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###CLAIM: because of their hypocrisy, one factor in complicating the vaccine priority request is their hypocrisy in refusing to treat workers as employees.
###DOCS: Uber has spent years and millions of dollars making sure its workers arent classified as such and insisting its not responsible for those peoples health care. Now the company is pushing for its earners the word it uses to refer to its drivers and delivery people so as not to call them workers to get priority access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Its hardly alone in lobbying public health officials and states to put its people near the top of the list. Companies and industry groups from across the economy are undertaking efforts at the federal and state level to make the case that when it comes to the limited-supply Covid-19 vaccine, their employees should get priority. The meat industry, airlines, banks, retail, exterminators, restaurants, and zoos are among the myriad groups lobbying decision-makers. So are specific companies such as Amazon, Lyft, DoorDash, and Perdue. Unions are trying to get their members vaccines. Even professional sports leagues, like the NHL, are making a play. In early December, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommended that health care personnel and long-term care residents should be first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. That phase 1a cohort represents about 17.6 million people, or 7 percent of the US adult population, and seems straightforward enough. What comes next is more complicated. Theres been a mad dash among a variety of stakeholders to try to secure the next spots and a lively debate about who should be prioritized. On Sunday, ACIP issued its recommendation for 1b the next phase to be front-line essential workers and people over the age of 75. For 1c, it suggested people 65 or older, people with high-risk conditions, and essential workers not included in 1b. Ultimately, it is up to states to decide what to do with federal recommendations and decipher which people, including workers, go where. States could deviate from those guidelines theoretically, a place like California could say entertainers should be higher up on the list, or in New York, bankers. Companies may have an easier time influencing decisions at the state and local level. But in general, states take the guidelines seriously and could face enormous backlash if they ignore them. I dont blame businesses for trying to make their case, Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Recode. But the people that are listening to their rationale ought to use criteria that are going to save the most lives and return our economy.Prioritization is just the first chapter in what will likely be months of discussions around how employers approach the Covid-19 vaccine. Which workers within an organization will get the vaccine is going to be an important factor. If a meatpacking company gets access to a vaccine supply, whos going to ensure its the workers on the floor getting a dose and not the CEO? Its a scenario already playing out in hospitals. And what does it look like for companies to be taking such an activist role in their workers health in trying to compel them to get the vaccine? Its one thing for your boss to recommend you take a vaccine; its another for them to require it. Pretty much everybody is on the same page with vulnerable people and front-line workers going first on the vaccine, said Matt McCambridge, founder and CEO of Eden Health, a personal health platform. Theres a lot of gray area in terms of what happens next.The politics of Covid-19 is now the politics of the vaccineThe United States got a preview of vaccine lobbying efforts in the spring, when various interest groups and industry associations fought to get their business activities and workforces deemed essential so that they could stay up and running. (It was a designation not all workers desired or appreciated.) You might remember that in April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis inexplicably declared the WWE essential in the Sunshine State. So now that there are two emergency-approved vaccines in America, it makes sense that the rich and powerful are going to be jockeying for it. Also pushing for priority are companies that know getting their workers vaccinated would be a big deal for getting their operations back to full capacity. Jonathan Slotkin, chief medical officer for Contigo Health, described the situation as a wrestling match where many interests want to make it clear that the people they represent have a lot of essential workers in an interview with the Washington Post. The federal government estimates that there are about 87 million essential workers in the US, half of whom are over the age of 40. Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in many industries deemed essential, and about a quarter of essential workers live in low-income families. On Sunday, ACIP recommended that along with those over the age of 75, some 30 million front-line essential workers should be part of phase 1b of vaccinations. The group includes teachers, first responders, corrections workers, postal workers, public transit workers, grocery store workers, and people who work in food, agriculture, and manufacturing. A second group of some 57 million other essential workers including those in finance, telecommunications, and construction will be part of group 1c. We need science to drive policy and public health to drive politicsAgain, these are just federal guidelines. States will be the ones to decide who gets priority. So in a pandemic thats been politicized from the get-go, the politics of vaccine distribution gets dicey quickly. Where weve gone wrong with our Covid response is that weve had politics impact policy, practice, and then science, said Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins. We need science to drive policy and public health to drive politics.Salmon cited an article written by former CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan and epidemiologist Melissa McPheeters in 2004 warning of the dangers of politics having too much influence over public health and science. If thats what this looks like, its going to be a disaster, its going to be really inequitable, and its going to be who has more influence over politics, he said. This needs to come from science we need to say whos most at risk, what jobs are really essential, and thats how the priority should be done.Not every group can lobby for themselves, or have someone do it on their behalf. Homeless people, incarcerated people, and those living in group settings are among those at high risk of contracting Covid-19. If theres too much politicization and corporate power in the process, those are the types of people who are going to be left out. Who should get priority is a hard questionA litany of industries, companies, and unions are claiming the workers they represent should get an early spot in the line for vaccines. And many of them have a solid case. The meatpacking industry, which has seen waves of Covid-19 cases and deaths throughout the pandemic, lobbied the CDC for front-line meat and poultry workers to get early access and has gained support from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly in its endeavors. The American Bankers Association has advocated for its tellers and other employees, who are in direct contact with the public, to be prioritized. Groups representing air conditioning contractors, transit workers, and pest control workers submitted comments to the CDC arguing for their workers to get priority. Figuring out whats right to do here is not particularly easy. Take, for example, Amazon. It submitted a letter to the CDC asking that workers at its warehouses, data centers, and grocery stores get vaccinated at the earliest possible time, noting that it employs 800,000 people, making it the second-largest employer in the US, behind Walmart. Amazon workers have struggled during the pandemic, with tens of thousands sickened by the disease. Whos to say these workers havent more than earned a place in line? The same goes for companies like Walmart, Delta Airlines, Uber, Lyft, Cargill, and the list goes on and on. Many companies and industries can make a solid case that theyre vital to keeping the economy running and the country going the same case they made to be deemed essential and that constitutes a place in line. In an interview with Recode, Bryan Zumwalt, executive vice president of public affairs for the Consumer Brands Association, which represents companies such as Clorox, Coca-Cola, and General Mills, emphasized the importance of his members role in supplying products people rely on every day during the pandemic. We just want to make sure that our people are in that early 1b group ... and that the states are being as clear as possible what the process is going to be, he said. After ACIPs recommendations were released, the group released a statement urging states to follow that guidance and get its 1.7 million essential workers the vaccine soon, arguing that they must be vaccinated to ensure shelves are stocked and Americans can continue to stay home and stay safe for the duration of the pandemic. Some employers and groups are offering to help health officials and governments with the distribution of the vaccine. Perdue, which has sent letters to the governors of 15 states and the CDC asking to be part of 1b, has offered to assist with community outreach, including a multilingual campaign. Uber is offering 10 million free rides to vaccination locations. To be sure, its important to be clear about the motives here. While a lot of these industries and companies do want to protect their workers, they are also well aware that doing so will come with a financial benefit. Thats a big driver. As the Intercept pointed out, the North American Meat Institute, which is now lobbying for a vaccine for its workers, also drafted an executive order signed by President Donald Trump ordering meatpacking plants to stay open in the spring, even as their workers were getting sick and dying. Uber and Lyft just spent tens of millions of dollars in California to make sure they dont have to give their drivers typical employee benefits. Amazon cut hazard pay for workers over the summer, though it did recently announce a one-time holiday bonus. DoorDash is petitioning the CDC and all 50 state governors to prioritize delivery workers for the vaccine, noting that those people have worked throughout the pandemic and connect goods and services throughout our local communities and serve an essential role with restaurants and other small businesses. While its business has been booming this year, conditions for its delivery workers the workers its now using to try to exert political pressure have worsened. You cant blame Uber from a financial self-interest perspective, Salmon said. But they should consider that for every dose their driver gets, theres somebody whos not going to get one. And who is going to give up that dose?Companies that are now taking an interest in their workers health and well being could be doing so all the time, not just when its financially expedient. And a vaccine does not eliminate the need for other workplace protections. Businesses shouldnt let their guard down on the ways to prevent the virus from spreading, especially until broad swaths of the population are vaccinated. For every dose their driver gets, theres somebody whos not going to get one. And who is going to give up that dose?There is also a looming issue of who will get the vaccine in organizations once they get a certain amount of doses. There was uproar at Stanford Medicine when hospital administrators and physicians who werent in contact with patients were given vaccine doses over those in direct contact with patients because of an algorithm the hospital was using to determine distribution. Its very easy to imagine a case where a company gets a vaccine and hands it to the C-suite instead of people on the factory floor. The NHL came under fire recently over a report that it was planning the private purchase of a vaccine for its upcoming season. To a certain extent, it makes sense professional sports is a high-dollar industry, and players are being asked to put their lives at risk amid a pandemic to keep people entertained. When Recode contacted the league for comment, an NHL spokesperson pointed to a clarification that it would only look at that possibility in the context of the availability of excess capacity and not compete with health care workers, vulnerable populations, and symptomatic individuals for doses. When Recode in a follow-up asked who the vaccines would be for players? coaches? concession workers? the NHL did not respond. Private vaccine sales are possible, though inventory may be hard to come by because most doses are already spoken for by governments. For a private organization such as the NHL to get a Covid-19 vaccine, it would need to buy excess supply from states on a secondary market or buy from another country. In India, for example, the vaccine will be for sale on private markets. The US government turned down a chance to secure more of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine over the summer, and the drugmaker could theoretically sell that excess production to a private entity, though its unclear how likely a scenario that is in the short term. In the case of the NHL, for example, the league would presumably go through Canadas system to obtain vaccine doses. Its health minister told reporters that the country doesnt have any mechanisms to block corporations from purchasing on a private, contractual basis with corporations around the world. Pfizer told Canadas CTV News in response that its contract is with the federal government. The future of work has vaccines in itGetting access to the vaccine is part of the equation of how businesses will approach the issue, but its not all of it. Theres also the matter of getting the workforce to take it, and companies are still in the early stages of figuring out how that will go. Apart from the broader (and misguided) anti-vaccination movement in the US, many Americans are particularly concerned about getting the Covid-19 vaccines so early. Theyve been given the go-ahead under the FDAs emergency use authorization. And while theres been plenty of testing of them, the vaccines are still new, and people are nervous. Dana, a 55-year-old registered nurse in California (whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons), told Recode that while she is happy to be among the first in line to be vaccinated, even some of her colleagues have expressed some concerns. We have a group of people who are like, I dont know, Im worried about this vaccine, even though obviously there are not vaccine deniers among those people, she said. I think that part of it is just the unknown quality of it.Health care workers are largely accustomed to being required to have certain vaccinations for their jobs, but regular workers arent. Sure, a lot of people are used to there being a flu vaccine campaign at work in the fall, but if you ignore it, its usually no big deal. Thats not the case with Covid-19. Now one debate happening among industry leaders and businesses is how to talk to their workers about the Covid-19 vaccine and how far to go to get them to take it. People are looking at this issue now. Its one of the more difficult ones to grapple with, said Zumwalt, from the Consumer Brands Association. The short answer is that, in general, employers can mandate vaccinesOn the less aggressive end, employers are working on programs to educate their workers about the vaccine, its benefits, and its safety, and to make workers aware of their efforts to get them vaccinated. Uber sent a letter to its drivers and delivery people telling them the company believes they should be near the front of the line for the vaccine and that it is focused on ensuring that if you choose to take the vaccine, youre able to access it quickly and easily. Some employers may start to consider incentives, such as vacation time or gift cards, for workers to get vaccinated. On the more aggressive end, there is the possibility of employers requiring workers to get a Covid-19 vaccine. Its likely within their legal capabilities, said Lindsay Ryan, an employment lawyer based in California. The short answer is that, in general, employers can mandate vaccines, she told Recode. Requiring vaccines isnt a new phenomenon in some professions its something that health care workers and teachers deal with. And plenty of jobs come with certain parameters that rule people out. Some employers have strict policies about hiring people with drunk driving convictions or who dont pass drug tests, for example. CNN recently reported that nearly three-quarters of CEOs polled at a virtual summit held by Yale signaled they would be open to vaccine mandates. I could see a lot of employers doing that, but it does presume that theres a vaccine available. You cant tell your workforce you have to get vaccinated or youre fired but you cant get a vaccine, said Salmon, who opposes government-mandated vaccinations. The situation isnt straightforward. On the one hand, Covid-19 is a more direct threat to workforces than the flu, and so the analysis around requiring it will take that into account. On the other hand, the vaccine being under emergency use authorization could make mandating it more unpalatable for employers. Even if they can do it, they might not want to. Employers have an obligation to maintain a safe and healthy workforce, including infection mitigation procedures, but mandating a vaccine comes with special obligations in terms of liability. And some people are going to need waivers. Benjamin, from the American Public Health Association, said that understanding not everyone will get the vaccine, whatever their situation, is baked into public health planning. At the end of the day, thats why we push for herd immunity. We realize there is a population of people who wont be able to vaccinate early, and theres a population of people who wont be able to vaccinate at all, said Benjamin, who estimates about 75 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Ryan said she doubts employers will go so far as to fire employees who wont get vaccinated, but they could use other measures, such as placing them on unpaid leave or having them work remotely. In the case of companies like DoorDash and Uber that work with contractors, they can pretty much do whatever they want when it comes to asking people to get vaccines. Just because employers, at the federal level, can mandate vaccines for workers doesnt necessarily mean that they should, she said. Wherever they fall on the list of priorities, phase 1b, 1c, whatevers next, businesses lobbying for the vaccine now have a lot of decisions ahead of them. The ethics of the situation are far from clear. Umair Irfan contributed reporting to this story. For some people fortunate enough to be working from home during the pandemic, forgoing a commute and sending emails from the living room has been a surprisingly welcome adjustment. For others especially those sharing small spaces with loved ones not so much. Where can you take a call when every room in your home is occupied by another family member, when a pipe bursts or when deafening jackhammering begins outside your window? Hotels, which have been hit hard during this time of social distancing and travel restrictions, have in recent months begun offering a possible solution, repositioning their rooms in some instances by actually swapping out beds for luxurious desks and comfortable chairs as picturesque offices in which to work in peace for a reduced day rate. Some properties are also treating their day guests to additional perks. In New York and Los Angeles, many are including a complimentary in-room meal and, in at least one case, soothing, specially curated Spotify playlists, while in London, others are repurposing their gardens as open-air offices and assigning staff members to assist with everything from printing to tech difficulties. In Milan and Tokyo, bonuses might include unlimited coffee or even free yoga classes. Of course, not every hotel has been able to adapt in this way (in Paris, for instance, lockdowns have made this sort of operation largely impossible) but it allows those that can to get people into their rooms while allowing guests to get out of theirs, if only for a day. Here, a roundup of some of the most work-friendly hotels in a handful of major cities around the world. | 2 |
