who received, assisted with, or performed reproductive health services that are legal in Massachusetts,” the statement said.The order, he said, also prohibits any “Executive Department agencies” from assisting another state’s investigation into a person or entity for receiving or delivering reproductive health care services that are legal in Massachusetts.“This executive order will further preserve that right and protect reproductive health care providers who serve out of state residents. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, it is especially important to ensure that Massachusetts providers can continue to provide reproductive health care services without concern that the laws of other states may be used to interfere with those services or sanction them for providing services that are lawful in the Commonwealth,” Baker said.Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said: “We are proud of the Commonwealth’s history of ensuring access to reproductive health care, and will continue to do so, despite today’s ruling from the Supreme Court.”Michigan Gov. Whitmer says ruling means her state's 1931 law banning abortion takes effect Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement Friday it was a "sad day for America" and that her state's "antiquated" 1931 law banning abortion without exceptions for rape or incest will take effect. The law also criminalizes doctors and nurses who provide reproductive care, she said. "For now, a Michigan court has put a temporary hold on the law, but that decision is not final and has already been challenged. The 1931 law would punish women and strip away their right to make decisions about their own bodies," Whitmer said. "I want every Michigander to know that I am more determined than ever to protect access to safe, legal abortion."She said she filed a lawsuit in April to urge her state's Supreme Court to determine whether the Michigan Constitution protects the right to an abortion. "We need to clarify that under Michigan law, access to abortion is not only legal, but constitutionally protected," she said. Barack Obama calls Roe v. Wade reversal an attack on millionsTat Bellamy-Walker2h ago / 3:33 PM UTCFormer President Barack Obama said the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade targets the freedom of millions of Americans in the U.S. "Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans," he wrote in a tweet. He noted that states across the country have already passed bills restricting abortion rights, and pointed people who want to fight against these restrictions toward Planned Parenthood and the United State of Women.In a statement, former first lady Michelle Obama said she was "heartbroken for people around this country who just lost the fundamental right to make informed decisions about their own bodies."Recent NBC News poll showed a majority of people in U.S. didn't want Roe v. Wade overturnedA majority of people in the U.S. — 63 percent — said in a recent NBC News poll in May that they didn't believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, compared to 30% of people who wanted the abortion rights ruling to be reversed.Additionally, a combined 60% of Americans across the country said abortion should be either always legal (37%) or legal most of the time (23%) — the highest share believing it should be legal on this question, which dates back to 2003. By party, 84 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Independents want abortion to be legal, versus just 33 percent of Republicans. The poll was conducted after the draft opinion of Alito's Roe opinion leaked.NAACP calls decision 'egregious assault on basic human rights'NAACP General Counsel Janette McCarthy Wallace said in a statement Friday the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade as "marks a significant regression of our country.""As a legal professional, I am horrified by this decision. As a Black woman, I am outraged to my core," Wallace said. "There is no denying the fact that this is a direct attack on all women, and Black women stand to be disproportionately impacted by the court's egregious assault on basic human rights. We must all stand up to have our voices heard in order to protect our nation from the further degradation of civil rights protections we have worked so hard to secure."Separately, Portia White, the NAACP vice president of policy and legislative affairs, said: "This Supreme Court is turning back the clock to a dangerous era where basic constitut | SCOTUS |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! SUMMERVILLE, S.C. - Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina says she’s confident she won’t become the first incumbent knocked out by a primary challenger supported by former President Donald Trump."We're gonna win by double digits," Mace predicted in an interview with Fox News "That's what everything's looking like."Mace, the freshman representative in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District – a key swing seat – is facing a primary challenge from Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker backed by Trump, who nearly 17 months removed from the White House remains the most popular and influential politician in the GOP."I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Of course, the only poll that matters is the one on election day," Mace cautioned in an interview on Sunday at a campaign event with former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Former ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley headlines a campaign event for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in Summerville, South Carolina on June 12, 2022 (Fox News)But she then touted that "we have overwhelming support…we are we're cresting at the end here."Mace was one of the earliest supporters of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And she was not one of the ten House Republicans to vote to impeach the then-president nearly a year and a half ago for fueling the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by right wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of now-President Biden’s 2020 election victory. But Mace did publicly say that Trump’s rhetoric leading up to the storming of the Capitol "put all of our lives at risk."TRUMP TARGETING OF NANCY MACE FUELS SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE'S FUNDRAISINGAnd last October, Mace was the lone South Carolina Republican to join congressional Democrats in voting to hold former Trump White House senior aide Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the riot at the Capitol. Trump endorsed Arrington as she launched a primary challenge in February, and he praised Arrington and pilloried Mace at a rally in South Carolina in March. An Arrington TV ad uses a clip of Trump from the rally charging that Mace "is a terrible person" and "has no idea what she’s doing." And last Tuesday he took aim at Mace once again in a tele-rally for Arrington.Arrington told Fox News that Trump’s "the heart of the Republican Party right now. He represents hope that there's going to be a better tomorrow…we in this district want someone who's going to represent the three core values. We believe in faith, family, and freedom.""And that's why Donald Trump endorsed me, and that's why this district on June 14 will endorse me in the ballot box," she predicted.CLICK HERE TO WATCH KATIE ARRINGTON INTERVIEW WITH FOX DIGITALArrington was interviewed as she and a couple dozen volunteers huddled in her Summerville, South Carolina home called voters to seek support in the final hours of the primary campaign.The First Congressional District, which includes much of coastal South Carolina including the fast-growing suburbs surrounding the city of Charleston, was represented for much of the last decade by former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who was a vocal Trump critic.Arrington, with Trump's support, challenged and defeated Sanford in the 2018 GOP primary. But she lost the general election by a razor-thin margin to Democrat Joe Cunningham, during a very rough election cycle for the GOP. Two years later, in 2020, Mace narrowly edged Cunningham as the GOP flipped the seat back from blue to red."My opponent is the one that lost his seat to a Democrat for the first time and in 40 years in 2018," Mace told Fox News.WATCH: NANCY MACE SPEAKS WITH FOX DIGITALAnd speaking to supporters at Halls Chophouse in Summerville, she spotlighted that "getting the majority back in this country runs through swing districts - swing districts like the First Congressional District. If we're gonna have a Republican majority in November to reverse what Joe Biden has done to our country in a year and a half, we have to win this district.""And that means we have to nominate someone who knows how to win and I am the only woman in this race on this ballot, who knows how to win the First Congressional District," the incumbent highlighted as she took a jab at Arrington.Standing next to Mace and introducing her was Haley, who won election and reelection as South Carolina governor before serving as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration. But Haley and Trump are on opposite sides in this high-profile GOP showdown. "Nancy Mace is tough as nails. She is running circles around [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi," Haley told the crowd. "She is not a pushover."And Haley highlighted that "you may not agree with 100% of everything she does, but she's fighting for you every day and every time whether it's the establishment Republicans, whether it's the resistance Republicans, anybody that thinks that you put Nancy in a box, they're wrong. Because at the end of the day, the only box she cares about the First Congressional District, and she's never forgotten who she works for." Former ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley headlines a campaign event for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in Summerville, South Carolina on June 12, 2022 (Fox News)While she’s taken incoming verbal attacks from the former president for months, Mace doesn’t return fire.Mace, in a video she recorded in February in front of Trump Tower in New York City and posted to social media, highlighted her support for the former president. And in an interview with Fox Digital in April, the most critical thing the representative said about Trump was that "I think he’s gotten bad advice and that’s problematic."On Sunday, Mace highlighted "I'm the only candidate in this race that supports America First policies. We have a lot that we can agree on as Americans, as conservatives, as Republicans, no matter what brand of Republican you are in our country. I put our country first."CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST 2022 PRIMARY RESULTS FROM FOX NEWSMace and a couple of outside groups supporter her have outspent Arrington to run campaign commercials in the closing weeks leading up to the primary, and Mace’s ads take aim at Arrington over national security and taxes.And Mace touted her conservative credentials while attacking Arrington’s, arguing that "I have a great record as a conservative I have almost a perfect conservative report card with every conservative group. It was my opponent that scored a 30 when she was a state lawmaker, and last I checked that was a failing grade.Arrington countered, charging that Mace is "not a conservative. That's why I am running. She turned her back on us in the district. She turned her back on Donald J. Trump. And that's why I'm running in this district for a true conservative - somebody who's going to stand for the values that we hard hardworking Americans, the forgotten folk, care about." Republican congressional candidate Katie Arrington, who's primary challenging Rep. Nancy Mace in the 1st Congressional District in South Carolina's Tuesday primary, speaks with Fox News in Summerville, S.C on June 12, 2022 (Fox News)The most recently public opinion survey in the race indicated Mace up by single digits, but internal polling by the Mace campaign suggests she’s leading by double digits and above the 50% needed to avoid a runoff election later in June.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPAsked how she can close the gap, Arrington pointed to a group of volunteers right behind her, phone banking to make sure supporters get to the polls. "These guys, grassroots," Arrington said. "Inside the house right now I have about 30 volunteers. This crowd has been out here. This campaign is about the people. We the people. It's totally a grassroots campaign. I mean, I have people in there dialing right now. I've been dialing most of the day. We've been out, door knocking." Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | US Federal Elections |
West Virginia on Thursday asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to enforce a state law that prohibits transgender women and girls from participating in public school sports.
The emergency request filed to the court by state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey gives the justices a chance to weigh in on a hot-button issue that has taken center stage in recent years as Republican-led states have moved to impose restrictions on the lives of trans youth, with a particular focus on school sports.
GOP Gov. Jim Justice signed the law in 2021. A transgender student athlete in the state quickly sued, and a district court temporarily blocked the law three months after it was enacted. But earlier this year the district court ruled in favor of the state. The athlete then appealed to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which put the law on hold again. Now, the state is asking the nation’s highest court to step in.
“This Court should vacate the Fourth Circuit’s injunction and allow the Act to continue protecting West Virginia student athletes this spring and beyond,” Morrisey and attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing a former college athlete who intervened in the case on behalf of the state, wrote in their emergency request.
“This case implicates a question fraught with emotions and differing perspectives. That is all the more reason to defer to state lawmakers pending appeal,” the attorneys told the court. “The decision was the West Virginia Legislature’s to make. The end of this litigation will confirm that it made a valid one.”
Attorneys representing the law’s challenger, Becky Pepper-Jackson, said on Thursday that they will “vigorously defend Becky’s right to participate in team sports, and would urge state legislators countrywide to just let the kids play.”
“West Virginia refuses to address the facts of Becky’s case and instead talks about elite athletic competitions that have nothing to do with the facts here. (Morrisey) and his allies have cherry-picked unique incidents and ignored the overwhelming evidence that allowing transgender youth to participate in team sports has benefits for all,” Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal group, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU West Virginia wrote in a joint statement.
A number of GOP-controlled states have enacted similar sports bans in recent years, with at least eight putting one on their books in 2022 alone. In pushing such measures, conservatives have argued that transgender women and girls have physical advantages over cisgender women and girls in sports, though a 2017 report found “no direct or consistent research” on any such advantage.
The Supreme Court has previously declined to weigh in on other high-profile cases concerning the rights of trans students. In 2021, the court stayed out of a dispute over whether a trans student could use the bathroom that corresponded to his gender identity, handing a victory to the LGBTQ community. | SCOTUS |
CNBC's Jim Cramer on Tuesday called for Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to implement aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation."Jay Powell can't solve the war in Ukraine. He can't get more oil out of the ground. … The same goes for the other big source of inflation, food," the "Mad Money" host said."He has to hit us with some monster rate hikes to cool things down while selling, I hope, at least $200 billion in bonds a month — twice the current schedule — just to fix a problem not of his own making," he added.His comments come as the Fed began its June meeting to decide the size of the next interest rate hike, which will be announced on Wednesday. The Fed, which raised interest rates by 25 basis points in March and 50 basis points in May, will also start offloading some of its balance sheet on Wednesday in an effort to drain trillions of dollars of liquidity from the financial system.Investors and central bank policymakers alike are bracing for a 75-basis-point rate hike on Wednesday. The market reacted accordingly as the S&P 500 slipped further into bear territory on Tuesday while the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average also remained volatile.Inflation hit new highs in May as prices rose 8.6% from last year in the fastest increase in over four decades, also driving the market's recent declines.Cramer has advocated for 100-basis-point rate hikes in recent weeks, urging Powell to take stronger action even as he argued that the Fed chief is not to blame for the current state of inflation."In retrospect, the Fed provided way more liquidity than it needed to. It should've stopped buying bonds more than a year ago. … But beyond selling trillions in bonds to rein in the economy and raising rates to cool down what can be cooled — which isn't much — we've got to stop blaming Powell for all things inflation," Cramer said. | US Federal Policies |
U.S. June 15, 2022 / 3:37 PM / CBS/AP Judge grants John Hinckley Jr. unconditional release Judge grants man who shot Reagan unconditional release 00:21 John Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was freed from court oversight Wednesday, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals. "After 41 years 2 months and 15 days, FREEDOM AT LAST!!!," he wrote on Twitter shortly after 12 p.m. The lifting of all restrictions had been expected since late September. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman in Washington said he'd free Hinckley on June 15 if he continued to remain mentally stable in the community in Virginia where he has lived since 2016. Hinckley, who was acquitted by reason of insanity, spent the decades before that in a Washington mental hospital. Freedom for Hinckley was originally slated to include giving a concert — he plays guitar and sings — in Brooklyn, New York, in July. But the concert venue, the Market Hotel, said Wednesday that it is cancelling the event after experiencing "some very real and worsening threats and hate." Hinckley has already gained nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter and YouTube in recent months as the judge loosened Hinckley's restrictions before fully lifting all of them. But the graying 67-year-old is far from being the household name that he became after shooting and wounding the 40th U.S. president — and several others — outside a Washington hotel. Today, historians say Hinckley is at best a question on a quiz show and someone who unintentionally helped build the Reagan legend and inspire a push for stricter gun control. U.S. Marshalls escort John Hinckley Jr. as he returns to a marine base via helicopter in Quantico, Virginia, on August 8, 1981. Barry Thumma / AP "If Hinckley had succeeded in killing Reagan, then he would have been a pivotal historical figure," H.W. Brands, a historian and Reagan biographer, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "As it is, he is a misguided soul whom history has already forgotten."Barbara A. Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, said that Hinckley "would be maybe a Jeopardy question." But his impact remains tangible in Reagan's legacy."For the president himself to have been so seriously wounded, and to come back from that — that actually made Ronald Reagan the legend that he became ... like the movie hero that he was," Perry said. Friedman, the federal judge overseeing Hinckley's case, said on June 1 that Hinckley has shown no signs of active mental illness since the mid-1980s and has exhibited no violent behavior or interest in weapons."I am confident that Mr. Hinckley will do well in the years remaining to him," the judge said during the hearing earlier this month. He noted that lawyers for the government and Hinckley have fought for years over whether Hinckley should be given increasing amounts of freedom. "It took us a long time to get here," he said, adding that there is now unanimous agreement: "This is the time to let John Hinckley move on with his life, so we will." In: Ronald Reagan Virginia Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | US Federal Policies |
This is member-exclusive contentOpinionDallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax (left) and Mayor Eric Johnson have not had the best working relationship.(Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)Certain jobs come with a built-in shelf life, and being the manager of a major city government is one of those.Given that T.C. Broadnax has been doing the job in Dallas for more than five years, we aren’t surprised that a coalition of City Council members are calling for him to move on. That’s the way this business works.And looking at the way things have been going in Dallas around issues of crime, lost data at City Hall and delays in permitting, among other problems, it’s entirely fair for council members to demand a review of his work.Whether that means Broadnax will be shown the door, or whether he should be, we can’t say.From where we sit, Broadnax’s performance has been a mixed bag. Yes, there have been major stumbles. But there have been important improvements and generally steady governance.Broadnax was slow to acknowledge or properly react to rising crime. We hoped that his decision to hire U. Reneé Hall as police chief would resolve that problem, but she wasn’t getting the job done. Broadnax was slow to react, and while we don’t blame him for giving her a chance to work things out, it went on too long. Her resignation was necessary to make way for Chief Eddie García, who so far has proved to be a more effective and visionary chief.Broadnax also was slow to acknowledge the scope of the problem around deleted police evidence in what was a major data foul-up at City Hall.We saw the same pattern with the city’s broken construction permitting process. Broadnax was frustrated that it was persistently raised as a matter of public concern.Broadnax has a number of important skills as a city manager. Once he accepts there is a problem, he takes steps to correct it. Many of the people he hires as top deputies are skilled and effective. While the city suffers from problems that affect all major cities in the country, from homelessness to crime, those problems are not as severe as they are in other places. That might be faint praise, but it is a fair assessment of where things stand.Broadnax’s problems, however, are at least equal to his skills. He rankles at being questioned. He circles the wagons when challenged. He denies problems and then, when they must be acknowledged, suggests he was on top of it all along.At this writing, it seems likely Broadnax will survive any attempt to remove him. Mayor Eric Johnson, who has never gotten along with Broadnax, probably won’t get the chance to seek a city manager he can work with this time around. He may have damaged his chances of doing that in the future, too.It will be too bad, though, if Broadnax and council members who support him don’t see this as an opportunity to listen and to act on the concerns raised.Broadnax does need to grow as a manager for the city to fully benefit from his time leading City Hall.If he is too upset by this move against him to be open to that, he will sell himself short, and he will sell us short. And this will all have been for naught.We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here.Get smart opinionsEditorial and commentary from op-ed columnists, the editorial board and contributing writers from The Dallas Morning News, delivered three days a week.By signing up you agree to our privacy policyMost Popular on DallasNews.com123456 | US Local Policies |
Editor’s note: Jack Turban is an assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is director of the Gender Psychiatry Program. He is also affiliate faculty at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UC San Francisco. His writing has appeared on CNN and in The Washington Post and The New York Times. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
Conservative legislators made substantial progress this month in their attempts to curtail the rights of transgender children and their families.
The governors of Indiana and Idaho signed into law bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors despite opposition from major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Kansas Legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto and banned transgender girls, from kindergarten through college, from playing on girls’ sports teams. And just last week, the US House of Representatives passed a federal anti-trans sports bill (though it’s unlikely to pass the Senate, and President Joe Biden has signaled his intention to veto the legislation if it did). According to some GOP politicians, such legislation is essential to ensure “fairness” and protect children.
But these bills do no such thing. If some of these arguments around fairness and protecting children from LGBTQ people sound familiar, it’s because they’re the same ones used against gay people in the 1990s. These Republicans have simply repackaged old anti-gay rhetoric and scaremongering to target transgender people.
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, some cities in Colorado began passing laws prohibiting anti-gay discrimination. Frustrated by this progress, social conservatives in the state created an organization called Colorado for Family Values.
Worried about more localities passing anti-discrimination laws, which it saw as endorsing non-Christian values, the group came up with a bold strategy: Start a ballot initiative to amend the Colorado Constitution to prohibit state and local government bodies from passing more. The question was: How would it convince voters, who were increasingly tolerant of gay people, to support it?
The group developed two primary tactics it thought would appeal to different types of voters. The first was a more palatable “fairness” argument. It created the false narrative that anti-discrimination laws would give gay people preferential or “better” treatment than straight people. It ran with the catchy slogan “equal rights, not special rights.”
The second was a bit more grotesque — reverting to age-old accusations that gay people were sexual predators and “groomers” who posed a risk to children. The strategies worked, and what was known as Amendment 2 passed.
Colorado for Family Values used the fairness argument in the 1990s to capitalize on a growing discomfort among some Americans regarding affirmative action. Civil rights groups had made great progress, and some Americans feared that affirmative action would help racial minorities at the expense of White people. The anti-discrimination laws in Colorado didn’t take anything away from straight people, but that didn’t matter.
We’re seeing the same repackaged rhetoric play out in transgender sports bans. Social conservatives have argued that these bans are about fairness and paint transgender people as taking things away from cisgender people.
In the court case Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, the socially conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom worked on a lawsuit to sue the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, asserting that two transgender girls competing in the state’s track meets were infringing upon the rights of cisgender track athletes. (Is it a coincidence that the transgender athletes they targeted were African American? It’s unclear, but there’s a history of trying to segregate sports on racial lines, based on presumed biological advantages.) The plaintiffs essentially argued that if transgender athletes could compete, cisgender girls couldn’t win, and this was unfair.
Once again, the facts didn’t matter. Transgender people aren’t taking anything away from cisgender people in sports. In fact, two days after the lawsuit was filed, one of the cisgender girls from that lawsuit won the Class S 55-meter dash title at a state championship race, and the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals eventually upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the case.
Trans people are underrepresented in sports titles, and many politicians proposing these laws can’t even name a single transgender athlete in their states. At most, they’ll find a single successful trans athlete such as Lia Thomas, working on the presumption that sports are only fair if trans people never win.
The sports bills aren’t really about fairness. They’re about capitalizing on an electorate that social conservatives know they can rile up with disingenuous arguments and the notion that members of minority groups are taking things away from them.
We’ve also seen a resurgence in social conservatives labeling LGBTQ people as dangerous to children. When advocating for Colorado’s Amendment 2 in the 1990s, Colorado for Family Values distributed 750,000 copies of a pamphlets saying that “sexual molestation of children is a large part of many homosexuals’ lifestyle.” Things are much the same today. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted this month that “Democrats are the party of pedophiles,” a comment she doubled down on in a recent interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
Some conservatives have turned this rhetoric into public policy, arguing that laws are needed to force transgender people to use bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth, suggesting that otherwise sexual assault rates in bathrooms will rise. Though research shows that such policies are linked to transgender youth facing higher rates of sexual assault, I worry that facts won’t win out.
In the 1990s, Colorado for Family Values won in large part because it had carefully crafted, emotionally inflammatory rhetoric, and its opponents didn’t. It didn’t matter that facts weren’t on the group’s side. The same is true today.
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In recent years, this rhetoric has been most effectively applied to attacks on gender-affirming medical care. Some conservatives have labeled it “mutilation” and in some instances “child abuse” despite endorsements by major medical organizations.
Those working to support the rights of families and adolescents to access gender-affirming medical care have developed no such effective rhetoric. Subsequently, bills banning gender-affirming care are being introduced and increasingly signed into law.
If we don’t know history, we are doomed to repeat it. It’s vital that people recognize today’s anti-trans attacks for what they are: recycled strategies from the 1990s to spread misinformation and fear toward LGBTQ communities.
The US Supreme Court ultimately struck down Colorado’s Amendment 2. Given the composition of today’s high court, this backstop is unlikely to work. If people don’t wake up to this reality and continue to be drawn into the GOP’s false and emotional rhetoric, we are in for a horrifying period of US history. | US Federal Policies |
Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff About Union, Judge Rules
Apple Inc. “coercively interrogated” retail employees about their pro-union sympathies and restricted the circulation of union flyers, a US labor board judge ruled, marking a victory for labor organizers at the world’s most valuable company.
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. “coercively interrogated” retail employees about their pro-union sympathies and restricted the circulation of union flyers, a US labor board judge ruled, marking a victory for labor organizers at the world’s most valuable company.
In a Tuesday decision, a National Labor Relations Board judge wrote that Apple violated the rights of employees at its World Trade Center store in New York City, one of several around the country where workers waged union campaigns last year.