###CLAIM: bell was signed on a four-year contract for 12. 5 million dollars in march 2019, with then general manager mike maccagnan guaranteeing 27 million.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareAlready the laughingstock of the NFL, the New York Jets somehow managed to earn a few more mocking guffaws by announcing Tuesday evening that they were releasing running back LeVeon Bell. Given that the Jets had some solid reasons to make that move, its not as bad as it looks. That said, it looks pretty bad for a franchise that has spent a decade mired in a train-wreck narrative. Tuesday began with reports that the 0-5 Jets were seeking to trade Bell, a three-time Pro Bowl running back with the Pittsburgh Steelers. It ended with him as a free agent, cut loose from the team that lured him in March 2019 with a four-year, $52.5 million contract in free agency. For that investment, which included $28 million guaranteed, the Jets got 17 games played; statistics that were, almost across the board, notably worse than what Bell had posted with the Steelers; $15 million in dead-money charges against the salary cap this season; and $4 million in dead money next year. Oh, and the Jets also got off-the-field headaches that recently included jabs at Coach Adam Gase via social media, after Bell came back from injured reserve only to get 14 carries and be targeted on only one pass in a 30-10 loss Sunday to the Arizona Cardinals. I hate that thats the route that we go with all of this, instead of just talking to me about it, Gase said Monday. But seems the way that guys want to do it nowadays.AdvertisementLittle wonder, then, that Bell was reportedly offered to other teams and, by the same token, no surprise that the Jets found no takers, especially with $6 million left on his contract this season. It also didnt help that, per reports, the 28-year-old back had a clause in his contract that guaranteed him an $8 million payout next year if he were severely injured this season. That clause, though, points to one of the reasons releasing Bell makes a fair amount of sense: The Jets would have risked being on the hook for that financial obligation if they continued to put Bell on the field during this increasingly irrelevant season. Instead, they let him go only a few months ahead of schedule, given that it was a foregone conclusion Bell was a goner after 2020. After having conversations with LeVeon and his agent and exploring potential trade options over the past couple of days, we have made the decision to release LeVeon, Jets General Manager Joe Douglas said in a statement. The Jets organization appreciates LeVeons efforts during his time here and we know he worked hard to make significant contributions to the team. We believe this decision is in the best interests of both parties and wish him future success.AdvertisementDouglas arrived in New York three months after Bell was signed and one month after the man who signed him, former Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan, was fired. Gase reportedly never wanted an expensive running back such as Bell on his roster in the first place, and with Douglas, who has launched a thorough rebuilding effort, he likely found a similar assessment. As Douglas indicated, the decision to release Bell wasnt just pleasing to the player, who posted a prayers-answered emoji on his Twitter account, but to his agent, as well. That could stand the Jets in good stead down the road, even if they left themselves open to derision on Tuesday. Bell was just the latest veteran banished from a talent-poor locker room, following wide receiver Robby Anderson, who was allowed to walk in free agency, and safety Jamal Adams, who was dealt to the Seattle Seahawks in July (albeit for a rich haul of draft picks). In time, dumping Bell and Adams may prove to have been well worth it, but the Jets have a long way to go simply to no longer be viewed as the NFLs most dysfunctional franchise. GiftOutline Gift Article LeVeon Bell may go from the worst team in the NFL to the best. Bells Jets tenure ended with him liking several tweets suggesting the Jets should trade him and that he should have gotten the ball more in the Jets loss to the Cardinals. Bell is dropping some more social media breadcrumbs now that he is a free agent. Bell liked a video on Twitter from 2019 that featured him and Chiefs star defensive tackle Chris Jones. The video was of Bell and Jones hyping up the possibility of the running back signing with the Chiefs. It came six days before Bell signed his ill-fated four-year, $52 million contract with the Jets that he was released from on Tuesday night. Bell and Patrick Mahomes also just followed each other on Twitter. According to ESPN.com, Bell is deciding between the Chiefs, Bills and Dolphins. The defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs are 4-1 and could use a complement to rookie running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire. New York Jets coach Adam Gase (right) and running back Le'Veon Bell in happier times, if there ever ... [+] was such a thing for them, last season. Bell was released by the Jets Tuesday night. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) Getty ImagesThe New York Jets marriage with LeVeon Bell was doomed almost from the start. What matters most right now is not how it ended, but where the organization goes from here, and what it takes away from this. If the Jets view this as moving on from a player whose buy-in might always have been a bit less than 100%, thats okay. If they view this as a chance to audition younger running backs who figure to be a vital part of New Yorks future, then thats even better. ADVERTISEMENTIf this move is viewed as a validation of and a vote of confidence for head coach Adam Gase and his program, then it is absolutely 100% a colossal mistake by the Jets and general manager Joe Douglas. And we all should know by the time the winless Jets game at Miami on Sunday is over the answer to those and other questions. If 37-year-old running back Frank Gore, a Gase favorite from their time together in Miami two seasons ago, vaults to the top of the depth chart in Bells absence and gets the majority of the workload against the Dolphins, then the Jets simply are doing it wrong. At 0-5 and with playoff hopes pretty much infinitesimal, now is the time for players such as promising fourth-round draft pick LaMical Perine from Florida to get more work, and for third-year back Josh Adams to get promoted from the practice squad permanently to take Bells space on the roster. The Jets had yet to fill Bells roster spot as of late Tuesday night. ADVERTISEMENTThe Jets also could take a look at former Detroit Lion running back Ty Johnson, whom they recently claimed on waivers. But if they continue to force-feed Gore (3.2 yards per carry), who clearly doesnt have the burst to hit the hole that he did in his halcyon days, then the organization is giving in to Adam Gase, and that is a major mistake. Let's face it, Bell wasnt going to be with the Jets in 2021, and one can argue that neither, at this point, should Gase. Both have underachieved mightily since coming to the Jets before the 2020 season. To his credit, in his Wednesday pre-practice news conference, Gase told reporters that getting Perine really involved is going to be critical for us, and he also name-checked both Johnson and Adams, saying, Well get all these guys going. He, of course, acknowledged that Gore still will get some work. However, he did not say who would start or who would get the bulk of the carries in his gameplan. Gase also said he would continue to call the offensive plays on game day, despite briefly wavering on that. ADVERTISEMENTWe talked about it as a staff, he said. None of the guys (assistant coaches) thought that was the right move to make. Nobody thought that was the reason why anything is going the way it is going. Alrighty then. As for Bell, Gase was fairly tight-lipped, saying his release was a consensus decision by the organization and that its irrelevant at this point to place blame about why it happened. It didnt work out, Gase said, and were going to focus on this (Miami) game right now.Interestingly, acting owner Christopher Johnson wound up eating $6.4 million of Bells remaining salary for the rest of the 2020 season, and he will cost the Jets $4 million against the salary cap in dead money in 2021, per overthecap.com. But Johnson, perhaps because of pride and stubbornness, still isnt willing to swallow the $5 million per year he owes the equally underwhelming Gase, which one could argue is a sunk cost at this point. ADVERTISEMENTDouglas said in a statement, "After having conversations with Le'Veon and his agent and exploring potential trade options over the past couple of days, we have made the decision to release Le'Veon. The Jets organization appreciates Le'Veon's efforts during his time here and we know he worked hard to make significant contributions to this team. We believe this decision is in the best interests of both parties and wish him future success." Bell was signed to a four-year, $52.5 million contract with $27 million guaranteed by then-general manager Mike Maccagnan, Douglas predecessor, in March 2019. But the marriage was troubled from the beginning. After Gase, according to sources, helped arrange a palace coup that (rightfully so, in retrospect) resulted in the underachieving Maccagnans firing, word leaked out that Gase believed Maccagnan had overpaid both Bell and inside linebacker C.J. Mosley in free agency. Although a subsequent report walked that back somewhat, with Gase saying both were good players, the damage was done. But Bell did not help matters by skipping voluntary spring practices that year, as is his custom. That cost him valuable time in learning the playbook and familiarizing himself with his new teammates on the offensive line. ADVERTISEMENTHe also carried too much weight last year and admitted in training camp this year he was complacent in 2019. Another problem was he often stuck with his patented hesitation style, in which he waits until making his move. That worked in Pittsburgh, where he had stellar offensive lines. With the Jets, it often resulted in him not hitting the few holes that were opened fast enough. However, Gase also was complicit in Bells problems, by not using him enough as a pass receiver, an area in which he excels, and also bringing in Gore, which was bound to reduce Bells opportunities. Bell missed three games with a hamstring injury this season and rushed for 60 yards on 13 carries in final game as a Jet on Sunday, before liking a Twitter post suggesting he should be traded. One could argue the Jets are setting somewhat of a dangerous precedent. During the summer, they traded disgruntled All-Pro strong safety Jamal Adams after he waged a protracted campaign on social media looking for a new and improved contract. At some point, you cant simply get rid of every unhappy player, because youre making it clear that if you complain loudly enough, thats what will happen. Its a slippery slope. 1 of 4 File-This Sept. 13, 2020 file photo shows Buffalo Bills Trent Murphy (93) tackling New York Jets Le'Veon Bell (26) during the first half of an NFL football game in Orchard park, N.Y. The New York Jets have surprisingly released Bell, ending a disappointing tenure after less than two full seasons. The team issued a statement from general manager Joe Douglas on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, in which he says the Jets made the move after having several conversations with Bell and his agent during the last few days and exploring trade options. (AP/ Photo Jeffrey T. Barnes, File)1 of 4 File-This Sept. 13, 2020 file photo shows Buffalo Bills Trent Murphy (93) tackling New York Jets Le'Veon Bell (26) during the first half of an NFL football game in Orchard park, N.Y. The New York Jets have surprisingly released Bell, ending a disappointing tenure after less than two full seasons. The team issued a statement from general manager Joe Douglas on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, in which he says the Jets made the move after having several conversations with Bell and his agent during the last few days and exploring trade options. (AP/ Photo Jeffrey T. Barnes, File)NEW YORK (AP) Later, LeVeon. The New York Jets surprisingly released disgruntled running back LeVeon Bell on Tuesday night, ending a disappointing tenure after less than two full seasons. The team issued a statement from general manager Joe Douglas in which he said the Jets made the move after having several conversations with Bell and his agent during the last few days and exploring trade options. The Jets organization appreciates LeVeons efforts during his time here and we know he worked hard to make significant contributions to this team, Douglas said. We believe this decision is in the best interests of both parties and wish him future success.In a post on Twitter shortly after the Jets statement, Bell posted only a hands in prayer emoji implying that the feeling is mutual and his wish was granted. He later followed that up with another tweet: Got a lot to prove, he said. Im ready to go.As a vested veteran, Bell does not have to clear waivers. He will be available to sign with another team after 4 p.m. Wednesday. Statement from GM Joe Douglas pic.twitter.com/By9XevVXVv New York Jets (@nyjets) October 14, 2020ADVERTISEMENTgot a lot to prove. im ready to go. pic.twitter.com/oDqBM62JfN Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) October 14, 2020Bell and coach Adam Gase appeared to not mesh since the running back signed a four-year, $52.5 million contract with $35 million guaranteed last year as a free agent. There were reports that Gase was opposed to the Jets mainly then-general manager Mike Maccagnan giving such a large contract to a running back. Bell spent his first six NFL years in Pittsburgh, but sat out the entire 2018 season in a contract dispute with the Steelers. He became a free agent and joined the Jets in March 2019 and was expected to be a dynamic presence in Gases offense. Instead, Bell never consistently flashed the skills that made him arguably the NFLs best dual threat running back before sitting out. He rushed for 789 yards and three touchdowns, and had a career-low 3.2 yards per carry. Bell also wasnt as prominently featured in the passing game as expected, catching 66 passes for 461 yards and a score. He spoke at times of wanting to be able to see more touches to try to help the team win. Gase spoke this offseason about needing to find ways to use him more effectively in the offense. None of that materialized. Bell. who missed three games this season with a hamstring injury, finished with 74 yards on 19 carries and three catches for 39 yards. And there were increasing rumblings that Bell wasnt happy. During training camp, Gase pulled Bell out of the teams scrimmage practice as a precaution because the coach said the running backs hamstrings felt a little tight. Bell went on social media and said his hamstrings were fine. The two said they spoke and there were no hard feelings or ill will. But Bells latest frustrations were evident Sunday night when he liked a few Twitter posts in which some suggested he should be used more in the passing game. He saw only one target in the Jets loss to Arizona. Bell also liked a post in which someone suggested the Jets should trade him. New York tried to find a trade partner, but his salary was a tough sell. He has $6 million remaining on his base salary this year, and its fully guaranteed. Bell was likely to be cut in the offseason as a salary cap casualty, so it made sense that New York would look to try to deal him before the NFLs trade deadline in three weeks. The team also gave Bell and his agent permission to explore trades on their end. The Jets were willing to pick up a portion of his salary this year, but they found no takers with Bells $8 million injury guarantee for 2021 a hinderance. So, the Jets instead decided to part ways now rather than risk Bell getting hurt even with the team 0-5 for the first time since 1996 and now without arguably their most talented player on offense. Gase has been on the hot seat for weeks, and this move will surely be another strike against the coach who has had a reputation in New York and his previous tenure in Miami for not getting along with some veteran players. Fans have expressed increased frustration with every loss while calling for Gases job. It has been a brutal start for the football teams in the Big Apple, with both the Jets and Giants 0-5 and among the worst teams in the league in several statistical categories. The Jets will take on the AFC East-rival Dolphins in Miami on Sunday. Douglas has been tasked with rebuilding the roster, and the release of Bell is the latest major move by the GM in which New York has jettisoned some high-profile players. Bell joins Leonard Williams, Robby Anderson and Jamal Adams among those who have departed in the last 12 months. Williams was traded to the Giants at the trade deadline last year, Anderson was allowed to leave as a free agent and is thriving in Carolina, and Adams was traded to Seattle during the offseason. ___More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | 3 |
###CLAIM: in terms of family, kerry and stacey's opinions on having children with their former partners come after what they said about the numerous calls for a 4 person mum, so it's simply a good caring mother to apply to them, ulrika.