The judge wrote that Apple should be required to “cease and desist” from coercively interrogating workers about their legally protected labor activism. It should stop confiscating pro-union literature in its break rooms and “interfering with, restraining or coercing employees” in the exercise of their rights, according to the decision.
An Apple spokesperson didn’t have an immediate comment. The Cupertino, California-based company has previously denied wrongdoing.
“Apple fosters an open and inclusive work environment whereby employees are not just permitted, but encouraged, to share their feelings and thoughts on a range of issues, from social justice topics to pay equity to anything else that they feel is an important cause to promote in the workplace,” company attorney Jason Stanevich said at a January hearing before the judge.
Read More: Apple’s Unionized Store Workers Seek Tips and Higher Holiday Pay
Rulings by NLRB administrative law judges can be appealed to the board’s members in Washington and, from there, to federal appeals court. The agency has the authority to order changes to company policies, but not to hold executives personally liable for violations or to impose punitive damages.
At the January hearing, NLRB attorney Ruth Weinreb said that as a result of the company’s behavior, “the organizing campaign came to an end” at the World Trade Center site. US labor board prosecutors have also issued a still-pending complaint accusing Apple of violating workers’ rights at an Atlanta store, one of two at which organizers filed and then withdrew unionization petitions.
Workers at two of Apple’s roughly 270 retail stores voted to unionize last year, in Maryland and Oklahoma, amid a broader wave of landmark organizing wins at longtime nonunion firms such as Starbucks Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.
(Updates with quotes from hearing starting in fourth paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
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(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk blasted the United Auto Workers Tuesday, saying the union’s demands would “drive GM, Ford and Chrysler bankrupt in the fast lane.”
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President Joe Biden endorsed the UAW’s demand for a major wage increase during a visit to a picket line at a General Motors Co. plant in suburban Detroit earlier Tuesday. The union is striking against General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV, maker of the Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge brands. The union, which has taken the rare step of striking against Detroit’s Big Three automakers simultaneously, has reduced its demands for pay raises in negotiations from 40% to 36%.
Tesla and other pure electric vehicle companies like Lucid Group Inc. and Rivian Automotive Inc. are not unionized. They typically use restricted stock units and employee stock purchase plans for a big part of overall compensation. The UAW worries that EVs, which typically require fewer moving parts and fewer workers to make, will cost them jobs and reduce wages.
Musk is not alone in saying that a big win for the UAW could mean trouble for Detroit’s automakers.
“If the UAW gets everything they are asking for, it will very clearly damage the competitiveness of the Big Three companies materially,” Patrick Kaser, portfolio manager for Brandywine Global, said in an interview last week.
In 2017, the UAW began work to organize workers at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California, as the company was struggling to ramp up the Model 3 sedan. In 2018, Musk tweeted “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”
The union’s effort at the Fremont plant never gained enough traction to get to a vote. A bipartisan group of US labor board members ruled in 2021 that Tesla repeatedly violated federal law in Fremont, including by “coercively interrogating” union supporters and firing one because of his activism. Tesla has denied wrongdoing and is appealing that ruling.
In February, the union Workers United accused Tesla of terminating dozens of workers in response to a union campaign at the company’s plant in Buffalo, New York.
Read More: Tesla Fires Dozens After Workers Launch Union, Filing Says
Despite the headwinds, significant gains for UAW workers at Detroit’s legacy carmakers, combined with high public support for unions, could once again inspire Tesla workers to organize, said Catherine Fisk, a labor law professor at UC Berkeley.
“Unionizing is extremely difficult under US law,” Fisk said. “That said, workers successfully unionized against even stiffer odds in the 1930s. It happened before, it can happen again — it’s just a torturous process.”
Tesla has industry leading profit margins, and Musk has vowed to chase volume over profits. The EV manufacturer has lowered the price of its vehicles this year, even as Detroit automakers are making the costly shift from making internal combustion engines to EVs.
“If you are the Detroit Three, you are running two operating systems,” said K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior vice president of research and chief innovation officer for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a phone interview. “The profits you make on ICE vehicles is what is funding the transformation to EVs, which are not going to be profitable for a while.”
“The biggest competitive advantage Tesla has it they are not managing two systems,” he added. “They only have one.”
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Electric Vehicles Now playing Bill Ford on electric pickup truck: 'We are way ahead of everybody else' GM DESIGN Now playing Blazer EV brings Chevy into the crowded mid-size electric SUV market Now playing Tesla should be worried about this electric luxury car Now playing Review: The electric Toyota BZR4X is perfectly fine Now playing GMC's electric Hummer is an off-road monster that can run errands Volkswagen Now playing See Volkswagen's iconic hippie microbus, but electric THOR Industries Now playing Watch self-propelled electric RV you can park remotely Sony Now playing Sony explores steering into EV market Now playing See Chevrolet's all-electric Silverado EV Now playing Mercedes unveiled long range electric car whose seats are made of mushroom Now playing VinFast is bringing its electric SUVs to the US Now playing Check out the Rivian R1T, a glamper's dream truck Now playing See this new 70s-inspired electric Ford concept truck Now playing The all-electric Mustang Mach-E GT lives up to the name Now playing The new Mercedes-Benz EQS is a game changer Uli Sonntag/Volkswagen AG Now playing Volkswagen unveils ID. Life at auto show New York CNN Business — Ford is cutting 3,000 white collar jobs as it prepares to shift from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. Two thousand of the jobs are salaried positions and another 1,000 are contractors, Ford (F) said. Affected employees will be notified they are losing their jobs later this week. “Building this future requires changing and reshaping virtually all aspects of the way we have operated for more than a century,” CEO Jim Farley and executive chairman Bill Ford wrote in a message to Ford employees first reported by Automotive News. “It requires focus, clarity and speed. And, as we have discussed in recent months, it means redeploying resources and addressing our cost structure, which is uncompetitive versus traditional and new competitors.” Ford aims to generate half of its global sales from fully electric vehicles by 2030. The move had been expected for some time. When discussing second quarter earnings with analysts a month ago, Farley confirmed reports of coming layoffs. “We absolutely have too many people in certain places, no doubt about it,” Farley said at the time. “And we have skills that don’t work anymore. We have jobs that need to change.” He admitted that Ford’s costs are not competitive with those of other automakers, but he said the cuts are not just the traditional effort to reduce costs, but to refocus the company. “We are reshaping our company,” he said. “And on our ICE [internal combustion engine] business, we want to simplify it. We want to make sure the skills we have and the work … we have are as lean as possible.” Monday’s notice to employees acknowledged the human cost of the shift in focus. “None of this changes the fact that this is a difficult and emotional time,” the letter said. “The people leaving the company this week are friends and coworkers and we want to thank them for all they have contributed to Ford. We have a duty to care for and support those affected — and we will live up to this duty — providing not only benefits but significant help to find new career opportunities.” Ford assembly lines will not be closed as part of the shift to EVs. In fact, Ford is building new EV and battery plants. Tesla has also announced plans to cut about 10% of its salaried staff even as it adds hourly workers to increase production at two new factories in Austin, Texas, and Berlin. CEO Elon Musk said the cuts are necessary because “we grew very fast on the salaried side and we grew a little too fast in some areas, and so it requires a reduction in salaried work force.” But he also has voiced concerns about a possible recession, saying he had a “super bad feeling” about the state of the economy. A growing number of job cut announcements have come across multiple industries recently, even though the overall US labor market remains very strong, with more job openings than there are unemployed people looking for work. Although GM CEO Mary Barra said the company is preparing for a possible recession and the impact that could have on operations, CFO Paul Jacobson said GM is “not running any scenarios right now where we contemplate layoffs.” To fund its planned shift to EVs, General Motors closed several US plants in 2019, sparking a strike at GM later that fall. | US Federal Policies |
The abortion pill mifepristone will remain available in the United States for now but with significant restrictions, including a requirement for in-person doctor visits to obtain the drug, a federal appeals court ruled late on Wednesday.
The New Orleans-based Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold part of last Friday’s order by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, that had suspended the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the drug while he hears a lawsuit by anti-abortion groups seeking to ban it.
The Biden administration and the maker of brand-name mifepristone, Danco Laboratories, had quickly asked for an emergency stay of that order.
However, the appeals court declined to block portions of Kacsmaryk’s order that effectively reinstate restrictions on the pill’s distribution that had been lifted since 2016. In addition to a requirement of in-person doctor visits to prescribe and dispense the drug, those restrictions include limiting its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, down from the current 10.
Kacsmaryk’s order is set to take effect on Friday.
Wednesday’s ruling came from a panel of three Fifth Circuit judges, two appointed by then-President Donald Trump and one by George W Bush, both Republicans. Judge Catharina Haynes, the Bush appointee, partly dissented, saying she would have temporarily blocked Kacsmaryk’s order entirely.
The emergency stay is meant to remain in place until the Fifth Circuit can hear the Biden administration’s appeal of Kacsmaryk’s order more fully. That appeal may be heard by a different panel.
The administration, the anti-abortion groups or both could also seek to appeal immediately to the US Supreme Court.
The FDA and lawyers for the groups could not immediately be reached for comment.
Conflicting decisions
Kacsmaryk’s ruling apparently conflicts with a different federal judge’s decision, also issued last Friday, ordering the FDA to maintain access to mifepristone with no new restrictions in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The Biden administration has asked the judge in that case to clarify his order in light of Kacsmaryk’s.
The lawsuit before Kacsmaryk was filed against the FDA in November by four anti-abortion medical associations led by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and four anti-abortion doctors. They contend the agency used an improper process when it approved mifepristone in 2000 and did not adequately consider the drug’s safety when used by girls aged under 18 to terminate a pregnancy.
Both judges’ rulings last week were preliminary injunctions meant to remain in effect while the lawsuits are pending, and are not final.
However, Kacsmaryk said he thought the anti-abortion groups were likely to succeed on the merits, writing that the FDA “acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns – in violation of its statutory duty – based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions” when it approved mifepristone.
The Fifth Circuit majority on Wednesday said that the groups’ challenge to the original 2000 approval had been filed too late. However, it said the challenges to the FDA’s later actions, including the changes in 2016 and its recent decision to allow mifepristone to be prescribed by telemedicine and dispensed by mail, were timely.
It said that the government’s arguments for an emergency stay of the ruling focused on the potential harm of pulling mifepristone from the market entirely but that it was “difficult to argue” that the 2016 changes “were so critical to the public given that the nation operated – and mifepristone was administered to millions of women – without them for sixteen years”.
The court agreed with Kacsmaryk that doctors and groups had standing to bring the lawsuit.
“As a result of FDA’s failure to regulate this potent drug, these doctors have had to devote significant time and resources to caring for women experiencing mifepristone’s harmful effects,” the panel majority wrote.
Hundreds of biotech and pharmaceutical company executives on Monday signed an open letter calling for the reversal of Kacsmaryk’s ruling, saying it undermines the FDA’s authority and ignores decades of scientific evidence on the drug’s safety.
The other ruling, ensuring access to mifepristone, was issued by US District Judge Thomas Rice in Spokane, Washington. It arises from a lawsuit brought by a group of Democratic-led states challenging federal safety restrictions for mifepristone.
Dozens of legal briefs have been filed in the two cases, with mainstream medical associations like the American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, abortion rights groups and Democratic politicians supporting the drug’s approval, and anti-abortion groups and Republican politicians opposing it.
Mifepristone is part of a two-drug regimen, administered in combination with misoprostol, for medication abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The drugs account for more than half of all abortions in the country.
Some abortion providers have said that if mifepristone is unavailable, they would switch to a misoprostol-only regimen for a medication abortion, which is not as effective. It is not yet clear how widely available it would be.
Some Democratic-led states have begun stockpiling the drugs since Kacsmaryk’s ruling.
Abortion has emerged as a potent political issue in the US since the Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling recognising a constitutional right to abortion, leaving the issue for states to decide.
Polls show that support for abortion rights helped Democrats outperform in November’s midterm elections, an anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas state constitution failed in August and Wisconsin voters last week flipped the state’s supreme court to a liberal majority after a campaign that featured abortion. | US Federal Policies |
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), both former presidential candidates, will go head-to-head in a live debate on Monday at 12 p.m. ET, with Fox News anchor Bret Baier moderating. The 1-hour event will stream live exclusively on Fox Nation.incoming update…
Click here to watch live streamPosted by Andrew Mark Miller Share"Two million people will come across the border illegally this year," Graham said. "It's just a matter of time before some terrorist comes over and kills us all."Posted by Andrew Mark Miller Share"I just want to remind you that Democrats are in charge," Graham said in his opening statement. "The Democrats have the House, the Senate, and the White House. All these problems that we're talking about, they could change or fix if they could. Their agenda isn't working."Posted by Andrew Mark Miller Share"Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege," Sanders said.Posted by Andrew Mark Miller Share"The working class and the middle class in this country are in serious trouble," Sanders said in his opening debate statement, warning that society is becoming oligarchical.Posted by Andrew Mark Miller ShareSen. Bernie Sanders chooses "heads" and wins coin toss. Elects to speak first in debatePosted by Andrew Mark Miller ShareFox Nation will present a landmark, live-streaming event on Monday at 12 p.m. ET when Fox News anchor Bret Baier moderates a one-hour policy debate between Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bernie Sanders, I-VT, to kick off The Senate Project. "It’s really exciting," Baier said Sunday on Fox News. "You can't think of two senators who are more ideologically split apart."The U.S. Senate has often been referred to as "the world’s greatest deliberative body" since the 19th century, and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation & the Bipartisan Policy Center have teamed up to launch a series of Oxford-style debates between leading U.S. Senators dubbed The Senate Project to build upon the longstanding tradition. Click here to read more on Fox NewsPosted by Andrew Mark Miller ShareAnchor Bret Baier will kick off the first in a series of bipartisan Senate Project debates in Boston, Mass.
Posted by Andrew Mark Miller ShareFOX News Media President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace said viewers can expect fireworks during Monday's debate between Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bernie Sanders, I-VT. "We are pleased to partner with the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation, and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute to present this full debate without interruption to our Fox Nation subscribers," Wallace said.
"FOX News Media is home to the most politically diverse audience in cable news and The Senate Project’s mission of providing the public with access to thoughtful, extensive debates from all sides of the political spectrum is well-suited for our viewers," he added.Posted by Fox News ShareSens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bernie Sanders, I-VT, will participate in a one-hour policy debate on Monday at 12 p.m. ET hosted by The Senate Project. Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who will moderate the debate, said he is looking forward to hearing the two senior lawmakers go head-to-head over several key issues facing the country.
"It’s really exciting," Baier said Sunday on Fox News. "You can't think of two senators who are more ideologically split apart."The high-profile Senators should have no shortage of topics to consider, as the Jan. 6 committee, inflation, gas prices, gun control, the war in Ukraine, the recent assassination attempt of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a looming Supreme Court abortion decision have filled the recent news cycle with polarizing topics.Posted by Fox News ShareLive Coverage begins here | US Congress |
Two days after a white man shot and killed 10 Black people in Buffalo last month, Michael Moody reversed his thinking about possessing a firearm. He had watched the aftermath of the carnage on the news, the anguish of the victims’ families, and decided he “needed a gun. Needed, not wanted,” he said.After discussing it with his wife, Moody said he left his home in suburban Washington to buy a weapon. He quickly learned he wasn’t alone. He said he was “stunned” at the number of Black people standing in line at the gun shop in Maryland to make a similar purchase.Through chatting with others while waiting, Moody said he learned “a lot of us have the same idea. It’s getting bad when someone specifically targets Black people to shoot. We have to be prepared to fight back. And you can’t survive bringing a knife to a gunfight.”Moody’s sentiments represent one reason the sale of guns to Black Americans rose 58 percent in 2020 — the year George Floyd was murdered by a Minnesota police officer, sparking a nationwide social justice movement — according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms trade association. It was the highest bump in gun sales of any ethnic group that year.Further, in the first quarter of 2021, another NSSF report revealed 90 percent of gun retailers reported a general increase of Black customers, including an 87 percent increase among Black women. “And you wonder why?” said Moody, who works for the federal government. “You look at Buffalo and the feeling of ‘This could have been me’ is there. We could be the next target. And when it’s you, what are you going to do? Are you going to run and hide? Or are you going to be able to protect yourself? Protect your family? I didn’t want a gun; I’m not a gun person. But this world has made me get one. Getting one for my wife next.” The foundation said 40 percent of the overall gun sales in 2020 were to first-time gun purchasers. Black gun owners, old and new, say the rise is a byproduct primarily of a heightened fear they could be targeted like those in Buffalo or at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, when nine Black church members were killed by a white supremacist.To that point, anti-Black hate crimes rose nearly 40 percent in 2020, the latest year available, according to FBI statistics. There were 2,755 reported incidents targeting Black people in the U.S. that year, the most besieged racial group by a large margin.Two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol in Washington, Destiny Hawkins, a divorced mother of one who lives near Atlanta, waited in line to purchase her first gun, a Glock 43. “It wasn’t the gun I wanted because their selection was so low; people were buying guns like crazy,” she said.Philip Smith, a human resources executive in Atlanta, founded the National African American Gun Association in 2015.Peyton Fulford for NBC News“But seeing those people climb the walls and attack the Capitol — on top of all the other shootings of Black people — just confirmed why I stood in the cold and got my firearm. The bottom line is that we have to protect ourselves and our homes. But we purchase guns differently,” Hawkins said, stressing the sense that more Black people are buying guns for the sake of protection against racial attacks. “I drove a long way to take safety classes,” she added. “I went to the range.”This increased interest in firearms delights Philip Smith, who started the National African American Gun Association in 2015. A human resources executive in Atlanta, Smith said he owns “about 30” weapons, including the lethal AR-15-style rifles used in the Buffalo mass shooting and the Uvalde elementary school massacre in Texas on May 24. The increased number of Black gun ownership represents “an awakening,” Smith said. “It’s a value-add to their family household, as opposed to, let’s say, 10 years ago or six years ago. This is a movement in a certain direction, and I think it’s a good direction.”His organization has 48,000 members nationwide, he said, and has gained more than 1,000 or more each month since 2020. It has nearly 107,000 followers on Facebook. Smith said the murder of Floyd, compounded by the myriad shootings of Black men and women by white police officers, vigilantes and the like, sparked the surge.“There’s been a polarization racially and politically that’s driving that narrative for Black people purchasing guns for protection,” Smith said. “Folks are saying they don’t want to be out in public without a gun or they might end up like Ahmaud Arbery or Trayvon Martin or countless others who have been killed in the streets. Zhé Parson developed an affinity for guns when she was growing up in rural Petersburg, Virginia. Her father, grandfather and uncles all carried guns and taught her how to use one. The owner of three firearms, Parson started a Facebook group called Black Women With Guns as a way of subtly encouraging her peers to embrace arming themselves.“It’s a safe space for Black women to come to be educated about gun usage, gun safety and protecting yourselves,” Parsons said. “It’s a sisters-in-arms space. We’re taking a step to make sure our families are safe. A lot of people of color don’t necessarily want firearms in their possession or anywhere near their children or their family because of fear something could happen. A lot of that is about not knowing about gun safety. But the numbers are going up because of one thing: Black people, Black women included, want to protect themselves.”Smith of the gun association said the pandemic and the racial justice movement created an atmosphere that pushed Black people to legally arm themselves — and it is not slowing down.“During the heart of Covid, I heard from so many people asking me to suggest guns for them to buy,” he said. He said they were scared about “the social breakdown: mob violence; shortage of food; gas prices rising. Lines were long. Then there’s the social unrest that was going on and those forces made our community collectively say, ‘You know what: I’m going to get a gun.’ And I think all that is a good thing.”When Smith moved to Atlanta from California in the early 2000s, he noticed that his dentist, lawyer and accountant all possessed guns. For 13 years he refused to engage them about firearms. Then, one Friday after work, he gave in and went to the gun range with two co-workers. “Just to shut them up,” he said. “But I had one of the greatest times in my life. I stayed there about three hours.”After a second fun experience, Smith decided to start his organization. “If I could have fun as an African American male, with no training, no connection to guns at the gun range, I figured other Black people like me across the country would enjoy being introduced to guns.”On a napkin, he wrote down what his gun organization would be, with the emphasis on gun safety, self-defense and the history of Black gun ownership, all expressed on its website, which also features the Black Panthers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Harriett Tubman and more."Having a gun is OK as long as it’s done in the right way," said Philip Smith of the National African American Gun Association. Peyton Fulford for NBC News“We share about all these Black heroes and we let the visitor know that they had a gun and their liberation or death mentality,” Smith said. “That history is something you can be proud of. And nobody can shame you for that reality.” Hawkins from Atlanta said the shame would be in the guns getting into the wrong hands or being used for purposes other than to protect.“Everyone shouldn’t have a gun,” she said. “I’m OK with figuring out legislation to make sure people who pose an obvious threat aren’t able to get a license. Just because you meet the requirement of age and basic background check doesn’t mean you should be able to possess a firearm.”Smith does not disagree. His organization has 120 chapters across the country and it has trained more than 7,000 Black women in the last year on how to safely use a gun. “Having a gun is OK as long as it’s done in the right way,” he said. “We try to use a lot of images and imagery that really connects our people to good experiences and positive images for families, for husbands, for mothers, for kids. It’s something we should embrace and use that positive energy in a legal, law-abiding way.”Follow NBCBLK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. | Civil Rights Activism |
Stocks fell throughout the afternoon on Thursday, as Treasury yields marched higher and investors digested a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Powell said Thursday that inflation is still too high, signaling that the Fed intends to hold interest rates high for an extended period of time as economic growth remains strong. In recent days, some strategists, including Mohamed El-Erian, have questioned whether it's time for the central bank to raise its target for inflation.
Investors are also watching for any potential impact of elevated interest rates on corporate performance as the third quarter earnings season rolls on.
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday he was worried that higher borrowing costs would prevent customers from affording the company's electric vehicles, speaking after the company's earnings missed estimates. Tesla shares fell nearly 10%.
In economic data, weekly jobless claims hit their lowest levels since January, as the US labor market continues to show strength.
Stocks slide into the close after Powell touts need for high rates
Stock losses accelerated Thursday afternoon as investors digested a speech from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and bond yields gained for the fourth-straight day.
Trending tickers on Thursday afternoon
Netflix (NFLX) led the Yahoo Finance trending tickers page on Thursday after the streaming giant's blowout third quarter earnings report. Netflix stock rose more than 16% after the company reported earnings that beat expectations on both the top and bottom lines while subscriber additions surged by nearly 9 million in the quarter.
AT&T (T) stock rose more than 7% as the telecommunications company reported better than expected revenue and earnings per share. AT&T also lifted its full-year outlook for free cash flow.
Tesla (TSLA) stock sank more than 10% after the electric-vehicle maker missed on both the top and bottom lines. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also noted there will be "enormous challenges" in meeting demand for the highly anticipated launch of the Cybertruck in November.
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) shares popped about 4% as the company beat earnings on both the top and bottom lines. Goldman Sachs added the chipmaker to its "Conviction List" following the report.