###DOCS: Ulrika Jonsson has hit back at people who use the term '4x4 mum' as she defended Stacey Solomon after a cruel troll criticised her family set-up. The TV presenter, 53, told how she was happy to read that Stacey, 31, whose three sons all have different fathers, defended herself when an internet user questioned her home life. Writing in her column for The Sun, Ulrika, who has four children with four former partners, told how she has been called a '4x4 mum' numerous times over the years, saying it is term used to shame women. Family: Ulrika Jonsson has defended having four children by four different men and defended Stacey Solomon after she was called a '3x3 mum' by a cruel trollShe wrote: 'For me, it wasnt just about the humour of it. It was meant to injure. To hurt and, above all, to shame a woman. I didnt particularly want to be associated with the label because I felt no sense of shame. At all. 'My simple history was made to look and seem complicated by the fact that my life had worked out differently to normal expectations to the "norm". She added: 'The simple truth which applies to both me and Stacey is that we are good, caring mothers. We chose to have our children we longed for them, regardless of the circumstances of their creation.' Ulrika recalled how hurt she felt when, 12 years ago, she watched an episode of Loose Women where one of the panellists, who she did not name, said: 'It must be like Euston Station at her house with all the kids coming and going.' Support: The TV presenter told how she was happy to read that Stacey, 31, whose three sons all have different fathers, defended herself when an internet user questioned her home life. The presenter admitted the comment 'burned' but she was defended by then panellist Jane McDonald. Ulrika had her son Cameron, 26, with her first husband John Turnball followed by daughter Bo, 21, with her ex Markus Kempen. She welcomed daughter Martha, 16, with ex-husband Lance Gerrard-Wright and had her fourth child, Malcolm, 12, with Brian Monet. Ulrika said she was always maternal and does not look at the end of any of her relationships as failures, noting she still co-parents Malcolm with Brian. Ulrika is mother to daughter Martha, 16, from her marriage to Lance Gerrard-Wright (pictured with ex-husband Brian Monet in 2012)Recalling other hurtful comments from the past, Ulrika told how Jack Whitehall made a '4x4' jibe at her after she won Celebrity Big Brother in 2009. Ulrika said she realised at the time the term would be her 'mantle' and felt it was 'bleak' to think her career achievements had amounted to that. The broadcaster added that the term '4x4' is used to imply a woman is promiscuous but Ulrika insisted all of her children were planned and deeply wanted. Ulrika also noted there is far less stigma directed towards men who have children with multiple women. Relationship: Ulrika and Lace were married from 2003 to 2006 (pictured together in 2003)It comes after Stacey recently hit back at a troll after she was criticised for having three different fathers to her three different boys. The Loose Women presenter is mother to Zachary, 12, with her teen boyfriend Dean Cox, Leighton, eight, with her ex Aaron Barham, and Rex, 19 months, with her fiance Joe Swash, who is father to Harry, 13, with his ex Emma Sophocleous. As she took to Instagram to post her usual content, Stacey interrupted her stories to hit back at the message, which read: 'It must be very sad having three different dads for your boys. Always apart. Oh well, I suppose you're happy about it.' Stacey lives in Essex with Joe, and her three boys, while Joe's son Harry lives with his mum. Zachary, Leighton and Harry all transit between their parents' homes. Her loves: Stacey is mother to Zachary, 12, with her teen boyfriend Dean Cox, Leighton, eight, with her ex Aaron Barham, and Rex, 19 months, with her fiance Joe SwashThe unkind comment was sparked when Stacey revealed that her boys had decided to stay at their dads' houses to continue their homeschooling, as the UK is in lockdown and most schools remain closed to children. Stacey wrote: 'I'm really missing the big pickles today. They wanted to stay at their dads' and because they are doing school from home they can...'I do get sad when they don't want to come home but I know how happy it will make their dads and I never want to stop them from having the chance to make memories with their family. But oh my gosh I miss them. 'It's lovely for a couple of days, less mess, less noise but they the house just feels so empty and Rex looks for them everywhere'. Lashing out: As she took to Instagram to post her usual content, Stacey interrupted her stories to hit back at the message, which read: 'It must be very sad having three different dads for your boys. Always apart. Oh well, I suppose you're happy about it'Baby-faced: Stacey pictured in hospital after having Zachary aged 19Once Stacey had spotted the critical comment, she said: 'Woah there Wilma! Its far too early for that kind of judgement and of course I'm happy about it, they're the best thing to ever happen to me regardless of how they happened to me.' She then wrote over the top of the video: 'Never let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough just because things just happen to work out differently from the "norm". Keep doing you the best way you know how...'Unconditional love from anywhere in different shapes and sizes is all they'll need.' In 2017, Stacey confessed to feeling an 'overwhelming sense of guilt' about the thought of expanding her family unit, confessing that she has read several studies about the social and emotional impact of broken homes on young children. Lost love: Stacey pictured with Leighton's dad Aaron Barham in 2012She spoke candidly to the Huffington Post in a video blog, debating the question of when the right time is to have a child in a new relationship when you already have kids with previous partners. Stacey explained: 'I always have an overwhelming sense of guilt that if I were to make my family greater, that I would impact on them socially and emotionally. 'There's definitely been times in my life where I've felt the stigma of having multiple children from different partners.' Sweet: Stacey pictured with Joe, with whom she shares Rex. He popped the question on Christmas EveThe former X Factor star also discussed growing up in a big family, revealing she was one of three kids before her dad remarried and she became one of seven. Stacey, who enthused that 'nothing was ever boring' growing up, insisted that despite her reservations, she could see the overwhelming benefits of having an unconventional family unit. She concluded: 'Life is never perfect, you just need to adapt - ultimately by doing that, you're going to give your children the best start in life.' | 0 |
###CLAIM: ducey, who said state electoral integrity should be restored by 2020 and described the new rules as `` sound policy, '' certified the british victory as unexpected.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareCourts across the country rejected President Donald Trumps claims of massive election fraud in 2020, but his falsehoods have taken on a life of their own, as new voting restrictions pile up in Republican-controlled states. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight At least 14 states have enacted laws this year that tighten the rules around casting ballots. Hundreds of bills pending in statehouses would institute new voting restrictions, as this Washington Post tracker shows, and many of the Republican lawmakers sponsoring those proposals are echoing Trumps false claims that loose election laws allowed the 2020 White House race to be tainted by fraud. The Fact Checker dug into statements from three of the Republican governors who have signed voting restrictions into law this year: Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia and Doug Ducey of Arizona. AdvertisementAs the video above shows, all three governors obfuscated to varying degrees, either by mischaracterizing the contents of the new law they signed, or by repeating one of Trumps faulty arguments for needing the law. FloridaWere making sure were enforcing voter ID. ... Were also prohibiting mass-mailing of ballots. ... In Florida, we track the votes coming in in real time not the results but we know whos voting, what your registration is. And we follow the turnout, so that when the elections over, we know the universe of votes that have been cast, and it makes [it] so that someone cant dump 100,000 votes two or three days later. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), in remarks about Senate Bill 90 on Fox News, May 6, 2021A law signed by DeSantis on May 6 requires Floridians to renew their mail voting application every two years, limits access to ballot drop boxes and limits the practice of third-party groups collecting ballots for others, among other provisions. AdvertisementDeSantis claimed without evidence that thousands of votes had been dumped two or three days after an election (echoing a false claim Trump often makes about the 2020 race) but that the new Florida law would solve this fictitious problem. Representatives for DeSantis did not say what election he was referring to, or what he meant to reference when he mentioned a 100,000-vote dump. Perhaps he was echoing Trump, who claimed that 100,000 votes were mysteriously dumped in an Atlanta precinct during the November election, tilting that race in favor of Joe Biden. This act coincided with a mysterious vote dump of up to 100,000 votes for Joe Biden, almost none for Trump, Trump said at a rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, shortly before a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Perhaps DeSantis was echoing Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who previously earned Four Pinocchios for claiming without evidence that Florida election officials completely violated the law in his 2018 race. They found 95,000 votes after election night, Scott claimed. AdvertisementIn any case, no evidence of a 100,000-vote dump has surfaced anywhere. On Fox News, DeSantis said the new law strengthens voter ID requirements and prohibits mass mailing of ballots. But he seems to be overselling its merits. Although the new law adds some legal heft, the state already required voter ID and already banned mass mailing of ballots. GeorgiaPeople are saying we are taking something away with drop boxes. Theres counties that did not have a drop box last election. ... Now every county will be required to have one drop box. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.), speaking about Senate Bill 202 at a news conference, April 3, 2021Kemp certified Bidens unexpected win in Georgia. Then, he and the GOP-controlled state legislature rewrote much of the states voting rules covering absentee ballots and drop boxes. AdvertisementThe new rules ban proactively sending mail ballot applications to voters, require voters to submit identification with their application to be approved, and shorten the time frame for the application process to take place. Like several other states, Georgia added new restrictions on the use of mail ballot drop boxes. Kemp indicated it was really an expansion, but his comments are misleading. The law he signed does require that each county in the state have at least one drop box available to voters, which may increase voting options in some smaller counties. What Kemp failed to mention is that the same law caps the number of drop boxes per county, based on the number of registered voters or early voting sites. (The law says, on Page 47, that county officials shall establish at least one drop box and may only establish additional drop boxes totaling the lesser of either one drop box for every 100,000 active registered voters in the county or the number of advance voting locations in the county. Any additional drop boxes shall be evenly geographically distributed by population in the county.)AdvertisementIn larger counties, namely the predominantly Black metro area in Atlanta, this new restriction effectively curtails the number of drop boxes. An analysis by the New York Times found it would limit Atlantas four main counties to 23 or fewer drop boxes, down from 94 in the 2020 election. The Georgia law also requires that drop boxes be located inside and be available only during early voting hours, which limits their practicality. I would point out that prior to the 2020 election drop boxes were not allowed under state law and were only made available to counties by temporary emergency rule by the State Elections Board due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Cody Hall, a spokesman for Kemp. That emergency rule would have expired this summer once the governors public health state of emergency for COVID-19 expires. ... The change in state law via SB 202 to codify drop boxes in every county for the first time is clearly an expansion of voting access.AdvertisementWhen we asked whether Kemp had concerns about election fraud in Georgia (remember: he certified Bidens victory), Hall said: The governor has been very clear in his public comments since the 2020 election. There were significant issues at the state and local level, which the governor raised concerns over at the time. However, the secretary of state and local elections officials are the entities tasked with running and overseeing elections and investigating allegations of fraud in the state of Georgia, per state laws and our constitution. (Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has forcefully rejected Trumps claims of election fraud.) ArizonaDespite all the deceptive and heated rhetoric being used by some partisan activists to lobby against this reform, not a single Arizona voter will lose their right to vote as a result of this new law.Advertisement Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.), speaking about Senate Bill 1485 in a video message, May 11, 2021A law signed by Ducey on May 11 will purge some Arizonans from the states early voter list, which determines who receives mail ballots each election cycle. Duceys comments, batting down concerns that Arizona citizens would lose their right to vote, represent a straw-man argument. The substance of the complaint from Democrats and some voting-rights experts is that the new rules will reduce access to the ballot, especially in tribal areas, to solve a nonexistent problem. Ducey certified Bidens unexpected victory in Arizona and vouched for the states election integrity in 2020, but he described the new rules as sound policy. Others have suggested that now is not the time for election reform, Ducey wrote in a letter explaining his decision. I could not disagree more. The politics of the moment should not impede good policy, and SB1485 is a measure that ensures our voting lists remain verifiable and accurate, will free up resources for local election officials, and strengthen trust among citizens in our election system. (Duceys representatives did not respond to our questions.) AdvertisementThe new rules mean voters who do not cast a ballot at least once every two years will have to respond to a government notice to avoid being removed from the list and to continue getting a ballot in the mail. Some experts say this automatic removal could deter some people from voting. Those removed from the list would remain registered voters, but they would no longer receive ballots automatically by mail and would have to request them ahead of time or vote in person. Removing voters from the permanent early voting list makes it more likely that those people will not participate in elections, according to an analysis of the Arizona proposal from the Brennan Center for Justice. Increasing opportunities for mail-in voting brings marginal voters into elections and retains voters who might otherwise choose not to participate.An estimated 125,000 to 150,000 voters could be removed from the Arizona early voting list under the new law, according to the Brennan Center. If it had been enacted in 2019, approximately 126,000 Arizonans who voted in 2020 would have been removed, the Brennan Center says, adding that its a bigger number than Bidens margin of victory in the state in 2020. Send us facts to check by filling out this formSign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletterThe Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principlesGiftOutline Gift Article | 0 |
###CLAIM: until then, i watched a video of them rehearsing a tape, and i'm still convinced they just went back to sleep.
###DOCS: Chrishell Stause is taking her time on Dancing With The Stars very seriously as she has been showing up for rehearsals nearly every day. The Selling Sunset star was spotted again on Monday as she walked up to the dance studio with her partner Gleb Savchenko. The 39-year-old blonde beauty, who is in the process of divorcing This Is Us star Justin Hartley, wore a plunging white workout top that also showed off her toned midsection. This sighting comes just before she shared to Good Morning America that DWTS is 'one of the scariest things I've ever done.' Happy to be here: Chrishell Stause is taking her time on Dancing With The Stars very seriously as she has been showing up for rehearsals nearly every day. The Selling Sunset star was spotted again on MondayFit and fabulous: The blonde beauty wore a plunging white workout top that also showed off her toned midsectionThe siren also had on high-waisted black sweatpants in a shiny material and held on to a white sweatshirt with red cherries in sequins. The star had her long, pointy nails painted white and she added a dainty gold necklace. And the real estate agent also wore six inch high heels with a clear band. At one point, the reality TV diva took off her green and black polka dot CDC-approved face mask to given onlookers a megawatt smile. A fresh smile: At one point, the reality TV diva took off her green and black polka dot CDC-approved face mask to given onlookers a megawatt smileStyle zone: The siren also had on high-waisted black sweatpants in a shiny material and held on to a white sweatshirt with red cherries in sequins. The star had her long, pointy nails painted white and she added a dainty gold necklaceThe Los Angeles resident's long blonde hair was worn down and in a beach-style with windswept waves as she carried a black backpack. Gelb wore a light denim shirt with dark denim jeans and black-and-white sneakers. He too carried a backpack but his was purple and black. Her partner went with a black face mask. Savchenko is a 37-year-old Russian dancer, choreographer, and model. He previously appeared on the UK, Australian, and Russian versions of DWTS. Hot look for fall: Gelb wore a light denim shirt with dark denim jeans and black-and-white sneakers. He too carried a backpack but his was purple and black. Her partner went with a black face maskThe Selling Sunset reality star has been trying hard during season 29 of the ABC dance competition. The two performed a tango on Monday night's season premiere which left judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough somewhat unimpressed. They gave the couple a score of just 13 points out of a possible 30. Not tops but it's early in the season: The two performed a tango on Monday night's season premiere which left judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough somewhat unimpressed. They gave the couple a score of just 13 points out of a possible 30Stause told Good Morning America on Tuesday: ;My first week on Dancing With The Stars is in the can and we are on to the next! 'It was such a crazy whirlwind experience. Although the judging didn't go as I had hoped, I started this as someone who once walked out of a group fitness cardio dance class because I fell too behind and ended up doing the tango live in front of millions of people. So I am going to count that as a success!' She then added: 'I couldn't have imagined how immersive and all-encompassing this show was before. When you aren't dancing, you are thinking about dancing. 'I woke up at 4 a.m. on the morning of the show because I was dreaming that I forgot my steps. I then watched a video of a taped rehearsal several times until I convinced myself I still knew them and to just go back to sleep.' They had a stylish look perfect for the dance floor: She wore a long gold gown with a high slit and he had on a black vest with gold embroideryStause also said: 'You know when your favorite song comes on the radio and you just have to groove to it? Well if you are doing the tango, don't! Do not move your hips, move on a flat plane, bounce up and down, and whatever you do, don't lose your frame. Basically the opposite of every single thing I equated to dancing before this.' Chrishell also said the 'build-up and rehearsal time was so extensive leading up to the show, but then it became a big blur, and if I hadn't been able to watch it back later I am not sure I would remember what just happened.' She added, 'Two weeks of exhaustive training drills and dancing all for that one minute of what you hope will be glory. (Spoiler alert: it wasn't! Ha!) 'And then you start all over at square one and do it again with only one week to prepare this time. It's one of the scariest things I've ever done, and yet I can't wait to try again.' Dancing With The Stars airs Mondays on ABC. It's two weeks in and the first celebrity - Charles Oakley - has been sent home. And the remaining 14 contestants were back hard at work on Thursday as Dancing With The Stars rehearsals continued in full swing. Selling Sunset's Chrishell Stause turned heads as she arrived at the dance studio in a sleeveless crop top and flowing skirt. Ready to rumba: Selling Sunset's Chrishell Stause was among the celebrity contestants who headed to rehearsals in LA on Thursday ahead of week three of ABC's Dancing With The StarsChrishell, 39, and pro partner Gleb Savchenko have logged a total of 31 points out of a possible 60 so far in the ABC reality show. In an interview with Good Morning America on Tuesday, Chrishell, who is going through a divorce from This Is Us actor Justin Hartley, described being on DWTS as 'one of the scariest things I've ever done.' She added: 'I couldn't have imagined how immersive and all-encompassing this show was before. When you aren't dancing, you are thinking about dancing.' She shared via Instagram Thursday she'd had a MRI before rehearsalsThe Bachelorette alum Kaitlyn Bristowe arrived for rehearsals with a brace on her injured ankle. The reality star hurt herself during rehearsals ahead of Tuesday's live show and only participated after being given the all-clear by medics. Still, that hadn't stopped her and pro partner Artem Chigvintsev from delivering a judge-pleasing foxtrot that left them tied for first place at 42 points with Justina Machado and her partner Sasha Farber. Before Thursday evening's practice session, Kaitlyn, 35, had shared via social media that she was having a MRI on her ankle. 'Yesterday was kind of a write off for me because I was just in pain and kept my foot elevated and just did nothing all day yesterday,' she shared on Instagram. 'I don't want to seem like a baby because I know so many people go through injuries on this show, and battle through, and that's what I want to do. But i just want to keep everyone posted,' she explained. Carole Baskin didn't seem deterred by almost being eliminated from the competition on Tuesday after scoring the same number of points as former NBA star Oakley. The judges, however, decided to save the star of Netflix's Tiger King, who's partnered with pro Pasha Pashkov, and let her dance another day. The co-founder of Florida's Big Cat rescue is milking her big cat connection for all it's worth on DWTS, performing the first week to Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger and in week two, dancing to Tom Jones's hit What's New Pussycat? Actress Anne Heche arrived at the rehearsal studio wearing a flowing pink patterned dress with a cinched waist and buttons down the front. The 51-year-old, whose stated goal is not to embarrass her sons Atlas, 11, and Homer, 18, appeared upbeat as she joined her pro partner Keo Motsepe. After their session, the two snapped a selfie together before Heche headed off in a her green Mini Cooper Convertible. Other celebrity contestants spotted at the rehearsal studios included actor Jesse Metcalfe, Disney star Skai Jackson, former football tight end Vernon Davis, Catfish host Nev Schulman and Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir. | 2 |
###CLAIM: the congresswoman from new york offered a glimpse of the above on the floor of the house chamber on january 3, hosting national guard service members at her office for a snack and adding napaoc in parenthesis.