Netflix earnings: Wall Street applauds 'upside surprises'
Netflix (NFLX) stock jumped as much as 16% on Thursday after the streaming giant reported earnings that beat expectations on both the top and bottom lines while subscriber additions surged by nearly 9 million in the quarter.
The company also revealed it will be raising prices in the US, UK, and France — a positive development to some analysts on Wall Street.
"Of all the new data points, we think the biggest surprise is the immediate and substantial price hikes in three of Netflix’s largest revenue markets," MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in reaction to the report on Thursday.
Netflix's Basic and Premium plans will now cost $11.99 and $22.99, respectively, in the US. That's up from the prior $9.99 and $19.99 price points. The company's $6.99 ad-supported plan and $15.49 Standard plan will stay the same price.
"By [raising prices], Netflix is further incentivizing new and existing members to sign up for its materially lower priced ad-supported plan while also driving ARM, [or average revenue per membership], among households that are either price inelastic and/or advertising adverse," the analyst continued.
Nathanson, who maintained his Neutral rating and price target of $390 on the stock, raised his fourth quarter and full-year 2024 revenue projections by 2.6% and 3.5%, respectively, citing the price hikes.
He also estimated ARM will jump between 8% and 9% in the three markets impacted by the pricing changes, assuming no major changes in subscriber behavior.
ARM decreased 1% year over year in the third quarter, although Netflix said the pricing changes will help significantly boost the metric in the quarters to come.
"Netflix rolled out a series of upside surprises across a variety of 2023 and 2024 metrics that have the net effect of materially lifting 2023 free cash flow and 2024 EPS," Nathanson said. "This will undoubtedly be the read of the market, which will help stabilize Netflix’s recently turbulent stock price."
Netflix shares, although up more than 30% year to date, are still down 15% over the past three months.
Powell: Yield's "clearly" tightening financial conditions but persistence will matter
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell weighed on the debate surrounding how rising bond yields should impact the Fed's interest rate hike path during a speech on Thursday.
"I think we have to let this play out and watch it," Powell said the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. "But for now it's clearly a tightening in financial conditions and so we'll be watching it carefully."
Bond yields have soared since the last time the Fed met in late September. Yields on both the 10-year and 30-year treasuries are at 16-year highs, and some Fed officials have remarked that the financial tightening brought on by an increase in yields could effectively take place of another Federal Reserve interest rate hike.
"Are we seeing the [increases] in longer bonds come through in financial conditions in a persistent way? I think if you look at financial conditions indexes, the answer is yes you are," Powell said. "Persistence will be a matter of just seeing with our own eyes."
Powell stressed several times that yields aren't moving higher because of shorter term policy moves or market expectations of their short-term policy moves. Because if markets had priced yields higher because of an expectation the Fed would hike, "you'd have to follow through," Powell said.
"But that doesn't seem to be the case," Powell said. "It doesn't seem to be principally about expectations of us doing more."
Powell notes rates may need to be higher for longer due to resilient economic data
The leader of the US central bank has taken notice of the recent run of hot economic data.
"We've certainly got a resilient economy on our hands," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.
Powell specifically highlighted this week's September retail sales report, which showed sales grew at twice the rate economists had expected, noting this shows consumer spending remains strong, though growth is not coming at a rapid rate.
Other data points have also pointed to a resilient US economy since Powell's last press conference on September 20, including a blowout September jobs report, and data out Thursday that showed weekly jobless claims are at their lowest levels since January.
Powell described the economic story this as one of "much stronger demand” than had been expected, but didn't say this dynamic would explicitly lead to more interest rate hikes.
"It may just be that rates have not been high enough for long enough." Powell said. "It may take more time."
Powell says inflation still 'too high,' warns of more rate hikes if economy heats up
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. His prepared remarks noted the Fed has been attentive to the rise in bond yields and hotter than expected economic data.
Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said inflation is still too high and warned that more interest rate increases are still possible if the economy stays surprisingly hot or a tight labor market stops easing."
Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth, or that tightness in the labor market is no longer easing, could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy," Powell said in remarks Thursday before the Economic Club of New York.
Powell’s comments set the table for the central bank’s next interest-rate setting meeting on Nov. 1, coming just days before a 10-day blackout period during which Fed officials are not allowed to make any public statements.
The Fed at its September meeting held interest rates steady at a 22-year high while signaling another rate hike will be needed later this year to bring inflation back to its 2% target.
Investors currently expect the central bank to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the November meeting, staying in the range of 5.25%-5.50%.
Powell made it clear Thursday the central bank is closely watching the surge in long-term bond yields, which have risen more than 50 basis points since the Fed’s last policy meeting on September 20. Other Fed officials have said in recent days that if long-term interest rates remain elevated there may be less need for the Fed to act.
"We remain attentive to these developments because persistent changes in financial conditions can have implications for the path of monetary policy," Powell said.
Powell said in his speech that while inflation showed progress over the summer, the data from September were somewhat less encouraging.
He acknowledged that shorter-term measures of core inflation — inflation measures that strip out volatile food and energy prices — over the most recent three and six months are now running below 3%.
"But these shorter-term measures are often volatile," he said. "Inflation is still too high, and a few months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our goal."
Fed has 'wrong inflation target,' should be less data dependent, El-Erian says
The Federal Reserve admits it's still a long way from meeting its inflation target, recently forecasting it may not get there until 2026. But as the inflation fight lingers on some think the central bank's 2% inflation target just isn't the right number.
The dependence on economic data that has been a guiding light of Jerome Powell's tenure at the Federal Reserve is also one of its great weaknesses, said Mohamed El-Erian, in a new interview with Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman on Thursday.
In critical remarks of the US central bank, the president of Queens' College, Cambridge, and chief economic adviser at Allianz, said that Powell's emphasis on backward looking data, which operates with a lag, has denied the economy and market observers the clarity and vision that were present under previous eras of the Fed.
El-Erian pointed to the sharp rise in Treasury yields as a cause for concern.
In addition to the higher borrowing costs for both households and businesses and the drag on the economy, he emphasized the abrupt climb of yields. "There's fear, and I hope it's just a fear, that this could break something."
Treasury yields have continued their march higher, with the 10-year Treasury reaching 4.9% for the first time since 2007 in a move that has dragged the stock market lower. As investors sell bonds, prices fall and yields rise. And as this year's sell-off in the bond market deepens, Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre reports, there's increasing worry that an approach towards a big, round number like 5% for 10-year yields can serve as a psychological magnet for investors, lifting yields even higher.
For El-Erian, Fed policy is no longer an anchor. "It's too backward-looking," he said. "So this is really a hard time for the bond market. And we need stability. We desperately need stability."
Powell is scheduled to speak later today, amid the escalating conflict in Gaza and ongoing geopolitical tensions. El-Erian said he'd like the Fed chair to pull back from an approach that is "excessively data dependent." Instead, he'd like Powell to recognize that "you cannot drive a car on a curvy road looking through the back-view mirror," he said.
Jobless claims hit lowest level since January, adding to strong economic data
Week by week, jobless claims can provide a volatile reading of how many people are filing for unemployment claims.
But in aggregate, this data point has been telling a clear story since January: The labor market remains strong and any weakness isn't being driven by layoffs.
198,000 jobless claims were filed last week, below consensus estimates from economists for 210,000 claims and the lowest reading since January. Nancy Vanden Houten Oxford Economics lead US Economist said this is just one of several economic datapoints that could tilt the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates once more.
"Our current forecast is for no additional rate hikes, and we think a hike at the November 1 meeting is unlikely," Vanden Houten wrote in a note on Thursday. "The recent strength of the data, including the September reports on employment and retail sales, have raised the odds of another hike at a later meeting and make it more likely that the Fed will start cutting rates later than we expect next year. The Fed will need to see more softening of labor market conditions to be persuaded that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2% before embarking on rate cuts."
Netflix stock soars on margin growth, price hikes
Netflix stock popped more than 15% in morning trading after a blowout quarter for the streaming giant.
Netflix (NFLX) said its operating margins have more room to run as the streamer leans on initiatives like its crackdown on password sharing, cheaper ad-supported tier, and newly announced price hikes.
"We don't think we're anywhere near a margin ceiling. We've got a long runway of margin growth," Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann said on the company's third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
Operating margin, a key profitability metric, hit 22.4% in the quarter, slightly ahead of Netflix's own projection of 22.2%. The company said it expects full-year operating margin to hit 20% — the high end of its previous forecast of 18% to 20%.
The update is an encouraging sign for investors who have been hyper-focused on the company's margin outlook after Neumann doubled down last month on full-year margins falling in the range of 18% to 20%. Consensus estimates are just below 20% for full-year 2023.
Starting Wednesday, Netflix said its Basic and Premium plans will now cost $11.99 and $22.99, respectively, in the US. That's up from the prior $9.99 and $19.99 price points. Netflix’s $6.99 ad-supported plan and $15.49 Standard plan will stay the same price.
Management said the price hikes will help improve average revenue per membership, or ARM, which decreased 1% year over year in the quarter, along with other metrics like operating margins.
"While we mostly paused price increases as we rolled out paid sharing, our overall approach remains the same — a range of prices and plans to meet a wide range of needs, and as we deliver more value to our members, we occasionally ask them to pay a bit more," the company said in its shareholder letter.
"Our starting price is extremely competitive with other streamers and at $6.99 per month in the US, for example, it’s much less than the average price of a single movie ticket," the letter continued.
Tesla stock slides after Q3 earnings call
Tesla (TSLA) stock dropped more than 8% on Thursday in reaction to the company's latest quarterly earnings release.
The electric vehicle maker missed on both the top and bottom lines, though the company did reveal that Cybertruck deliveries are on track for November 30 of this year.
For the quarter, Tesla reported top-line revenue of $23.4 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $24.06 billion; however, revenue did climb 13% from a year ago. From a profitability standpoint, Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.66 versus $0.74 expected and adjusted net income of $2.3 billion versus the $2.56 billion expected.
The drop in profitability could be attributed to expected downward pressure on margins since Tesla began its cost-cutting efforts late last year. Tesla reported Q3 gross margin of 17.9%, slightly missing Wall Street estimates of 18.0%. Last quarter Tesla reported a gross margin of 18.2%.
"The quarter itself delivered auto [gross margin] (ex credits) of 16.3% vs. the Street at 17.6% with margins that should stabilize over the coming quarters however Tesla is not committing to the end of price cuts and that is a big problem and overhang for the stock in the near-term," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note published Thursday morning. Wedbush lowered its Tesla price target to $310 from $350 following Q3 earnings.
Looking ahead to future products, Tesla revealed Cybertruck deliveries remain on track for later this year, with deliveries beginning on Nov. 30. On the conference call, Musk said it would take a year to 18 months before the Cybertruck would be cash-flow positive, and that by 2025 he expected a production run rate of 250,000 units a year. Musk added that Tesla would face "enormous challenges" in reaching volume production of the Cybertruck.
"We believe the 3Q report will add to near-to-intermediate term investor concerns given company commentary that the current macro backdrop/higher rates could gate its growth (including how quickly it ramps factories), and comments that the initial Cybertruck ramp could be slow," Goldman analyst Mark Delaney wrote in a note to investors. Delaney subsequently lowered his Tesla price target to $235 from $265 following the Q3 report. | US Federal Policies |
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is investigating a misconduct allegation against a federal judge who called a 13-year-old girl out of the spectator’s gallery at her father’s supervised release revocation hearing and had her handcuffed and placed in the jury box, according to court documents.
US District Court Judge Roger Benitez paused a February 13 hearing in San Diego to call up the defendant’s teenaged daughter, who was attending one of her father’s hearings for the first time, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by the defendant’s attorneys, which cited a transcript of the proceedings.
Before the incident, the defendant told the judge he planned to leave the area once released and expressed concern over his daughter hanging out with the wrong people.
Minutes later, Benitez ordered a marshal to handcuff the girl, who had been crying, and told her to sit in the jury box, according to the memorandum, which was filed February 23. She continued to sob, the document says.
There was a long pause, according to the document, and Benitez then had a marshal take the handcuffs off the girl. But before allowing her to return to her seat, he scolded the girl, called her “an awfully cute young lady” and warned that if she didn’t stay away from drugs she would wind back up in handcuffs, court documents say.
“I think the intent was to embarrass or humiliate her,” said Michele McKenzie, an attorney representing the girl and her mother. “I think that was the very clear message sent to her by someone with tremendous amount of power.”
Benitez has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment.
His administrative law clerk told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an email that the judge “regrets that he is not permitted to comment on matters pending before the court.”
The girl attended with her aunt and a family friend to show support for her father during a hearing in which he planned to admit to violations of his supervised release and be sentenced for 10 months. The newly filed sentencing memorandum asks the court to consider the father’s time served as his sentence.
McKenzie declined to share the seventh grader’s name to protect her identity.
“She feels bad and was made to feel bad though she has done nothing wrong,” McKenzie said in a phone interview with CNN. The actions of Benitez are “really out of touch with the reality,” McKenzie said. “It shows a complete lack of understanding of what families – particularly the children of those in the criminal justice system – are going through.”
Chief Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California contacted the higher court on February 17 about the allegations. Mary Murguia, the chief judge of the 9th Circuit, said in an order filed Tuesday that she reviewed court transcripts and identified a complaint.
The misconduct review is likely to take weeks or months. Typically, the 9th Circuit’s judicial council would assign a special committee to review, evaluate, and issue a recommendation based on their findings, Scott Cummings, a legal ethics professor at UCLA, said. Any punishment could include censure or even suspension.
McKenzie said her client’s humiliation was public.
“At a minimum the 9th Circuit should censure him publicly,” McKenzie said, adding that the judge’s actions “send a message that by even attending a hearing, the public could be a target.”
“I also think apologies go a long way,” said McKenzie.
Cummings calls this incident “unprecedented” in his 20 years as a legal ethics professor. “I have never heard of anything like this – targeting a young child who is there to support the defendant,” said Cummings.
From October 2021 through September 2022, there were 1,520 complaints against federal judges, according to federal court data. Most complaints against federal judges were filed by prison inmates and other litigants.
Calling Benitez’s actions as reported “a rogue act by one particular judge,” Cummings said he doubts involving the public in hearings like this would set a precedent.
“It would be dangerous and damaging for the court system and the rule of law,” he said.
He said it was appropriate to question whether Benitez is fit to hear more cases. Benitez was nominated for his current position in 2003 by President George W. Bush.
Benitez was ultimately confirmed by the US Senate in 2004 by a 98-1 vote, with only Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, voting against.
CNN’s Steve Almasy contributed to this report | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
Lowe’s, the American big box home improvement chain, is facing an effort to form the company’s first US union in New Orleans, Louisiana, where 172 workers, under the banner of Lowe’s Workers United, recently filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Lowe’s operates or services about 2,000 stores in the US and Canada with more than 300,000 full and part-time employees, and has aggressively opposed unionization efforts. The company has staffed union avoidance investigators, developed anti-union training videos for employees, and lost a case in 2021 at the NLRB over a company policy that prohibited employees from discussing wages.Felix Allen, an employee who is organizing at the New Orleans store and has worked at Lowe’s for about two years, explained the union talk started earlier this year with co-workers. They’ve been galvanized by similar campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon, which have come to symbolise a rejuvenated US labor movement.Allen said grievances include heat stress, not being able to take adequate water breaks, scheduling issues, lagging wages, as well as understaffing and aggressive customers as a result.“We just felt like we needed to stand up for ourselves,” said Allen. “Folks who have been there many years are still getting paid less than $15 an hour. Personally, I can operate three different types of forklifts and I get paid less than $13 an hour and I’ve trained incoming employees.”He compared this pay with Lowe’s profits in the past two years and the CEO’s salary. Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison received $17.8m in total compensation in fiscal year 2022, 787 times the median employee pay for the same time period. The company spent over $13 bn in stock buybacks and $2bn in dividends to shareholders in 2021. He also claimed new employees have gotten higher pay than employees with seniority in many cases.“They’re just treating us like commodities or robots. We’re just numbers to them,” said Allen. “We’ve had folks who’ve been injured on the job and have not been dealt with fairly, they’ve been through the ringer, and same thing for folks who have needed to take a leave of absence or a paternity leave or need accommodations for health reasons.”Since filing for the union election, Allen said several managers from different stores have come in, asking workers questions, and two union avoidance consultants walked around mischaracterizing union dues.A spokesperson for Lowe’s said in an email, “Lowe’s is committed to having a positive working environment and empowers associates to communicate directly with leadership. We value this relationship, and we do not believe that unionizing is in the best interests of our associates.”Lowe’s largest competitor, Home Depot, is also facing a union election. If successful, it would create the home improvement retailer’s first unionized US store. The union election is scheduled for 2 November, with the vote count to be held a few days later.Home Depot has also historically opposed unions, with anti-union training videos and executives speaking out against legislation to facilitate union organizing. In 2019, a group of delivery drivers at Home Depot in San Diego, California successfully unionized with the Teamsters.The union election petition, filed in Philadelphia, seeks to represent 274 Home Depot employees with Home Depot Workers United, in what would be an independent union akin to the Amazon Labor Union.“There are a lot of things we have been put through in that store, but I would say the biggest thing that pushed us to this point is we kind of just felt forgotten,” said Vincent Quiles, an employee at the Home Depot and union organiser. “They rode high on calling us essential workers and stuff like that, but when it came time to treat us essentially, it didn’t feel like they did.”He explained some of the pressing problems behind the organizing campaign: short staffing, lagging wages, and a lack of investment and resources for workers compared with the store’s sales and profits since the Covid-19 pandemic began.Quiles claimed Home Depot has responded to the campaign with an influx of managers from different areas to try to discourage the unionization effort.“Ultimately, what we want to keep this focused on is empowering the people in that building, and just encouraging people that might be looking at what we’re doing here,” added Quiles.A spokesperson for Home Depot responded to the campaign in an email. “We look forward to talking with our associates about their concerns. Our open-door policy is designed to assure all associates that they can bring concerns directly to leadership, and we have a track record of working successfully with our associates to resolve them. While we will of course work through the NLRB process, we do not believe unionization is the best solution for our associates.” | Labor Activism |
Wu’s administration has been tight-lipped about any details regarding candidates. The number and names of finalists for the post have yet to be made public.“The Mayor looks forward to selecting a new leader with strong experience to partner on the work ahead,” said a Wu spokeswoman in a Friday statement. “Partnering alongside our incoming fire commissioner, we will work to break down barriers to enhance opportunities for women and people of color to join our fire department.”But whoever takes the reins will inherit an agency repeatedly blasted in recent years for failing to reflect the demographics of the city it serves. It continues to struggle with diversity; its latest recruiting class included just one woman among 90 recruits, and 22 recruits of color.According to a recent Globe analysis of the city workforce, more than 94 percent of the Fire Department’s 1,600 workers are male and 72 percent are white. And earlier this year, a Fire Department supervisor suggested that when counting only sworn fire personnel in the department — meaning the firefighters — the department appears even more male-dominated.“Instead of moving forward, we’ve moved backwards,” said Julia Rodriguez, a Charlestown native who has been a Boston firefighter for 33 years, of the department’s diversity.Rodriguez favors a civilian manager to be the next commissioner, an outsider who is not a product of the department’s culture.“Ninety-nine percent of the guys would disagree with me but they disagree because they’re afraid someone like that would come in and make changes because they’re not from the same clique,” she said during a Friday interview. “Nobody from within will make any changes.”Pam Kocher, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a city watchdog, had similar thoughts, saying that the next head of BFD should be a civilian outsider who drives changes and brings greater accountability to the department and management expertise to the organization. A civilian commissioner should work closely with a “chief of department” who would be more involved in the agency’s day-to-day operations, she said.Those two leaders, according to Kocher, “are needed to continually strive to improve operations and management of the Fire Department and challenge its embedded culture.”“With little or no change, the Fire Department may continue to provide excellent fire suppression services, but at a high financial and human capital cost from operational and administrative inefficiencies, lack of diversity, and an unhealthy, outdated culture,” she said in a statement.Attempts to bring in outsiders to run BFD have been met with resistance from members of the firefighters’ politically powerful union, Local 718. Some firefighters, for instance, chafed when former Boston mayor Thomas Menino brought in people who did not come up through BFD to run the department.One of those outsiders, Roderick Fraser, was the first civilian leader of BFD since the 1970s, and his tenure was marked by intra-department friction. At one point, Fraser referred to the deputy chiefs of the department as “dinosaurs.”Sophia Hall, the deputy litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston, said diversity problems at BFD persist, adding that her organization is “hoping to see some change” in the status quo at the department. A new fire cadet program, which was in the planning stages earlier this year, could boost diversity, but it must be properly implemented, she said. That responsibility will fall to the next commissioner.Local 718 has tangled with past commissioners and mayors alike.The union clashed with Menino over an array of topics, including city residency requirements and mandatory drug testing. The labor group also locked horns with Menino’s successor, Martin J. Walsh. After supporting Walsh in his inaugural 2013 mayoral run, Local 718 ended up suing his administration in Suffolk Superior Court, alleging repeated violations of the union’s collective bargaining agreement.Most recently, the union spearheaded a fight over a city vaccination requirement, a beef that dominated the earliest months of Wu’s mayoral tenure.Sam Dillon, president of Local 718, said this week that the commissioner opening is “an incredible opportunity and great responsibility.”“I look forward to working with whoever the commissioner ends up being,” he said.“There is an opportunity to diversify our ranks and our leadership. That’s definitely something we look forward to working with everyone to achieve.”Dillon recently replaced John Soares as head of the union. Soares had made history as the first person of color to lead that union in its history.Sam Tyler, a City Hall observer who formerly served as the head of the municipal research bureau, said it’s a critical appointment and it’s crucial for the commissioner to have a “good working relationship to deal with the mayor.””It’s a department that has struggled with reform,” he said. “It has a culture of resisting change.”Indeed, in 2019, female firefighters and local officials blasted a city-commissioned report that found a “male-dominated” culture resistant to reform. Critics of the report said it recycled old recommendations and did not go far enough to address systemic issues.The report was the product of an outside counsel’s review of the department’s handling of harassment and discrimination allegations brought by women on the force. It wasn’t the first analysis to take aim at BFD’s culture. Another report from almost two decades prior came to damning conclusions, deeming the department technically proficient but a bastion of longtime sexism and racial discrimination.In January 2020, a Boston firefighter was found guilty of assaulting a female colleague, in an incident that underscored the dwindling number of female firefighters in Boston and the hostility some of them said they have long endured, the Globe reported at the time. That year, the force had only 17 female firefighters, and the paltry number of women in the department remains a problem.The department, which dates back to 1678, has never had a commissioner who is not a white man. In 2019, the city appointed its first-ever Black chief of operations for Boston Fire, and the department named its first female district chief that year.But concerns about lack of diversity in supervisor roles at the department continue.Dempsey, the city’s current fire commissioner, took charge in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Walsh was still the city’s mayor. Known to be a quiet presence and someone who avoids the spotlight and political fights, Dempsey continued in that role when Walsh left City Hall last year to become US labor secretary and Kim Janey took the mayoral reins on an acting basis. He stayed on under Wu, who took office in November.In a recent statement, Boston City Council President Ed Flynn said Boston is thankful for Dempsey’s service and work ethic. He wanted the next fire commissioner to emulate the outgoing one.“It is critical that the next Boston Fire Commissioner also have these leadership qualities that maintain the trust of their fellow firefighters and the public,” he said. “The next fire commissioner needs to be committed to the safety of our residents, as well as accountable to firefighters and all residents throughout Boston’s neighborhoods.”Danny McDonald can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald. | US Local Policies |