###DOCS: AdvertisementAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez is offering to host National Guard service members in her Capitol Hill office during breaks amidst outrage over images of the soldiers, who were summoned to the nation's capital to protect lawmakers during inauguration week, being made to spend their downtime in a frigid, smog-filled parking garage. 'Yeah this is not okay,' the Democratic congresswoman from New York tweeted on Thursday in reaction to an image showing soldiers lying on the cold pavement inside the Senate garage after they were told to clear out of the US Capitol building. 'My office is free this week to any service members who'd like to use it for a break or take nap on the couch. We'll stock up on snacks for you all too.' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is offering to host National Guard service members in her Capitol Hill office during breaks amidst outrage over images of the soldiers, who were summoned to the nation's capital to protect lawmakers during inauguration week, being made to spend their downtime in a frigid, smog-filled parking garage. Guardsmen are seen above inside the Senate garage on ThursdayThe Democratic congresswoman from New York (seen above on the floor of the House chamber on January 3) offered to host National Guard service members in her office for snacks and a napAOC added in parenthesis: 'We're in the middle of moving offices and it's a bit messy so don't judge, but make yourself at home!' 'Yeah this is not okay,' the Democratic congresswoman from New York tweeted on Thursday in reaction to an image showing soldiers lying on the cold pavement inside the Senate garage after they were told to clear out of the US Capitol buildingHer generous offer was made just before thousands of National Guardsmen were allowed to return to the US Capitol after images of them sleeping outside and in a nearby parking garage overnight sparked outrage 24 hours after the inauguration. In a follow-up tweet, AOC wrote: 'Update: looks like they're letting them back into the Capitol. The offer on snacks, etc still stands!' AOC later tweeted: 'Update Part 2: The snacks have been delivered!' Capitol Police apologized late on Thursday after it emerged they had asked the troops brought in to protect Washington DC to leave the Capitol building and take their rest breaks in a nearby designated parking lot instead. Photos showed up to 5,000 Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of the packed Thurgood Marshall Building parking lot and in a park outside as temperatures hit a low of 40 degrees. The scenes sparked immediate outrage among lawmakers as some Guardsmen revealed they felt 'incredibly betrayed' given they had just spent more than a week helping to fortify and protect the capital. It has prompted the governors of some states, including New Hampshire and Florida, to order the immediate return of their Guardsmen from DC. 'I've ordered the immediate return of all New Hampshire National Guard from Washington DC. They did an outstanding job serving our nation's capital in a time of strife and should be graciously praised, not subject to substandard conditions,' New Hampshire Gov Chris Sununu tweeted on Friday morning. Footage obtained by NBC News showed the Guardsmen filing out of the parking lot overnight after they were permitted around midnight to return to the Capitol building in the wake of the fierce backlash. It followed reports that the troops had been kicked out of the Capitol, with some Guardsmen saying the parking lot they were relocated to had a single power outlet, no internet and just one bathroom with two stalls, according to Politico. Thousands of National Guardsmen have now been allowed to return to the US Capitol after images of them sleeping outside and in a nearby parking garage overnight sparked outrage 24 hours after the inauguration. 'They were temporarily relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage with heat and restroom facilities. We remain an agile and flexible force to provide for the safety and security of the Capitol and its surrounding areas,' he said. The scenes prompted governors of some states, including New Hampshire and Florida, to order the immediate return of their Guardsmen from DCCapitol Police apologized in the wake of the outrage but Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman clarified in a statement on Friday morning that police did not tell Guardsmen they had to vacate. 'It was brought to our attention early today that facility management with the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Office Building reached out directly to the National Guard to offer use of its facilities,' Pittman said. 'As of this morning, all Guardsmen and women have been relocated to space within the Capitol Complex. The Department is also working with the Guard to reduce the need for sleeping accommodations by establishing shorter shifts, and will ensure they have access to the comfortable accommodations they absolutely deserve when the need arises.' Both the Guard and Capitol Police issued a joint statement Friday afternoon saying they have now coordinated to establish 'appropriate spaces' within Congressional buildings for on-duty breaks. The statement noted that off-duty troops have hotel rooms or 'other comfortable accommodations.' The troops will take their breaks near the Emancipation Hall inside the Capitol building going forward. The soldiers do have hotel rooms but their 12 hour shift pattern means they cannot easily return to their rooms during rest breaks. Before being located to the parking lot, the troops had been allowed to take rest breaks inside the Capitol building. Once they finish their shift, the Guardsmen then return to their hotel rooms. National Guard soldiers are pictured sleeping inside the Capitol Visitors Center of the US Capitol on Friday after being allowed back inMembers of the National Guard rest in the Capitol Visitor Center on Friday morningMembers of the National Guard from South Dakota stood guard outside the Capitol building on Friday. It's not clear how long they will remainMembers of the National Guard from South Dakota were still on patrol in Washington DC on Friday following the inaugurationOne unnamed soldier had earlier said the forced move to the parking lot had left troops 'feeling incredibly betrayed'. 'Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed,' he said. Another guardsman told CNN: 'After everything went seamlessly, we were deemed useless and banished to a corner of a parking garage.' One more told Task & Purpose: 'Leaving our families for the last two weeks to come down here. It's certainly important and historic, but the day after inauguration you kick us literally to the curb? Come on, man.' Amid concerns about COVID-19 one soldier told The Washington Post : 'We are on top of each other all day, every day. We've given up.' Another added: 'Our guidance is if you're not eating or drinking, you need to be wearing a mask. We've already had just some in my unit alone test positive for Covid, and they're just keeping us packed together with caution tape in small areas. And that's the only authorized rest area.' The images of the Guardsmen sparked fierce reaction from politicians on both sides of the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans demanding answers as to why the men and women were told to leave the Capitol complex. Some offered their offices to the troops. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the soldiers 'deserve to be treated with respect'; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the move was 'outrageous'. Idaho National Guard troops sleep and eat on the eastern lawn of the US Capitol building on Capitol Hill on ThursdayNew Hampshire National Guard posted this image Wednesday with the caption: 'NH guardsmen slumber last night in a Washington, D.C. parking garage. I brought them pizza and told them that they can sleep in my office. No soldier will ever, ever sleep on a garage floor in the US Capitol while I work in Congress Our Troops deserve better'Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, said Capitol Police had apologized to the troops. 'Just made a number of calls and have been informed Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen and they will be allowed back into the complex tonight. I'll keep checking to make sure they are,' she tweeted. She had earlier said: 'Unreal. I can't believe that the same brave servicemembers we've been asking to protect our Capitol and our Constitution these last two weeks would be unceremoniously ordered to vacate the building. Following fierce reaction online from politicians on both sides of the aisle Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted: 'Just made a number of calls and have been informed Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen and they will be allowed back into the complex tonight''I am demanding answers ASAP. They can use my office.' Shortly after midnight Duckworth confirmed the 'troops are now all out of the garage'. The National Guard Bureau said on Thursday that of the nearly 26,000 Guard troops deployed to DC for the inauguration, just 10,600 remain on duty. The bureau said the Guard is helping states with coordination and logistics so that troops can get home. But following reports of the guardsmen sleeping in parking lots House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted: 'Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer -why are American troops who are tasked with keeping security at the Capitol being forced to sleep in a parking lot? 'They deserve to be treated with respect, and we deserve answers.' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said: 'If this is true, it's outrageous. I will get to the bottom of this.' President Joe Biden expressed his 'dismay' on Friday morning to General Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard, about how the troops had been treated, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. About 25,000 Guard members from across the country deployed to help secure Biden's inauguration, which went off with only a handful of minor arrests. Psaki said the president thanked Hokanson and the Guard for their help the last few weeks and offered his assistance if Hokanson needed anything. Officials said Thursday that of the nearly 26,000 Guard troops deployed to D.C. for the inaugural, just 10,600 remain on dutyGuard spokesperson Maj. Matt Murphy had said: 'As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area. They were temporarily relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage with heat and restroom facilities'First Lady Jill Biden visited Guard troops outside the Capitol on Friday, bringing them cookies and thanking them for protecting her family. She noted that the Bidens' late son, Beau, served in the Delaware Army National Guard. Thousands of Guard troops from all across the country poured into DC by the planeload and busload late last week in response to escalating security threats and fears of more rioting. Military aircraft crowded the runways at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, carrying Guard members into the region in the wake of the deadly January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Guard forces were scattered around the city, helping to secure the Capitol, monuments, Metro entrances and the perimeter of central DC, which was largely locked down for several days leading up to Wednesday's inaugural ceremony. After images of the men and women forced to sleep in the parking lot were shared Republican Sen. Mike Lee said: 'Very upset by this story but I have been in touch with the Utah National Guard and they are taken care of. My staff and I are investigating what happened here and will continue working to fix this situation.' Democrat Sen. Krysten Sinema tweeted: 'This is outrageous, shameful, and incredibly disrespectful to the men and women keeping the U.S. Capitol safe and secure. We need it fixed and we need answers on how it happened.' Congressman Madison Cawthorn posted to Instagram: 'I just visited the soldiers who have been abandoned & insulted by our leaders. I brought them pizza and told them that they can sleep in my office. No soldier will ever, ever sleep on a garage floor in the US Capitol while I work in Congress Our Troops deserve better.' Rep. Elise Stefanik tweeted: 'Every member of Congress should be appalled by this despicable treatment of the men and women of the National Guard, who answered the call to protect our nation's capital. Speaker Pelosi is in charge of the Capitol complex. She must provide answers immediately.' The Secret Service announced that the special security event for the inauguration officially ended at noon Thursday. The Guard said that it may take several days to make all the arrangements to return the 15,000 home, but it should be complete in five to 10 days. Guard members will have to turn in equipment, make travel plans and go through COVID-19 screening. Some local law enforcement agencies have asked for continued assistance from the Guard, so roughly 7,000 troops are expected to stay in the region through the end of the month. Pictures of the armed camouflage-clad troops resting on the marble floors of the Capitol building and patrolling the grounds had already been widely shared in the wake of the January 6 siege. It is believed to be the first time troops have set up camp in the Capitol since the Civil War. Throngs of guardsmen were seen cradling their guns as they slept in the open on the floor and took turns making rounds of the Capitol grounds. Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed some of the troops outside the Capitol building to thank them for their service just hours before the House of Representatives started debating impeaching President Trump for a second time. Members of the National Guard play cards in the Capitol Visitors Center the day after the inauguration of President Joe BidenMembers of the National Guard sleep in the Capitol Visitors Center Thursday. The U.S. Secret Service announced that the special security event for the inauguration officially ended at noon ThursdayThousands of Guard troops from all across the country poured into D.C. by the planeload and busload late last week, in response to escalating security threats and fears of more rioting Thousands of National Guardsmen were banished to a cramped parking garage after being abruptly forced to leave parts of the US Capitol grounds Thursday, according to reports. Officers were told they could no longer access areas of the US Capitol Complex including a Senate office cafeteria previously used as a rest area after tirelessly protecting the nations capital in the days leading up to the presidential inauguration, according to Politico. We honestly just feel betrayed, one Guardsman told the outlet. After everything went seamlessly, we were deemed useless and banished to a corner of a parking garage.One unit of 5,000 officers enlisted after the deadly US Capitol breach earlier this month was forced to take breaks in a nearby garage with no internet reception, a single electrical outlet and only two bathroom stalls, the report said. Photos appear to show troops lying on the cement floor to rest and sleeping while leaning against concrete pillars inside the garage, angering some officers. Previous 1 of 2 Next National Guard sleep in parking lot in Washington, DC. National Guard sleep in parking lot in Washington, DC. We feel incredibly betrayed, a Guardsman said. Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage.Roughly 25,000 National Guard troops were called to Washington, DC, from all 50 states to protect the city during President Bidens inauguration due to heightened security concerns following the deadly US Capitol siege on Jan. 6, which claimed the lives of five people. Many of those troops had been using a cafe in the Dirksen Senate Office Building as a spot to relax on breaks and connect to the internet, only to be ordered to vacate the Capitol and nearby congressional buildings on Thursday afternoon, officers told the outlet. The National Guard Bureau said the troops had been temporarily relocated because Congress is in session. The National Guard continues to assist and support the U.S. Capitol Police. As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area, the National Guard Bureau said in a statement. They were temporarily relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage with heat and restroom facilities. We remain an agile and flexible force to provide for the safety and security of the Capitol and its surrounding areas.But the incident sparked outrage among some lawmakers, who vowed to find the troops a way to stay inside the Capitol building. My office is available; the Guard is welcome to it. There is plenty of space in the US Capitol for the men and women keeping us safe, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) tweeted Thursday night. A National Guard spokesman later told a Fox News reporter that troops will likely be moved to the Capitol Visitors Center amid outrage over the garage situation. | 2 |
###CLAIM: `` the hardest thing about being a gypsy is that you are always judged by what you do, whether it is wearing or not, or literally anything, '' she said.