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., June 14, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn HocksteinRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comJune 14 (Reuters) - The American Petroleum Institute, the top U.S. oil lobby organization, on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden’s administration to lift a slew of restrictions on fossil fuel development to help ease soaring energy prices.The request underscores an uncomfortable dilemma for the Biden administration as it seeks to follow through on its promises to combat climate change while also battling to curb rampant inflation.Oil prices have surged more than 70% since late last year as global demand rebounds from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and as trade flows are disrupted by punitive sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe on major supplier Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe jump has contributed to a record surge in U.S. gasoline prices to around $5 a gallon, part of a broad wave of rising consumer prices that threaten Biden’s fellow Democrats heading into the November mid-term elections. read more “This combination of factors and events leaves us in the situation we face today. Namely, the most consequential energy crisis since the 1970s,” API President Mike Sommers wrote in a letter addressed to Biden and dated Tuesday, referring to the Arab oil embargo. “Fortunately, the United States benefits from an abundance of oil and natural gas resources and has developed cutting-edge technologies to be the world’s energy leader."The letter included a 10-point policy wish list from the oil industry, which included lifting restrictions on federal oil and gas lease sales, speeding permitting for fossil fuel projects, and rolling back proposals for increased climate disclosure.Biden has set a target to decarbonize the U.S. economy by 2050 to slow global warming. But in recent months his administration has also called for increased domestic oil and gas production and requested more oil from the producer group OPEC to help curb inflation.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Federal Policies |
US officials are considering whether to subject some of Elon Musk’s business ventures to national security reviews, including his proposed acquisition of Twitter and his satellite internet company Starlink, according to a report.Bloomberg wrote on Friday that Biden administration officials were concerned by the Tesla chief executive’s plan to buy Twitter in a deal part-funded by non-US investors and his recent threat to pull the plug on the Starlink service to Ukraine, as well as the publication of a series of tweets containing proposals over the Ukraine conflict favourable to the Putin regime.The report said US officials were concerned by Musk’s plans to buy Twitter with the financial support of non-US investors, including: the Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud; Qatar Holding, which is part of the Qatar Investment Authority; and Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, whose holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands. At the time, the financial support of Musk’s co-investors was worth about $7bn.The White House however, denied talk of a security review. The national security spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, said: “We don’t know of any such discussions.”Musk is working to complete a proposed $44bn acquisition of Twitter ahead of a court-imposed deadline of 28 October, after which he faces the threat of legal action from the social media platform to force him to close the deal.Bloomberg wrote that one avenue available to the Biden administration to investigate Musk’s ventures was the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United State (CFIUS), which can review business deals and recommend that the president suspend or block a transaction.In response, Elon Musk flagged a tweet on Friday that cited the Bloomberg report and said it would be “hysterical if the government stopped Elon from over-paying for Twitter”. Musk responded with a laughing emoji and the 100 emoji, indicating support for the post.It would be hysterical if the government stopped Elon from over paying for Twitter 😂— Nik “The Carny” Lentz (@NikLentz) October 21, 2022
It is not clear on what basis Starlink, part of Musk’s Space X rocket business, would be scrutinised by the committee.On Saturday, Elon Musk announced SpaceX would continue to pay for Starlink’s internet service in Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project, which he said was losing about $20m a month. Starlink, which operates via a constellation of 3,000 small satellites in low-Earth orbit, has become a key communications link for the Ukrainian army in its fight to repel the Russian invasion. There are now about 25,000 Starlink ground terminals in Ukraine, according to Musk.Musk alarmed the government in Kyiv this month when he published a Twitter poll on the future of the country, with options including formalising Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In response, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tweeted: “Which @elonmusk do you like more?” and offered two responses: the Musk who supports Ukraine, or who supports Russia.The US Treasury said: “CFIUS is committed to taking all necessary actions within its authority to safeguard U.S. national security. Consistent with law and practice, CFIUS does not publicly comment on transactions that it may or may not be reviewing.”Howard Fischer, a partner at New York law firm Moses & Singer, said he did not expect a CFIUS investigation to hamper the Twitter deal.“I am sceptical that CFIUS review is going to be employed to stop or significantly pause the deal,” he said. “Musk would argue that he is being punished for his speech, not the presence of foreign investors in the deal, especially given the relatively smaller size of that reported foreign investment.”Elon Musk has been contacted for commented. | US Federal Policies |
Unions Are Winning Big For The First Time In Decades
For the first time this century, unions aren’t on the defensive. In fact, they’re winning big.
(Bloomberg) -- Workers in the US are getting record-breaking wage hikes this year thanks to strategic strikes and stunning contract wins. The result is a boost in middle-income wages and a shift in the balance of power between companies and their employees.
Even before the United Auto Workers reached historic contract deals with carmakers, unions across the country had already won their members 6.6% raises on average in 2023 — the biggest bump in more than three decades, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law.
The recent victories mark a potential turning point for the country’s labor movement, which has seen union ranks and power dwindle for decades. Emboldened by towering corporate profits, UPS drivers, Hollywood writers, autoworkers and others made ambitious demands many considered unattainable. Using new tactics — and taking advantage of a tight labor market and shifting views on organized labor — one-by-one, they won big.
“We are seeing an incredible moment of worker power,” Acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su said in an interview. “We said that essential workers matter, and now workers are saying, ‘Let's really figure out what that looks like.’”
These contracts only cover a tiny slice of the US labor market, but the wage gains could also have spillover effects to other workers. FedEx executives privately worried the pay bumps secured in the most recent UPS contract, particularly for part-time package handlers, would make it more difficult to recruit.
They also don’t come without risks. Companies say they can’t stay competitive with higher labor costs, while others have signaled that they will reduce headcount or change where and how they do business. Automakers in fierce competition to dominate the electric-vehicle market have already suggested they might move some factories to Mexico, Canada and other overseas locations. Netflix and other streamers are revving up production outside of the US so they’re less reliant on Hollywood.
Record Breaking Gains
The United Auto Workers scored some of the biggest raises among US workers this year. Tentative deals reached over the last week with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV include a 25% hourly wage increase over four-plus years, with an 11% bump in the first year, the biggest jump the UAW has seen this century.
Union president Shawn Fain took an unconventional approach. He targeted a plant from each car company and then incrementally expanded the strike based on what was happening at the bargaining table. That allowed him to hit lucrative factories without burning through the union’s strike fund. Ultimately, his strategy secured hefty victories, including more generous 401(k) retirement benefits, cost-of-living pay increases and the elimination of lower tiers of pay.
This wave of union wins started at the tail end of last year, when more than 100,000 railroad workers threatened to walk off the job for the first time in decades. A work stoppage would have halted shipments for businesses across the country, costing the US economy billions and possibly tipping it into recession.
The strike was averted when Congress forced the unions to accept an agreement, even as some workers voted to reject the contract to get more guaranteed sick leave. Still, the threat alone was powerful: Workers ended up with unprecedented gains, including a 24% wage increase plus a $5,000 bonus over five years and new scheduling rules that guarantee uninterrupted time off.
Since then, thousands of US workers have negotiated record-making deals using new playbooks. This summer, television and movie writers got guarantees for bigger wage boosts than they’ve seen this century, in part by using social media to marshal public support and encourage members to hold the line.
“The workers are p---ed and that’s why we’re winning,” said Adam Conover, a comedian and member of the negotiating committee for the Writers Guild of America. “It’s a massive victory.”
It was a similar story at UPS, where workers will get a 10% pay increase in the first year of the contract. The Teamsters union’s new president, Sean O’Brien, did things differently than his predecessor. He started talks six months before the contract expired, instead of a year out. He also spent time crisscrossing the country to build support for a potential strike and made it clear to UPS that he wouldn’t delay a strike if negotiations slid past the Aug. 1 deadline.
At Kaiser Permanente, health-care workers staged the biggest walkout in the sector ever, with 75,000 joining a three-day strike in early October. The group threatened a longer stoppage if the health system didn’t agree to address staffing shortages. Around 10 days later, the union won a deal with pay bumps bigger than anytime in the last two decades.
‘Great Momentum’
Labor leaders had a variety of things working in their favor at the bargaining table, some of which may not endure. Tighter labor markets that now look to be cooling gave employees more leverage — with or without a union — to secure raises. There’s also been a sentiment shift. Coming out of the pandemic, many of these jobs were deemed “essential” but weren’t valued as such, despite companies reporting record profits and stock gains that led to huge CEO payouts.
Public approval for US unions last year was up to a 57-year high, though has since dipped slightly. Solid majorities of Americans polled by Gallup said they sided with screen writers, actors and auto workers in their disputes.
“I would go to comedy clubs all across the country and I would open by saying, ‘Hey, I'm on strike right now,’ and the crowd would give me literally a 45-second ovation,” Conover said. “People in the middle of the country stopped me on the street and said, ‘Hey, good luck on the strike.”
US labor is no longer in a “defensive mode,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, the director of the University of California Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. Until recently, it was easier for business leaders to dismiss organized labor as greedy or corrupt. “They don’t have a language right now to oppose it,” said Lichtenstein. “Things like, ‘oh be realistic,’ fall on deaf ears.”
Similar forces are leading to record strike activity in the UK, where more working days have been lost to walkouts in the last year than in any time since the 1980s. In France, more than a million people took to the streets in January to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms.
Read more: Tesla and Anti-Union Elon Musk Make Enticing Targets for UAW's Next Push
Labor leaders have publicly said they hope to use the wins to grow their ranks. Unionized workers have historically made 10% to 20% more and get better benefits than those who aren’t. Yet, only 6% of private sector workers in the US belong to a union, down from 11% thirty years ago — a far smaller share than in Europe or Canada, where around a quarter of the workforce is unionized.
The Teamsters’ O’Brien told Bloomberg News that he expects to “be successful” at Amazon in the next four or five years. He’s is also using an approach similar to the one he took at UPS in current contract negotiations for 5,000 production workers at 12 US Anheuser-Busch breweries.
“We’ve got some great momentum,” O’Brien said.