###DOCS: An 18-year-old traveller who met her husband in a car park has revealed she is financially dependent on him and he 'pays for everything'. Kathleen Johnson, who lives with her husband in a caravan near Cardiff, has racked up more than 67,000 TikTok followers by sharing candid videos of what life is like inside the traveller community. Speaking in a recent video, Kathleen, 18, explained she met her husband, who is not a traveller, when she was 17 after he asked her friends to introduce them in a car park. Kathleen Johnson, who lives with her husband near Cardiff, has racked up more than 67,000 TikTok followers by sharing candid videos of what life is like in the traveller communitySpeaking in a recent video , Kathleen, 18, explained she met her husband, who is not a traveller, when she was 17 after he asked her friends to introduce them in a car parkKathleen shares photos of her husband but does not reveal his name or what he does. The pair exchanged Snapchat details and quickly became 'best friends' before their relationship turned romantic. Kathleen explained her parents paid for their wedding but that after she married she became her husband's financial responsibility. 'In the gypsy and traveller community, the mum and dad pays for everything, like for your wedding,' she explained, in response to a question from a follower. 'And obviously when you are living together and married to the boy he pays for everything.' The couple live together in a modest caravan that also features in Kathleen's TikTok videos. In one she revealed how her impressive clothing collection takes up almost all of the available storage. Kathleen explained her parents paid for their wedding but that after she married she became her husband's financial responsibility. Pictured, the happy couple on their wedding day'Every cupboard is literally all my clothes,' she told fans, before pointing to two small cupboards by the ceiling and adding: 'My husband's is just them two.' The teenager also opened up about how people discriminate against her for being a traveller and said that while she refers to herself as a 'gypsy' she prefers to be referred to as a 'traveller' by people outside the community. 'The hardest thing about being a gypsy is no matter what you do, what you wear, literally anything, you will always get judged,' she said. The couple live together in a modest caravan that also features in Kathleen's TikTok videos. In one she revealed how her clothing collection takes up almost all of the available storage'You can be the quietest person in the world and not do anything to a person and youd still get judged. 'It is hard and when you go into some shops and youll see some people who are not gypsies, and theyll whisper "oh theres gypsies" or they will pull a face and walk away.' Kathleen's fans regularly post messages of support in the comments section and thank Kathleen for shedding a light on what it is like to be a traveller. | 1 |
###CLAIM: the announcement was made by the departments of homeland security, transportation and health and human services.
###DOCS: Airports will be able to administer COVID-19 health screenings for passengers and airline personnel, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced. An airport in Iowa will become one of the first to do so when it rolls out a COVID-19 health screening next week. The screenings will begin at the Eastern Iowa Airport on Jan. 25, as part of the Travel Well Program, in partnership with Mercy Medical Center and Mercy Care Business Health Solutions in Cedar Rapids. FAA APPROVES FULLY-AUTOMATED COMMERCIAL DRONE FLIGHTUnder the program, initially announced in July, all outward-bound passengers leaving on a flight, and employees working past security checkpoints, will undergo the 10-second screening, which includes temperature checks and a answer a series of health questions. Anyone with a fever above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit will be mandated to have another screening by healthcare professionals. "The Travel Well program will provide an efficient approach to screening passengers and employees," Marty Lenss, director for the airport, said in a statement posted to the facility's website in July. "Mercy established the protocols at their hospital and clinics as part of its COVID-19 response to ensure the safety of its staff and patients." GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HEREThe health screening program was created based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is "in line" with recommendations from U.S. Departments of Transportation, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, the announcement said. The FAA originally gave airports the go-ahead to conduct COVID-19 screenings on departing or arriving passengers in Dec. 2020, as part of other efforts to help in "minimizing the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring the recovery of the air transportation system." Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareThe airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, plans next week to begin screening passengers for symptoms of covid-19 before they go through security, implementing a first-of-its-kind plan that was on hold for months while federal officials reviewed its funding. Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. ArrowRight The top executives of Eastern Iowa Airport wanted to use coronavirus relief money to check passengers for symptoms and won approval from local authorities in July. But airport revenue is strictly regulated, and the officials did not want to move forward without approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. In late December, the agency gave its approval. The decision opens the door for the nations 500-plus other airports to implement screening programs. Were excited to get this launched, said Marty Lenss, the director of the Cedar Rapids airport. Weve been working on it for a while. We have always looked at it as one more layer in a multilayered approach in restoring passenger confidence.AdvertisementOn Tuesday, Lenss said fixtures for the screenings were being installed, and staffers were being shown around ahead of Mondays launch. The cost will be covered by a portion of the $23 million the airport received in coronavirus relief funding. The mandatory screening would build on efforts by airlines to try to keep sick people off flights. Airlines typically require self-declarations and mask-wearing by passengers but do not conduct professional health screenings or require coronavirus testing of domestic passengers. The United States on Jan. 26 is to require passengers arriving from other countries to have evidence of negative coronavirus testing, adopting a measure that has been in place in many countries for months. And after the Trump administration moved Monday to end restrictions on travel from Brazil and much of Europe on that same date, Jen Psaki, the incoming White House press secretary, said the Biden administration had a different plan. AdvertisementOn the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26, she wrote on Twitter. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19.In Cedar Rapids, screeners from a local health-care group, Mercy Medical Center, will ask travelers questions about their health and potential exposure to the coronavirus, and also take their temperatures. The first step should take 10 seconds. Anyone who fails the initial screening will be subject to a second review, which Lenss said in a few weeks could include rapid testing. Those who seem sick would be urged not to travel and be referred back to their airline, which would make the final decision. Tim Sagers, Mercys medical director, said the program could be a model for other communities. AdvertisementWeve seen that travelers around the country may be apprehensive about air travel, he said. Our aim in this partnership is to provide further assurance that those who fly are as safe as possible.In at least two cases, people have died of covid-19 aboard planes in the United States, and thousands are suspected of having been exposed to the novel coronavirus, the pathogen that causes the disease, during air travel. Over time, the value of screening people for the disease has become less clear, as it can be readily spread by those who are infected but not displaying symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shut down screenings for some international passengers in September after detecting just nine cases among 766,000 people who were screened. Lenss said he recognizes that the program will not be perfect. AdvertisementIm sure were going to learn something, he said. Weve never seen this as a silver bullet by itself.The FAA determined that the screenings would be a legitimate use of airport revenue as long as they were conducted by trained medical personnel and not offered to the public at large. Airports may voluntarily choose to take such actions in an attempt to jump-start and support the recovery of airport operations and airport services, the agency wrote in a guidance document. Eastern Iowa Airport is relatively small, not ranking among the 100 busiest in the nation in a typical year. But it is served by three of the four major carriers, as well as by two low-cost airlines. American Airlines, United Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Allegiant Air expressed support for the program. Hilarie Grey, a spokeswoman for Allegiant, said, We look forward to seeing how it will work in the operational environment in the coming weeks.AdvertisementIn the new guidance, the FAA said airports should get the support of airlines and local health authorities before setting up screening programs. Pramod Dwivedi, the director of public health for Linn County, where the Iowa airport is located, said authorities supported the program as a way of reducing the spread of the virus through air travel, saying in a statement that it is instrumental in reducing air travel related COVID-19 transmissions.GiftOutline Gift Article | 2 |
###CLAIM: i don't know, ripa explained that what you see here in throwback pics on instagram is kids wanting dog names like princess and princess leia.
###DOCS: She and her husband 'have made a decision to adopt' a new dog as part of their family. On Tuesdays episode of Live! With Kelly and Ryan, host Kelly Ripa announced she had adopted an adorable rescue dog that previously appeared on the show. Kelly, 50, shared a few pictures of the animal during the telecast, an adorable and furry dark pooch. On Tuesdays episode of Live! With Kelly and Ryan: Host Kelly Ripa announced she had adopted an adorable rescue dog that previously appeared on the showIn one image, the little dog snuggled in Ripa's lap. She also explained to her cohost Ryan, 46, that the adoption process involved making sure her first dog Chewie would not 'feel replaced in any way.' After seeking guidance from a friend and dog trainer, who Kelly joked trained her more than the actual dog, the pair of rescue pooches got along splendidly. Dishing: Ripa explained to her cohost Ryan that the adoption process involved making sure her first dog Chewie would not 'feel replaced in any way'Meet Lena: Kelly shared a few pictures of the animal during the telecast, an adorable and furry dark poochThe mother of three even spied a moment of beautiful canine affection just outside of Lenas crate one night. After the dog suddenly stopped making noise, Kelly came out to check on her. 'Chewie was outside the [Lena's] crate, sitting next to her with their noses together,' she said to oohs and aws from the audience. After seeking guidance from a friend and dog trainer, who Kelly joked trained her more than the actual dog: The pair of rescue pooches got along splendidlyThe one point of contention, however, is about the pups name. Ripa explained that she chose Lena as it was close to the rescue puppys original name, which was Angelina. However, 'My kids want her to be named Leia, as in Princess Leia, because we have Chewie [another Star Wars name],' Ripa explained. The one point of contention, however, is about the pups name: Ripa explained her kids want the dog to be named Leia, as in Princess Leia; seen here in a throwback snap on Instagram'I don't know. I need guidance,' she asked of her audience, and America at large. But as Seacrest pointed out, the choice should really be up to Kelly and her husband Mark Consuelos, as the pair's three children are all college-aged now and out of the house. In fact, just recently, Kelly and Mark, 49, celebrated their 18-year-olds son Joaquin's admittance into the University of Michigan's wrestling program. The pair, who have been married for 25 years, also share older son Michael, 23, and daughter Lola, 19. | 0 |
###CLAIM: at the same time, it is completely avoidable to adopt baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud.
###DOCS: (CNN) Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have spent the entire Georgia Senate runoffs running as close as they can to Donald Trump, while at the same time avoiding a complete adoption of Trump's baseless conspiracy theories about electoral fraud. That careful tightrope snapped when a group of GOP senators made the calculated decision to vote against counting electoral votes next week when Congress is expected to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory -- despite no credible evidence suggesting widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. That move forced Perdue and Loeffler into a position where they had to clearly define if they supported Trump and his ill-fated effort to overturn the November results. For weeks Perdue and Loeffler have evaded questions on the topic. Perdue initially punted, saying that because of the timing of the runoff that he wouldn't have a say in the matter. Perdue's first term ended Sunday. The results of the runoff won't be certified in time for the vote on January 6 therefore Perdue won't have a vote. However, despite attempting to use the technicality of timing as a shield to prevent taking a stand, Perdue finally sided with the objectors, telling Fox News he supports their efforts. "I'm encouraging my colleagues to object. This is something that the American people demand right now," said Perdue. "There are huge irregularities in Georgia. They need to be investigated, and they need to be corrected in my opinion." Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has overseen three different recounts of the vote in the state and conducted several other reviews of the process. He recently tasked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct an audit of the signature match system in Cobb County which determined the system was 99.9% accurate and revealed no evidence of fraud. According to an audio recording of a phone call obtained by The Washington Post , Trump pushed Raffensperger to "find" votes to overturn the election results after his loss to Biden. Perdue said he not only would object to Trump's loss, but also claimed that he should have won in November, despite not reaching the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff election. When asked what Republicans had done to secure the integrity of the election, Perdue said the state has hired additional poll workers and ballot counting monitors. "There are still Republicans that are upset and mad about what happened in November, as I am," Perdue said. "Look, I don't think I should be in this runoff, if everything had happened the way it should have in November." "But the only recourse we have is to get out and fight, and rise up and vote," he added. Perdue's new position objecting to the presidential election's results is even a step further than his fellow Republican Loeffler, who will be in a position to vote on Wednesday. Loeffler is filling the unexpired term of Sen. Johnny Isakson, and as a result, will stay in office until the runoff results are certified. That means she will be the senator from Georgia the day the Electoral College vote comes up regardless of Tuesday's results. Loeffler has repeatedly left open the idea of objecting but has yet to firmly commit. She chose not to sign on to the plan led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that was announced on Saturday . Loeffler campaigned with Cruz on Saturday morning before he announced his plans. Later that day she refused to take a firm position on the move, instead saying she is focused only on her election January 5. "Everything is on the table right now," Loeffler told reporters. "You know this President has fought for us. I'm fighting for him every day. I stood by him 100% of the time." Perdue and Loeffler are respectively facing Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock. If both Democrats win their races, the Senate will be split 50-50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking tie votes. A Democrat has not won a Senate seat in Georgia in 20 years. But Trump lost the state to President-elect Joe Biden in November, the first time for a Republican presidential candidate since 1996. Trump has repeatedly put the Senate GOP candidates in tough positions. They're nervous about losing the support of his base, but also understand that Georgia is a rapidly diversifying state. If Perdue and Loeffler delve too deep into Trump conspiracies, they run the risk of not only alienating moderate voters but inspiring the growing base of Democrats. Crossing Trump is a risk they have decided is not worth taking. Loeffler and Perdue have both refused to stand up to Trump as he continues to attack their ally, GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, and Raffensperger. In some instances, the senators have been forced to contradict their own positions. They both advocated and voted for the omnibus spending bill that included a $600 direct payment to millions of Americans. When Trump announced his desire for bigger, $2,000 checks, they quickly agreed. The duo also supported the National Defense Authorization Act, but when Trump vetoed the bill, both were absent when their colleagues voted to override it. Perdue was in quarantine because of a Covid-19 exposure and could not be in Washington. Loeffler was able to go but skipped the vote to campaign. When asked by Fox News how she would've voted, she simply replied, "I don't know." | 0 |
###CLAIM: the exercise of rights and showing up to believe and change what is seen as wanting is really empowering.
###DOCS: Hollywood stars have been some of the most vocal American citizens stressing the significance of voting in the 2020 presidential election. While they're doing so in a very public way on social media, some have revealed this year is the first time they've ever cast ballots. Some celebrities voting for the first time have lived in the United States all their lives, while others who were born in other countries are exercising their right to vote after having been granted U.S. citizenship. Find out which celebrities are first-time voters below. Selena GomezSelena Gomez is one of the seemingly countless celebrities to have cast ballots for the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The 28-year-old singer shared a few pics of her voting experience on Instagram last week. SELENA GOMEZ SAYS SHE'S NEVER VOTED BEFORE THE 2020 ELECTION: 'EVERY VOTE COUNTS'"Honestly, I'm not ashamed to say this," she said during an episode of "Voting Power Hour," per Buzzfeed. "... This was my first time." Gomez said that in the past, she "never felt" like her vote mattered. This year her perspective changed. "Every vote counts," the Disney Channel alum said. "Some people get in their head, and they're like, 'Oh, well what does it matter?'" "My main focus has been this right now," said the star, who has not publicly endorsed a candidate. "You can tell on my social media and everything, obviously, I'm super invested in this right now. It's been good. I feel hopeful." Ryan ReynoldsActor Ryan Reynolds was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, but revealed on social media he's voted for the first time in a U.S. presidential election. The "Deadpool" actor confirmed he voted early on Instagram with a picture alongside his wife, Blake Lively. "This is my first time voting in America. Id like to thank my wife Blake for making my first time so gentle and loving. It was super scary at first, then exciting and now Im a little tired. But proud. #VoteEarly," the 43-year-old joked on Instagram. In the photo he posted, the actor is holding his mail-in ballot. STARS WHO HAVE ENDORSED BIDEN FOR PRESIDENTMeanwhile, Lively also poked fun at his first-time experience writing, "It was Ryans first time. He was understandably scared. It all happened so fast. Like, REALLY fast. He wept. I pretended to weep. Then he called all his friend [sic]. #voteearly." Reynolds said back in 2016 he wished he could have voted then. The star has since obtained dual citizenship, the New York Times reported in 2018. Snoop DoggThe rapper announced in June his plans to vote for the first time this year. For many years it had me brainwashed thinking that you couldnt vote because you had a criminal record, the rapper who has gun and drug convictions going back to his high school days, though he says his records been expunged revealed on the Real 92.3. Snoop, who has been a vocal critic of President Trump, explained his decision comes from wanting to make a difference. "I can't talk about it and not be about it," he said. STARS WHO HAVE ENDORSED TRUMP FOR PRESIDENTKelsea BalleriniKelsea Ballerini announced to her Instagram followers that this year is her first time casting a vote in a presidential election, something she admitted she wasn't particularly proud of. "..embarrassingly but honestly, this is my first time voting. Im not proud of it, but my naivety has kept me sheltered through a lot of my young adult life," she wrote. "BUT. As Ive listened and learned, Ive realized its our responsibility and privilege to use our voices to establish what we as human beings with beating hearts want to see in this country for not only ourselves...but our friends, neighbors, strangers, and future generations." "America stands for so many beautiful things and I hope (and vote) that it continues to evolve and grow to be a place where EVERYONE is protected, respected, and given equal rights and opportunity," she added. "Left the polls feeling really empowered by exercising my right and showing up for what I believe in and the change I want to see. I encourage everyone to do the same. "The country singer posted a photo of herself pointing at an "I voted" sticker on her nose. Jana Kramer and Mike CaussinJana Kramer also took to social media to reveal she and her husband Mike Caussin are first-time voters. With a selfie of the couple wearing face masks, Kramer said this year she started feeling differently about exercising her right. WHAT HOLLYWOOD HAS SAID ABOUT BIDEN AND TRUMP"I hate to admit this but I am anyways....This is the first time Ive ever voted. The first time Mike has ever voted. I dont know why but I always felt like my vote didnt matter," Kramer's social media post begins. "But this year I just felt differently and I know more than ever it does matter. Are you going to vote? And not gonna lie I always wanted to feel Instagram cool with the I voted sticker and they ran out so @vistaprint mask for the win but lets be honest voting is more important than the sticker "Tan France"Queer Eye" star Tan France celebrated his U.S. citizenship this past June, and when announcing the news, he vowed to register to vote the same day so that he could be a part of "the change I wish to see in OUR nation." Tyler the CreatorThe 29-year-old rapper used his Twitter account to discuss his decision to vote, noting it was his first time doing so. In a two-minute video, the musician told viewers, "I see he light," and urged his fans to "go to them polls and cast a f---ing vote," according to People magazine. Cobie SmuldersJust one month out from the presidential election, Cobie Smulders informed her fans she cast a ballot. 7 CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE RAISED MONEY FOR BIDENThe 38-year-old actress, born in Canada, became a U.S. citizen in September. In early October, she shared a selfie in a white t-shirt accessorized with an "I voted" sticker. "Boom. Have you yet? Feels good. @iamavoter @joebiden @kamalaharris," she captioned the pic. Courtney StoddenCourtney Stodden shared a revealing picture of herself to inform her Instagram followers she voted for the first time this week. "I voted for the first time in my life. For me, this is a vote for compassion and empathy - human rights and love #firsttimevoter," she captioned a photo. The pic shows the lingerie model puckering up for a kiss with an "I voted" sticker over her lips. Yolanda HadidYolanda Hadids daughter Bella Hadid took her voting for the first time on Nov. 3. Took my mama to vote for the first time today!!! She became an American citizen just recently # and this year she was so determined to get out and vote, Bella, 24, explained on Instagram. The model added: I am so proud of her!!! Wearing our best Blues!!!! !.In a video Bella shared, the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star said, My one vote might just make a difference. Thats why Im going in line right now.Hadid became a U.S. citizen in May 2013 ahead of the 2016 presidential election. "I've never voted in my life. I left Holland right when I was 16 and I wasn't eligible to vote and when I came here I wasn't allowed to vote. I'm excited to go with [David Foster] and discuss politics," the supermodel told E! News at the time. Its unclear what prohibited her from voting in the 2016 election. Gregg SulkinThe 28-year-old British actor confirmed 2020 is his "first time voting as an American citizen." He reflected on the significance of this year's race, writing, "what an important election to have a voice." "Make yours count. Go vote ," he captioned a picture of himself holding his voting sticker. Kanye WestKanye West, 43, stunned fans on Independence Day when he revealed his decision to run for president in this year's election against President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. CELEBRITIES' MOST OUTRAGEOUS TWEETS ABOUT TRUMP AND BIDEN AHEAD OF THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONIn an interview with Forbes shortly after launching his campaign, Kim Kardashian's husband confirmed he registered to vote in Wyoming and that it would be his first time voting. In July, Fox News obtained the 43-year-old rapper's Statement of Candidacy document filed with the Federal Election Commission, which lists his party affiliation as "BDY," which stands for "Birthday Party." His committee's name is also listed on the document as "Kanye 2020." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTERHowever, the "Jesus Walks" rapper will not appear on ballots in all 50 states because his campaign was launched late and therefore missed some ballot deadlines. In a recent interview on Joe Rogan's podcast, West said his 2020 bid was inspired by God. It was something that God put in my heart back in 2015. A few days before the MTV awards it hit me in the shower, West shared. When I first thought of it, I just started laughing to myself and all this joy came over my body, through my soul.John OliverOn the eve of Election Day, late-night host John Oliver opened up about voting for the first time in this year's election on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." Oliver, who was born in the United Kingdom, became a U.S. citizen last December. This year marked the first presidential election he was eligible to vote for. Scanning [the ballot] into the machine and the machine saying your vote has been counted, I nearly burst into tears, Oliver recalled via Yahoo. That is the truth. My eyes got misty and I thought, I don't know if I can cry in the voting station?Oliver is no stranger to discussing politics. In September, he weighed in on President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPWere at the end of a generational battle and the heartbreaking thing is we lost," Oliver said on Last Week Tonight. With the 2020 presidential election process underway, American voters are in good company when it comes to fulfilling their civic duty. Many stars have followed through and thrown their support behind either President Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Here's a roundup of celebrities who have earned their "I voted" stickers this year:LADY GAGA'S PRO-BIDEN VIDEO HIT FOR MOCKING RURAL AMERICANSJennifer LopezJennifer Lopez took to Instagram on Election Day to ask fans to vote. CLICK HERE TO SEE FOX NEWS LIVE PROBABILITY DIALSThe star shared a pic of herself with her "I voted" sticker on her chest. She also donned a pink sports bra and matching sunglasses. "Yo vote! Vamos America!" she wrote before translating her caption. "I voted! Lets go America! #Vote #LetsGetLoud #BidenHarris2020"CLICK HERE TO INTERACT WITH FOX NEWS VOTER ANALYSISDemi LovatoDemi Lovato offered support for the Biden-Harris ticket when Sen. Kamala Harris was named Biden's running mate. Just last week, she took to Instagram to share an image of herself voting and wearing the iconic sticker. "I vote because I love my country," she wrote in the caption. "From my friends and family members who live here, to my neighbors and millions of people I dont know, I love the citizens here." Selena GomezLast month, Selena Gomez announced on Instagram that she'd "just finished filling out my ballot" alongside a few images of herself wearing the sticker. She said that this was her first time voting in an election. "Honestly, I'm not ashamed to say this," she said during an episode of "Voting Power Hour," per BuzzFeed. "... This was my first time." SELENA GOMEZ SAYS SHE'S NEVER VOTED BEFORE THE 2020 ELECTION: 'EVERY VOTE COUNTS'Lady GagaPop sensation Lady Gaga has been very vocal in her support of Biden, even helping him on the campaign trail. She further showed her support in an Instagram video in which she dropped her ballot off at a mailbox while wearing an "I voted" sticker. "Category: Ballot Drop Off Realness," read the caption. Mariah CareyMariah Carey showed off her "I voted" sticker on Instagram just days ago. "VOTE!" she captioned the post. In the pics, Carey wore a shirt reading "Your voice matters" while holding up her sticker for fans to see. SNOOP DOGG ADDRESSES TRUMP SUPPORTERS: 'F--- YOU'BeyoncePopstar Beyonce offered a last-minute endorsement for Biden and Harris on Instagram on Monday. In a brief video clip, the star wore a Biden-Harris face mask and tipped her hat toward the camera, revealing her "I voted" token. "Come thru, Texas! #VOTE," read the caption. Demi MooreActress Demi Moore also encouraged fans to vote. On Instagram, the star shared an image of herself dropping off her ballot while donning her sticker. "I voted," she wrote in the caption. "Letting my voice be heard! This could be the most important election of our lives... Get out and vote because it matters! Our future depends on it." KARLIE KLOSS TALKS ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP TO TRUMP FAMILY: 'IT'S BEEN HARD'Snoop DoggHip-hop legend Snoop Dogg took a moment to share his pride in voting. The star shared an image of himself wearing a hoodie reading "vote" while also wearing his sticker. "Just voted," he captioned the pic. Halle BerryOscar-winner Halle Berry shared a sweet snap of herself on Instagram after she voted. Several weeks ago, the actress posted a photo of herself holding her "I voted" sticker over her lips. "VOTE. Vote EARLY. #Vote for the presidency but also for the local officials and measures that will create the world you want to see," she wrote alongside the photo. SNOOP DOGG REVEALS HIS PLANS TO VOTE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER THIS NOVEMBERJana KramerCountry singer and actress Jana Kramer voted for the first time in her life this year. The star shared a photo of herself with her husband, Mike Caussin. In the pic, she wore a face mask with an "I voted" logo on full display. "... Not gonna lie I always wanted to feel Instagram cool with the I voted sticker and they 'ran out' so @vistaprint mask for the win but lets be honest voting is more important than the sticker," she said in the caption. Bebe RexhaBebe Rexha left little to the imagination after she cast her ballot. The singer shared an image of herself on Instagram wearing a sheer top with only her "I voted" sticker covering her breast. "I voted," read her caption. "I hope you do too." KARLIE KLOSS DISCLOSES HER 2020 VOTING PLANS AFTER 'PROJECT RUNWAY' CONTESTANT BRINGS UP HER KUSHNER TIESKelsea Ballerini"Cool girls vote," read country star Kelsea Ballerini's T-shirt in an Instagram message about voting. Additionally, the star admitted to voting for the first time this year while she stuck her sticker to her nose. "As Ive listened and learned, Ive realized its our responsibility and privilege to use our voices to establish what we as human beings with beating hearts want to see in this country for not only ourselves...but our friends, neighbors, strangers, and future generations," she wrote. Courtney StoddenCourtney Stodden also admitted to being a first-time voter on Instagram. "I voted for the first time in my life," she wrote on Instagram. "For me, this is a vote for compassion and empathy - human rights and love." Alongside the text was an image of the star with an "I voted" sticker on her lips. STARS WHO HAVE ENDORSED BIDEN FOR PRESIDENTJessica AlbaActress and businesswoman Jessica Alba showed off her "I voted" sticker on Instagram alongside her husband. "Even if voting is the only thing you do in a day, youre able to feel like you did something major!" she said in the post. "Its pretty amazing! GO VOTE!!!" Alba and her hubby both wore stickers for the pic. Vanessa HudgensWhile many opt to wear their "I voted" stickers, Vanessa Hudgens went with something a little more permanent. After casting her ballot, the "High School Musical" star shared a mirror selfie to Instagram highlighting the sticker on her phone case. "Done. Did. Have you? #VOTE," read the caption. STARS WHO HAVE ENDORSED TRUMP FOR PRESIDENTNick JonasJonas Brothers member Nick Jonas shared a simple selfie of himself wearing a black T-shirt and an "I voted" sticker on Instagram last month. Along with the photo came a question for his followers. "How are you guys voting? Drop your voting plan in the comments. Let's go!" he wrote. Viola DavisActing legend Viola Davis was also proud to share that she'd cast her ballot. The star posted a photo of herself and her husband wearing big grins and "I voted" stickers. "WE Voted!! This is a year of wokeness and understanding that we have to be the change we want to see," she wrote in the caption. CELEBRITIES WHO DON'T TALK POLITICS: 'NOBODY CARES'Joe JonasJoe Jonas joined his brother Nick in showing off his "I voted" sticker on social media. The star posed for a photo with the sticker on the front of his black baseball cap back in October. "Let's get it!!!!" he said. Busy Philipps"Dawson's Creek" alum Busy Philipps took a moment to support women voters. In an Instagram post, the star laid out while holding her ballot and wearing her sticker. "Women Are Voting. Millions of women across the country are committed to casting our ballots to show the world we are unstoppable," read her caption. "I cast my ballot from my bed!!" CELEBRITIES VOTING FOR THE FIST TIME IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONKerry WashingtonAfter accepting a challenge to do so from Michelle Obama, actress Kerry Washington shared that she'd voted online. The star cuddled up with her pooch for an Instagram photo, putting her "I voted" sticker on display. Washington urged Carey, Kourtney Kardashian and Sterling K. Brown to vote as well. Zooey Deschanel"New Girl" star Zooey Deschanel took to Instagram last week to share that she and boyfriend Jonathan Scott had cast their ballots, sharing a photo of the two of their donning stickers. Scott, a star of "Property Brothers," only obtained the right to vote in the U.S. for the first time this year. "We voted!" the actress said simply in the caption of her post, adding a red heart emoji. 7 CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE RAISED MONEY FOR BIDENAshlee Simpson RossBefore welcoming her baby boy, Ashlee Simpson Ross encouraged fans to vote with a humorous Instagram post. In the Instagram photos, the star stuck her "I voted" sticker on the center of her pregnant belly. "Get out and vote!" she urged in the caption. "No excuses!" Brie LarsonAcademy Award-winner Brie Larson has always been politically outspoken, and this year was no exception. The star shared a few images to Instagram just a few days ago featuring herself proudly and excitedly wearing an "I voted" sticker. "It may not be as easy as we want it to be, but even a complicated journey to having your vote counted is a journey worth embarking on," she wrote in the caption. "Vote in person if you havent yet voted, or drop your mail in ballot at your local ballot box (don't mail it now as it may not get there on time to be counted!). Your voice matters. Your vote is valid." CELEBRITIES WHO SAID THEY'LL LEAVE AMERICA IF PRESIDENT TRUMP IS REELECTEDNatalie PortmanActress Natalie Portman shared a sweet image on Instagram to mark her successful voting experience. For the photo, the star stuck her sticker to her cheek and paired it with a large smile, as well as a chart of early in-person voting dates. "14 days until the election! Have you all voted yet? Tag me in your voting pics ... and swipe right for a list of early voting dates by state," read her caption. Laura DernLaura Dern was also among the Hollywood heavyweights to cast a ballot this year. The star shared a photo of herself on Instagram wearing an "I voted" sticker and a sweater reading, "The way I see it." "So proudly cast my ballot today!!" Dern wrote in the caption. "Be sure to vote the way YOU see it!!" CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPCobie Smulders"Avengers" actress Cobie Smulders, born in Canada, voted in the U.S. election this year. The star posted a pic of herself wearing an "I voted" token and a T-shirt reading "I am a voter." "Done.Boom.Have you yet? Feels good," read her caption. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTERKarlie KlossSupermodel Karlie Kloss proudly showed off her ballot and "I voted" sticker on Instagram just a few days ago. The star also donned a Biden-Harris face mask for the pics. "Whats your voting plan?" she asked in the caption. "This was mine signed, sealed, (notarized), and delivered." Will FerrellActor and comedian Will Ferrell voted early and teamed up with I am a Voter's nonpartisan movement to get people to the polls earlier rather than later. In the video posted on social media, he's seen dropping off his ballot while taking his dog for a walk. Katy PerryThe singer took the streets of Los Angeles dressed up in an extra-large 'I Voted' sticker encouraging others to vote on Tuesday. She wrote a mask and wanted people to honk for democracy. The caption on her video read, "Tell your mom, tell your dad, tell complete strangers on the street to #VOTENOW." Michael B. JordanActor Michael B. Jordan proudly showed off his collection of "I Voted" stickers on his chest in a post on social media. The "Black Panther" star wrote, "I VOTED Less than 48 hrs to go !!"He also endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket. Cardi BRapper Cardi B posted that she voted early in the morning on Election Day. "Nice and early !! !and there was ten people on line. GO VOTE!" she captioned a video on Instagram showing off her "I Voted" stickers. Cardi publicly endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 election. Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew BroderickStage and screen stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick stepped out to cast their ballots on Tuesday. The stars also took their son James with them. James turned 18 late last month, so this was his first time voting. James and his parents strolled down the street wearing their "I voted" stickers with sweatshirts reading "Rebuild with love." Kim Kardashian West"Keeping Up with the Kardashians" star Kim Kardashian West proved to fans that she voted when she shared a photo of herself holding up her "I voted" sticker. "I VOTED!!!! Did you?!?!" she captioned her tweet. "If you are in line when the hours of operation close at the polls, they are required to stay open and allow you to vote, so do not get out of line." Her husband, Kanye West, is running for president this year. | 3 |
###CLAIM: it takes up to 2 hours and 90 minutes to feed her, pump whatever formula supplement she needs, clean, and generate skin infections.