--With assistance from Robert Combs, Thomas Black and Alexandre Tanzi.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Labor Activism |
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York's top court on Tuesday rejected an effort to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo, ruling that she does not meet the definition of “person” who is being illegally confined.The 5-2 decision by the state Court of Appeals affirms an earlier court decision and means Happy will not be released through a habeas corpus proceeding, which is a way for people to challenge illegal confinement.The majority decision written by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said that “while no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion,” a writ of habeas corpus is intended to protect the liberty of human beings and does not apply to a nonhuman animal like Happy.The case had been closely watched by animal rights activists and industries that depend on animals. The zoo and its supporters warned that a win for advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project could open the door to more legal actions on behalf of animals, including pets and other species in zoos.The advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project argued that Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person.”The Bronx Zoo argued Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant “respected as the magnificent creature she is.”Associated PressPolice: 3 killed, 4 wounded in LA warehouse party shootingThree people were killed and four wounded in a shooting during a warehouse party in Los Angeles early Sunday, authorities said. One of the gunshot victims remained in critical condition on Monday morning, according to Officer Jader Chaves, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson. Detectives have not yet determined a motive in the shooting around 12:30 a.m. Sunday in the Boyle Heights neighborhood.The New York TimesHow Extreme Heat Kills, Sickens, Strains and Ages UsWhen W. Larry Kenney, a professor of physiology at Pennsylvania State University, began studying how extreme heat harms humans, his research focused on workers inside the disaster-stricken Three Mile Island nuclear plant, where temperatures were as high as 165 degrees Fahrenheit. In the decades that followed, Kenney has looked at how heat stress affects a range of people in intense environments: football players, soldiers in protective suits, distance runners in the Sahara. Of late, however, hisBloombergChina Hits Back at Call for UN Labor Body to Visit Xinjiang(Bloomberg) -- China dismissed the need for a United Nations mission to review its labor standards in the remote Xinjiang region, after a committee branded its policies for Uyghurs as “discriminatory.”Most Read from BloombergChina Alarms US With Private Warnings to Avoid Taiwan StraitStocks’ Pandemic Bull Run Ends With Recession Fear: Markets WrapCrypto Market Sinks Below $1 Trillion After Latest DeFi BlowupBond Yields, Dollar Surge With Fed Bets as Recession Risk GrowsBitcoin Turns Lower AgainReutersUN rights chief says no to second term amid China trip backlashGENEVA (Reuters) -The United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said on Monday that she would not seek a second term for personal reasons, refuting speculation that it was a decision linked to blowback over her trip to China last month. Bachelet, 70, was criticised by rights groups as well as some Western governments, including the United States, who said the conditions Chinese authorities imposed on the visit did not enable a complete and independent assessment of the rights environment. "As my term as High Commissioner draws to a close, this Council's milestone fiftieth session will be the last which I brief," she said in a surprise announcement at the end of a wide-ranging speech to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.The Conversation'Show' trial of foreign fighters in Donetsk breaks with international law – and could itself be a war crimeBritish citizens Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim. AP PhotoThe sentencing to death of three foreign fighters captured by Russian troops and handed over to authorities in a breakaway region in Ukraine presents a serious deviation from international law – one that in itself represents a war crime. Sentencing came on June 9, 2022, at the end of what has been dismissed by observers in the West as a “show trial” involving the three – two British citizens and a Moroccan nationaBloombergAttack on Chinese Women Revives #MeToo Anger Xi Can’t Extinguish(Bloomberg) -- Footage of a violent attack on female diners at a barbecue restaurant in China has sparked outrage online, threatening to revive the #MeToo movement against gender inequality that President Xi Jinping’s government has repeatedly tried to suppress.Most Read from BloombergChina Alarms US With Private Warnings to Avoid Taiwan StraitStocks’ Pandemic Bull Run Ends With Recession Fear: Markets WrapCrypto Market Sinks Below $1 Trillion After Latest DeFi BlowupBond Yields, Dollar Surge WiAFPRwanda YouTuber alleges prison torture, HRW saysA prominent Rwandan YouTuber has accused prison guards of torturing him, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday as it urged leaders attending an upcoming Commonwealth summit in Kigali to pressure the government to free critics.The HillTrevor Reed files UN petition against Russia after over two years in prisonTrevor Reed, the former Marine released from a Russian prison in April after more than two years, filed a petition to the United Nations (U.N.) on Monday to issue a statement acknowledging that he was wrongly imprisoned and asking Russia to pay him reparations, according to a letter by his representative. The petition requests that…ReutersCambodian court jails American lawyer, dozens of others for treasonA Cambodian court handed down jail sentences on Tuesday to about 60 opposition figures including prominent lawyer Theary Seng for conspiring to commit treason, in a mass trial condemned by the United States and rights groups as politically motivated. Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer and human rights activist, was among more than 100 people affiliated with the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) charged with treason and incitement.AFPUK to send first asylum seekers to RwandaThe British government was to send a first plane carrying failed asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids and protests against the controversial policy.The HillRussian cluster munitions causing widespread civilian deaths in Kharkiv: AmnestyHuman rights group Amnesty International said on Monday they have documented 28 indiscriminate Russian strikes in Kharkiv, Ukraine, that have killed and injured hundreds of civilians, arguing the attacks constitute war crimes. Amnesty said civilians have been killed while queuing for humanitarian aid, walking by a playground, visiting loved ones’ graves and sitting outside their… | US Local Policies |
CNN — The Supreme Court will revisit the intersection of LGBTQ rights and religious liberty on Monday, when it takes up the case of a graphic designer who seeks to start a website business to celebrate weddings – but does not want to work with same-sex couples. The case comes as supporters of LGBTQ rights fear the 6-3 conservative majority – fresh off its decision to reverse a near 50-year-old abortion precedent – may be setting its sights on ultimately reversing a landmark 2015 opinion called Obergefell v. Hodges that cleared the way for same-sex marriage nationwide. The House this week is expected to pass a bill that requires states to recognize another state’s legal marriage if Obergefell were ever overturned. The bill would then go to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature. “I am concerned,” Mary Bonauto, senior attorney of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, told CNN in an interview. “I am concerned only because the Court seems to be reaching for cases and literally changing settled law time and again.” Justice Clarence Thomas, for instance, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, explicitly called on the court to revisit Obergefell. On one side of the dispute is the designer, Lorie Smith, whose business is called 303 Creative. She says she has not yet moved forward with an expansion into wedding websites because she is worried about violating a Colorado public accommodations law. She says the law compels her to express messages that are inconsistent with her beliefs. The state and supporters of LGBTQ rights respond that Smith is simply seeking a license to discriminate in the marketplace. Four years ago, the court considered a similar case involving a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, citing religious objections. That 7-2 ruling favoring the baker, however, was tied to specific circumstances in that case and did not apply broadly to similar disputes nationwide. Now, the justices are taking a fresh look at the same state Anti-Discrimination Act. Under the law, a business may not refuse to serve individuals because of their sexual orientation. Smith says that she is willing to work with all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, but she refuses to create websites that celebrate same-sex marriage. Why Jim Obergefell is not celebrating the Senate's same-sex marriage bill 01:57 - Source: CNN “The state of Colorado is forcing me to create custom, unique artwork communicating and celebrating a different view of marriage, a view of marriage that goes against my deeply held beliefs,” Smith told CNN in an interview. When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in February, the justices sidestepped whether the law violated Smith’s free exercise of religion. Instead, the court said it would look at the dispute through the lens of free speech and decide whether applying the public accommodations law “to compel an artist to speak or stay silent” violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment. In court papers, Smith’s lawyer, Kristen K. Waggoner, said that the law works to “compel speech the government favors and silence speech the government dislikes” in violation of the First Amendment. She said the state could interpret its law to allow speakers “who serve all people to decline specific projects based on their message” such a move, she contended, would stop status discrimination “without coercing or suppressing speech.” Twenty states have weighed in in favor of Smith in friend of the court briefs. They say that they have public accommodation laws on the books, but their laws exempt those businesspeople who make their living creating custom art. Smith says she has written a webpage explaining that her decision is based on her belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman. But she has not yet published the statement because she is in fear of violating the “publication clause” of the law that bars a company from publishing any communication that indicates that a public accommodation service will be refused based on sexual orientation, Waggoner claims in court papers. Smith lost her case at the lower court. The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals held that while a diversity of faiths and religious exercises “enriches our society,” the state has a compelling interest in “protecting its citizens from the harms of discrimination.” Conservatives on the current court are sure to study the dissent penned by Judge Timothy Tymovich. “The majority,” he wrote, “takes the remarkable – and novel stance that the government may force Ms. Smith to produce messages that violate her conscience.” “Taken to its logical end,” he concluded, “the government could regulate the messages communicated by all artists.” Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson argued in court papers that the law does not regulate or compel speech. Instead, he said, it regulates commercial conduct to ensure all customers have the ability to participate in everyday commercial exchanges regardless of their religion, race, disability, or other characteristics. He said that the law protects customers’ “equal access and equal dignity” and that when Smith seeks to issue a statement announcing why she would not create wedding websites for same sex couples, that is akin to a “white applicants only” sign. He added that the law does not aim to suppress any message that Smith may want to express. Instead, 303 Creative is free to decide what design services to offer and whether to communicate its vision of marriage through biblical quotes on its wedding websites. But critically, the law requires the company to sell whatever product or service it offers to all. Bonauto also warned of a slippery slope. “Are you going to have the Protestant baker who doesn’t want to make the First Communion cake?” Bonauto said. “Do you want to have the school photographer who has their business but they don’t want to take pictures of certain kids?” Twenty-two other states support Colorado and have similar laws. The Biden Justice Department, which will participate in oral arguments, supports Colorado, stressing that public accommodations laws “guarantee equal access to the Nation’s commercial life by ensuring that all Americans can acquire whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public.” A decision in the case is expected by July. | SCOTUS |
Associated Press-John Locher A pole worker lays out “I Voted” stickers at a polling place Tuesday, June 14, 2022, in Las Vegas. While no one knows exactly how bad this year will be for Democrats, every serious analyst recognizes 2022 is unlikely to be good for my party. Whatever the precise outcome, too many will blithely assume that the 2022 results will yield significant insights into President Biden’s prospects in 2024. History makes clear that 2022 will tell us nothing about the outcome of the next presidential election. In the eight worst midterms for the party in control of White House since 1938, the party holding executive power lost between 45 and 81 House seats. Two years later, that same party won reelection to the White House in more than half — five of the eight — cases. The three worst midterm performances occurred in 1938, 2010, and 1994. Two years later, each of the Democratic presidents who presided over those debacles won reelection. In short, there is no meaningful relationship between midterm performance and a party’s prospects in the next presidential election. Why not? Those presidents certainly did not remain popular during the midterm losses. Just 51 percent approved of President Franklin Roosevelt’s performance at the time of the 1938 midterms, about the lowest of his presidency. President Obama’s approval was at 45 percent during his midterm shellacking, while President Clinton’s was at that same level going into his 1994 midterm loss of 52 House seats. Those approval ratings changed by the time the presidential election rolled around. The summer before the election of 1940, FDR’s approval was at 58 percent. Going into Clinton’s reelection his approval climbed to 56 percent, while Obama’s rose to 54 percent. Two years is enough time for numbers to move. Of course, for numbers to move, reality has to change, and it did. Consider improvements in the economy. Depression still gripped the nation in 1938, as per capital real disposable income fell by 6 percent. In 1940 it rose by 6 percent. Clinton and Obama too benefited from meaningfully stronger real income growth in their reelection years than in their midterms. Sometimes things change because of circumstances over which presidents have no control. Other times presidents learn from losses and choose to make changes. Having lost a battle over national health care and 52 House seats, President Clinton began his reelection year by declaring the era of big government over, while also making clear, “we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.” Other changes are imposed on presidents — such as the opposition party taking control of Congress. On the one hand, that limits bold policy initiatives. On the other, it divides responsibility to some extent. In the public reckoning, the buck still stops at the president’s desk, but many voters recognize that a Congress in the hands of the other party limits a president’s freedom of action. With divided government, interparty battles may elicit more attention than intraparty fights. Another difference: In midterms, presidents have no opponents. In their elections, they do. Those opponents suffer their own flaws. Both Obama and Clinton were significantly better liked than their Republican opponents. (We don’t have relevant data from Roosevelt vs. Wendell Willkie.) Midterms are importantly referenda on the party in charge, while presidential elections lend themselves more naturally to choices. Midterm electorates can also be different. Presidential electorates have always been larger. Historically, those smaller midterm electorates have been friendlier to Republicans, as younger, less well-educated, and minority voters were less likely to turnout in nonpresidential years. In recent years, however, some traditionally high turnout groups, like the college educated, have shifted toward Democrats, while the 2018 midterms saw a relative increase in Democratic turnout, all told. We don’t know what turnout will look like in either 2022 or 2024, but we do know the composition of those electorates can be different. For all these reasons and more, we can also be certain that anyone using 2022 as a guide to 2024 will be working with a distorted map and a broken compass. Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel. | US Federal Elections |
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