###DOCS: Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding,After a difficult pandemic pregnancy, my husband and I welcomed an awesome baby girl. Shes beautiful, funny, and overall very sweet and chill baby. She was born by emergency C-section, and I had breastfeeding issues from the start. First low supply necessitating supplementation in the hospital, then her latch was bad, then she was a lazy feeder, then I got mastitis and got really sick. She went on a nursing strike during the infection and the lactation consultant basically told us she wouldnt work with us unless we got our daughters tongue tie snipped. The pediatrician we scheduled with told us our daughter had no such tongue tie and that sometimes nursing issues like mine were largely unexplained, but that feeding her formula would be finebetter, even, for her than continuing a nursing relationship we were both clearly dreading, one that my daughter had already opted out of entirely. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe lactation consultant gave us an ultimatum and said unless we were willing to see one of a specific list of doctors who were educated about tongue ties then she couldnt do anything else for us other than refer to occupational therapy, which she said probably wouldnt work. Wed already seen two other LCs in the hospital, and none of them were any help. Pumping wasnt working (with my low supply, I would take up to 90 minutes every two hours to pump, feed her whatever I pumped supplemented with formula, clean the pump, and burp her, then 30 minutes for food, shower, and any sleep for me) and generated a skin infection in my already cut-to-shreds nipples. I didnt want to keep pumping when I knew we likely couldnt reestablish breastfeeding, as I knew I couldnt maintain the schedule when I went back to work and her feeds were largely formula anyway. I also didnt want to go doctor-shopping in a pandemic after my pediatrician, who I really do trust, told us any further procedure was not medically necessary and probably wouldnt work. At just shy of a month, I finally and tearfully gave up breastfeeding, feeling intense mom guilt at not being able to do something that felt so fundamental to being a mother. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut ... its been a sanity-saver in our house! The fog and clouds have lifted. Im no longer feverish and too sick to care for her properly! Im bonding with my baby! Im not fighting with my husband! My husband can help feed her and our parenting distribution is more equitablewhich is nice in a pandemic where having any kind of outside help is fraught! She is gaining weight and no longer jaundiced and impossible to calm like she was in the hospital! I am confident in how much food shes getting and no longer obsessing about her weight loss and gain! We are still tired newborn parents, but this existence feels downright tranquil compared to the feverish sobbing of a week ago. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat said, the consensus among friends, relatives, and even prospective child care providers is that we are basically feeding her poison out of pure laziness, that I am a terrible mother who chose my own comfort over giving her the best possible start in life, that this wasnt a wrenching decision borne out of a desperate search for answers that werent coming but rather a lark. Ive heard so many painful comments about this choice, and while I know we tried everything that seemed reasonable, I hate feeling defensive (or worse, tearful) in these conversations. So my question is: Is it OK to lie and say Im still pumping and feeding her breast milk? No one knows whats really in her bottle, and its a pandemic so we barely see anyone, anyway. Is there a way to make this off limits for discussion without lying? I hate being dishonest, but I feel so raw whenever I talk about it that even setting a boundary often ends in me shame spiraling about this choice that, at this point, is made. A lie seems easier. What to do? AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFearful Formula FeederDear Fearful,Congratulations on putting your well-being, your households equitable distribution of parenting, and your daughters needs first, and for ignoring naysayers who have no idea whats right for you or your family. Remember, formula is food, and fed is best! I hereby give you carte blanche to lie about pumping to preserve your peace of mind, with just one caveat. I dont think you should lie about this to any prospective caretakers, lest they end up getting hired. Instead, do what you already know is right and set a firm boundary up front that youre not going to discuss your choice to feed your daughter formulahaving that conversation may be uncomfortable right now, but this will serve you well in the long-term, and might even help you hire someone whos a better fit. For everyone else, from prying in-laws to acquaintances, tell them whatever feels right in the moment. Its none of their business anyway. AdvertisementAdvertisementSlate is looking to interview parents and children togetheryoung parents and older ones, younger kids and adult childrenfor an upcoming project. To participate, send us an email at [email protected] with a few words about your family. Dear Care and Feeding,I have two daughters, 3 and 6. My husband and I work, and we spend the same amount of time at home with our kids. Throughout the years, I have done most of the chorescooking, cleaning, laundry, bathing, story time, etc. Im also the disciplinarian: Im constantly telling my kids they cant do all the things they want to do (eat candy for breakfast, watch TV/videos for extended periods of time, etc). My husband does most of the fun things. The differences in parenting, among other things, have caused many issues in our relationship which will likely end up in divorce. In the past month or so my 3-year-old has told me things like I dont love/like/want you, I only love/like/want Daddy. While my 6-year-old has never said those words, she clearly prefers her dad and rarely shows interest in doing anything with me. I love my kids more than anything in the world, so this is truly heartbreaking and leaves me thinking that Im failing at parenting and feeling isolated. While I think setting boundaries at a young age will serve them well later, Im wondering if my kids and I are growing apart because of it. Is this a phase? How does a parent get through this? AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHeartbroken MamaDear Heartbroken,This is a really frustrating dynamic that your husband has, with your help, created. Unfortunately, youll need his help to undo it. Youve described the end of your relationship as a foregone conclusion, but you still have to learn how to co-parent effectively. Lay out the problem for him in the same terms youve used with me: Youre doing the lions share of the parenting, which includes the household maintenance and management tasks you describe above. He is a special guest star whos permissive with themof course they think they prefer him! But they dont actually love him more. They just take you for granted, which, unfortunately, means you are doing a great job being the stable, reliable support system all kids need. But you shouldnt have to do that alone. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFixing this will take time, and will be difficult, but its worth it. As a first step, if you can take your hands off the wheel temporarily without endangering your kids well-being, start by doing just that. Take a break. Get out of there for a long weekend (it doesnt matter where you gosomewhere safe, not far away). Let him fend for himself in terms of both the chores and the nuts and bolts of parenting, and see whether, in the ensuing chaos, you hear a bit less of I want Daddy.Then, after the dust has settled and youve restocked the fridge and cleaned the ketchup off the walls, work on either reestablishing the terms of your relationship or ending it and coming up with an equitable co-parenting arrangement. Either way, you cant continue this way. Consider I want Daddy your wake-up call, not a referendum on your kids true feelings. Advertisement If you missed Sundays Care and Feeding column, read it here. Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook group! Dear Care and Feeding,I have two wonderful daughters. My youngest (3) is a naturally happy, positive kid. She has incredible empathy and tries to help others feel better or calm down when they are upset (she puts her arm around them and models deep breathing, its adorable). She gets upset like any other kid, but is already great at self-regulating her emotions (for 3). My oldest, age 6, is the opposite. She tends toward melancholy, is very sensitive, and cries over everything. Shes often grumpy and sassy, and focuses on the negative (e.g., will say she had a bad day when in reality one bad thing happened, like she stubbed her toe, but she also got to go swimming, watch a fun movie, play dolls with mom, etc.). She does have friends (well, just one right now because of COVID, but when she was in school she had several). AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhen Ive observed her with friends, she is always trying to be the leader, demanding others to do as she says (either in her own voice or in the voice of whatever character shes pretending to be, like a teacher). If she doesnt get her way or is forced to take turns making the rules, she acts as though she never gets to make the rules. She almost never asks if someone is OK when they are hurt or upset. In fact, if her sister gets hurt, she will suddenly remember a booboo from 3 days ago and start crying too. If she accidentally hurts someone, she starts crying and we have to drag a sorry, are you OK? out of her. We do our best to model positive and kind behavior (we volunteer together, speak kindly to each other and about others, and talk her through her feelings). However, I tend to have a hard time knowing where the line is between giving her too much attention vs. invalidating her feelings. I realize that its not productive to say stop crying! or ignore her completely, but when I say I see youre upset, lets talk about it every single time she cries over something, she is getting the attention she wants. AdvertisementAdvertisementIve been focusing on kindness the past few days, and giving her gentle reminders when she says something unkind, or in an unkind manner. I ask her to think before she speaks: Would she want someone to say this to her? Last night she started crying because mom thinks she is a mean kid which broke my heart. The last thing I want is for her to develop insecurity about how much I love her. Her friends continue to want to play with her and let her be the leader, and I havent seen the negative peer feedback to her demanding behavior that would make her rethink how she treats her friends. I do think that a lot of this is normal behavior, that most 6-year-olds are still pretty self-centered, but I worry sometimes that my childs selfishness and lack of empathy is something more. My husband thinks that she is too young to benefit from therapy, and that Im blowing this out of proportion, that she will mature and learn over time with our continued guidance. AdvertisementAdvertisementI want my child to learn how to be a good friend and citizen, so that others want to be around her and so that she treats the world with kindness. Of course I wish she was also a happier kid, but I realize that some of that is just built into us. I know plenty of grown-ups who tend towards melancholy, including in our families (genetics). Is this totally normal and I should relax? Or should we get her into therapy or she will be doomed to be a bully? AdvertisementAdvertisementMelancholy Kids MamaDear M.K.M.,Surprise: I disagree with your husband. It definitely sounds like your older daughter could benefit from some help from a mental health professional. And so could you and your husband, so that you can all learn how to support her as she, in your husbands words, matures and learns over time. We arent born knowing how to parent every type of kid under the sun! Its just not reasonable to expect yourselves to know how to deal with your daughter, who isnt doomed to be a bully but does sound like shes struggling to manage her emotions. Good for you for recognizing that shes lashing out because shes sad, not because shes a brat. Its a stressful time for everyone, and kids are feeling the pain as much as adultsmaybe more so. They just dont have the language or self-awareness that we (ideally) do, and they dont know how to ask for the help they need. AdvertisementSide note: Its definitely within the realm of normal behavior that your 6-year-old doesnt ask people if theyre OK when they get hurt. Your 3-year-old is precocious in this arena, and shes also modeling a behavior she learned by watching you interact with her sister. AdvertisementFor more of Slates parenting coverage, listen to Mom and Dad Are FightingDear Care and Feeding,Im a 13-year-old girl whose parents have been divorced since I was 6. For a couple years now, my mom (who I stay with half the time) has been engaged to and living with a man who is functionally my stepdad (their marriage was called off because of COVID). He has three kids from a previous marriage, which was ended due to abuse on his ex-wifes part. My older two stepsiblings are adults and living on their own. The youngest, Naomi, is almost 16 and living with my mom, my stepdad, and me. When Naomi and I were younger and our parents were just dating, we were really close. We drifted apart over the years, eventually talking only out of necessity and barely making eye contact. A lot of this is due to the fact that my mom and I have gotten into explosive arguments semi-regularly (yelling, slamming doors, etc. ), which I think brings up a lot of bad memories for Naomi from when her parents were living together. My mom and I started therapy for our fights, and that has helped. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA few weeks ago, I reached out to Naomi with a text talking about how I missed her and the relationship we used to have and hoped we could talk or hang out soon. I am now convinced that sending that text was absolutely the wrong decision. I have been left on read for weeks. I heard from my stepdad that when Naomi got the text, she read it out loud to him and began ranting about how I was trying to trick her into having a relationship with me, so I could presumably hurt her once we had gotten close. Again, I think this is because of trauma from Naomis mom (Naomi, too, is in therapy and has been for a long time). Since I sent the text, my relationship with Naomi has downgraded from nonexistent to outright hostile. Any time I make a comment at dinner, Naomi makes it a point to disagree with me. She constantly glares at me and pretends she doesnt hear me if I ask her anything directly (such as pass the salt). This is making the time I spend at my moms house miserable. I dont know what to do. I understand that this is definitely not the time where Im going to form a doting stepsisterly relationship, but is there anything I can do so that she doesnt totally hate me and also I dont feel like Im being constantly attacked? AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMaybe We Can Laugh About This When Were OlderDear Maybe,Ugh, this sucks! Im sorry that Naomi is being so mean to you. If you feel like it, you could give your relationship one (just one) more try. While I dont think it was a mistake to send the text, I do think that in delicate situations its generally better to talk in real time, ideally face to face. Decide in advance what you want to say, gather your courage, find a time when you think Naomi will be most receptive and then sit down and talk to her. Maybe lead with an apology for how your fights with your mom made the household feel unsafe for her, so that she knows you understand how she feels. Then tell her you really want to be friends again eventually and see if shes at all receptive. Maybe she wont be, but at the very least you can clear the air and maybe get to a place where dinner together isnt excruciating. EmilyMore Advice From SlateIs it OK that my grown daughters (33 and 30) still call me Daddy? I didnt think anything about it until one of their friends was aghast when she heard it. Over the years its been Dad, Father, Pop, Pops, Papa, but the girls always seem to drift back to Daddy. I still call my parents Mum and Pop when addressing them. I have never insisted on Daddy or forbidden them from addressing me by my first namethey just never have. Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding,Growing up, my mom channeled her anxiety into obsessively cleaning our home. Though it was spotless, this came at the detriment of our general happiness. We were never allowed to have a pet or even have guests over because it would dirty the house, we were frequently late to events because my mom was cleaning and lost track of time, and she missed out on bonding time with us because she was too anxious to leave the kitchen unclean for an hour after breakfast. I vowed Id never be like her. Well, fast-forward to now, and my home is a mess. I cant seem to stay on top of ever-present laundry piles, clutter, and the detritus that comes with having three kids. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMy two younger children seem fine with this. My oldest (shes 10) has started making comments about the mess, like Why do we have so much stuff? and Mom, can we clean up more? My heart breaks when I hear this. Ive tried everythinghaving a chore day (creates more work and leads to a battle with the kids over chores), giving my kids an allowance for doing chores (they started insisting on higher payment), and doing it all myself (Im burned out and ineffective). I feel like Im drowning. My husband works long hours and is so fried at the end of the day that he doesnt really contribute. I only work part time, so why cant I get a better handle on this? Should I leave things the way they are and hope my 10-year-old doesnt develop anxiety over living in constant mess? Is there some sort of middle ground between how I grew up and how Ive been raising my own kids? Please help. AdvertisementAdvertisementDrowning in the DirtDear Drowning,I completely empathize with you, but I have to call you out on a couple of things first. It would be a cold day in hell before I paid my kids to do something theyre supposed to do, only to be subjected to the unmitigated gall of them demanding more money. That needs to stop, stat. Nobody pays me to clean my house, and Ill be damned if my kids get paid to do it. Second, I understand that your husband is fried after working long hours, but arent you fried, too? Why does he get a pass on contributing when you dont? That also needs to stop. AdvertisementAs a fellow parent who is at home 24/7 while my spouse works outside of the home for 11 hours a day, Im no stranger to dealing with a messy house at times. However, Ive found a way to make it more manageable. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA friend of mine told me something so incredibly simple about clutter that it makes me wonder why I didnt think of it myself. If everyone puts their stuff in its designated spot, it will eliminate close to 80 percent of the mess. Dont allow your kids to throw their socks on the couch or leave their shoes in the middle of the hallway. If you train them to know where the proper place is for everything, it will alleviate a good amount of your stress. In case youre wondering what the other 20 percent is attributed to, its putting those things away in their proper place neatly. Yes, thats also a challenge. You shouldnt feel like youre doing a bad job for dealing with messes that pretty much every parent outside of your mom deals with on a daily basis. One thing to remember is your kids probably wont remember the messes when theyre older because theyll focus on the good times and fun you had with them. On the flip side, your upbringing is the perfect example of how cleanliness got in the way of an enjoyable childhood, and thats not OK.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThings may not be perfect, but thats because perfect doesnt exist. Cut yourself some slack and know that things will be OK as long as you focus on having a loving homemessy or not. Help! How can I support Slate so I can keep reading all the advice from Dear Prudence, Care and Feeding, Ask a Teacher, and How to Do It? Answer: Join Slate Plus. Dear Care and Feeding,I was speaking with my dad recently, and our conversation turned to the topic of LGBTQ relationships, sexual orientation, and gender identity in general. My dad is a conservative Christian who believes anything outside of heterosexual relationships is against Gods plan, and that anything outside those parameters are sins and choices that require repentance and forgiveness from God. I told him that his perspective and how that gets expressed to our kids worries my husband and me. For reference, our kids are 2 and 3, with another due in a couple of months. I dont know what our kids sexual orientation or gender identity will be, but I believe how we talk to them about it matters even now (in age-appropriate ways). AdvertisementAdvertisementMy dad insists he would love them no matter what, but I dont think its that simple. I think it can be very damaging if someone who says they love you unconditionally also denies part of who you are or believes it is unnatural and requires repentance. If our kids happen to be straight and cisgendered, my husband and I still want them raised knowing that people identify in many different ways, and they are all authentic and valid and love can take many forms. When I told my dad this, he reacted by seemingly turning himself into the victim in the story. He jumped to saying things like If you want to cut me out of your kids lives because of my religious beliefs, then you can do that, and I know other people who have, Ill probably be dead before your kids are teenagers, and this could not even be an issue, and Just dont give them a revisionist history of me.AdvertisementAdvertisementI am frustrated on multiple levels. I have always created space for him when he has wanted to talk about things that matter to him. For examplehe worries about not seeing me in heaven because we dont share the same religious beliefs. This is a topic that isnt going away and is not hypothetical. How do I set the right boundaries with my dad now? How should I respond to what I see as selfish behavior and an attempt at martyrdom? This is not an abnormal pattern of behavior for him. It is something that I have become better at recognizing and try not to play into by catering to his emotions or trying to talk him down as I have in the past. I know I will have to reengage here, though. Any advice on how best to do that? AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementDad IssuesDear Dad Issues,Im sorry, but I have zero tolerance for intolerance. Many people use religion to promote inclusivity, but sadly, some of the worst people Ive come across in my life hide behind their Bibles in an attempt to excuse their bigotry. Does it hurt anyone if two women or two men decide to fall in love? Does it hurt anyone if Samuel decides to become Samantha? The answer is a resounding no. Unless youre a bigot, of course. AdvertisementAdvertisementThe conversation with your dad is a simple one. Tell him how youre planning to raise your children to be open-minded and accepting to people in the LGBTQ community. In doing so, you should also deliver an ultimatum. Tell him that he truly must keep his opinions to himself. No passive-aggressive nonsense about being dead in a few years or any woe is me martyrdom. You simply have to tell him that he cannot talk about or make reference to his beliefs in front of your kids or you. If he chooses to still be outspoken, then tell him that hell have to love your kids and you from a distance. AdvertisementHe may believe youre a sinner destined for the fiery pits of eternal damnation and refuse to see you again. Are you prepared for that? Because thats what is at stake here. If youre confident that youre raising your children the right wayand for the record, I believe you arethen you need to take a deep breath, have a good cry, and dont look back. Maybe hell decide that his relationship with you and his grandkids is more important than his religious beliefs, and I hope that hell come around, but I doubt it. In order to get America back to some semblance of decency, we need to end bigotry in all of its forms, even when it comes from people we love. AdvertisementAdvertisement If you missed Mondays Care and Feeding column, read it here. Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook group! Dear Care and Feeding,Im a youth sports coach with a few years of experience, and Im having an issue with one of the playersAnnieon my team. (I was assigned this team; I didnt choose the players.) Its an eighth grade girls team of 13- and 14-year-olds. Our purpose is to be more of a teaching team than a competitive one, though we do have some players who take it very seriously and want to improve and win. At the beginning of the season, Annies first priority was definitely to have fun. That was fine, and she played her best. However, the small issues that I noticed at the beginning of the season have turned into large problems. While she never really hustled, now she walks everywhereeven during the games when they should be running. She wont look at me when Im talking to her. During individual practice time given to work on their skills, shell mess around or intentionally do the skill wrong. Gentle reminders havent worked. Trying to have conversations with her only leads to her sitting in silence when I ask questions. Making her run laps and other consequences only lead to her doing them halfheartedly or stopping halfway through. If this were a competitive team, Annie would have been benched or kicked off the team weeks ago. However, this is a teaching team, and as long as her parents keep making her come to practice, shell be there. At the same time, I know she has other issues going on in her life. (I overheard the girls talking about their end-of-year assessments in school, which are given on computers, and Annie said, I just clicked C on every question so I could finish in five minutes and listen to music.) How should I respond as a coach? I hate that shes learning the lesson that if she just does something badly enough, shell get to stop and wont have to do anything. But my instinct is that yelling or trying to confront her would only end badly. It kills me that shes bringing down the team, especially those players who really want to be there and want to win. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTired CoachDear Tired Coach,Im also a youth sports coach, and I have to challenge you on the teaching team vs. competitive team thing. I assume youre referring to the skill level of the players, but as far as Im concerned, theres no difference between the two. The kids are constantly learning the game, and theyre playing the game to win. Yes, I understand that youth sports are also about having fun, but the fun has to come within the framework of the team experience. Your job as coach is to create ground rules for the team. I coach second grade girls basketball, so my kids are a lot younger than yours, but here are my rules for them:AdvertisementThey cannot talk when Im talking. They have to show up to practice and games on time. They have to have a good attitude. They must put forth their best effort. And they have to display good sportsmanship in victory and defeat. I even printed out the rules and had the parents and players sign them as if it were a contract. Ive coached kids like Annie before who failed to follow my rules, and it never devolves into yelling at them. I start with a verbal warning. If it happens again in the same practice, then I make them leave and sit with their parents. You mentioned that Annie wouldve been kicked off of the team if this happened on a competitive squad, but as I said earlier, I dont understand why shes held to a different standard because shes on a so-called teaching team. Rules are rules. If anything, you need to teach her that actions have consequences. You also need to teach the other players that that kind of behavior wont be tolerated or excused. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe main thing here that caught my attention was the comment about the assessment. Thats a huge red flag, and you may want to bring that up to her parents. Clearly shes going through something, and it will only get worse if its not addressed. My suggestion to you is to print your team rules and have every parent and player sign them. That way, whenever Annie fails to hustle or follow directions, you can hold her and her parents accountable. If you want to be proactive, you can schedule time to meet with Annie and her parents after you create the rules to address your concerns and expectations going forward. You have to ensure that everyone is on the same page. AdvertisementDear Care and Feeding,Im a white single mom who moved to a new city. I made a new mom friend (lets call her Brenda) who seemed to be really nice, and our 11-year-old daughters get along well, but lately Ive learned some disturbing things about her. Shes white and constantly says somewhat racist things about Black people in front of me. This ranges from the N-word to calling them monkeys, and she once said, Blacks should only be allowed to sing, dance, and play sports in front of our kids. I obviously dont feel the same way, and I dont want my daughter to have these beliefs, but I also enjoy Brendas company. Its lonely being a single mom, and I crave adult interaction, but I dont agree with the racism. She says she feels this way about Black people because she dated a Black man in college who cheated on her. What should I do? AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHurt in HoustonDear Hurt,If using the N-word, equating Black people to animals, and saying that Black people are only good for entertainment qualifies as somewhat racist to you, Id hate to see what your definition of overt racism is. AdvertisementAnd by the way, theres never a good reason to be a racist, but her reason is about as absurd as they come. She was cheated on by a Black man and hates all Black people because of it? I once ate a pizza that gave me horrendous food poisoning, but that doesnt mean I hate all pizza. Give me a break. Im sure that being a single parent can be extremely lonely, but that doesnt mean you should settle for hanging out in bad company. You can tell her that you dont condone that behavior, but quite frankly, I would cut ties altogether. Shes not a family member or someone youve known for yearsshes a new friend. Anyone who says those things out loud isnt a person I would want in my inner circle and certainly isnt someone I would want around my kids. AdvertisementChalk it up to a bad decision and find some nonracist friends, please. Trust me, there are plenty of them out there. DoyinMore Advice From SlatePay Dirt is Slates new advice column examining money and relationships. Every week, columnists Elizabeth Spiers and Athena Valentine will tackle your thorny financial questions. Have a money question? Send it to Athena and Elizabeth here. (Its anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt,My grandmother has been harassing me nonstop about having children for years, and now that I have a steady boyfriend, shes been ramping up the comments, begging, crying, and even talking to my boyfriend, saying, I need to carry on the family line. Im 36 and have known for many years I dont want children, and this has been exacerbated by the fact that we have extensive medical problems on both sides that I dont wish to pass on. Shes now threatening to pull financial help that she very occasionally provides if I dont have a child ASAP. Im now at the point where Im considering forging a doctors letter saying Im barren to get her off my case, even if it means losing the small amount of help I get from her. Is it ethically wrong? | 2 |
###CLAIM: germany restricts the number of people allowed at social gatherings during holidays to a maximum of five, with the maximum from a single home gathering of at most two households.
###DOCS: Some European Countries Batten Down For The Holidays With New Coronavirus LockdownsEnlarge this image toggle caption Tobias Schwarz/AP Tobias Schwarz/APThe holiday season is upon us, and usually that means packed shopping malls and kisses beneath the mistletoe, long-distance travel and big family festivities just about everything, in other words, that could make an already dire pandemic even worse. So officials in multiple European countries, caught between a yule log and a hard place, are imposing a new wave of strict coronavirus lockdowns. Leaders in Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have announced bans on large gatherings and the closure of nonessential businesses over the second half of December into January. "We have no choice: The number of contacts between people must be reduced," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a televised address to the country Monday evening. "Everything must now be focused on that." For residents in the Netherlands, that means a swift and drastic curtailment of social and economic life. Beginning this week, and continuing at least until Jan. 18, all public-facing businesses except grocery stores, pharmacies and banks must close. Most retail stores can sell their goods only through delivery and takeout, and schools must conduct only remote classes during this period. What's more, households will be allowed just two visitors over the age of 13 per day, with three allowed only on Dec. 24-26, for the Christmas holiday. And he strongly urged Dutch residents to "stay at home as much as possible" and avoid travel when at all possible, at least through March. Enlarge this image toggle caption Bart Maat/ANP/AFP via Getty Images Bart Maat/ANP/AFP via Getty Images"We have to bite through this very sour apple before things get better," said Rutte, who delivered the address from his office in The Hague. During the speech, demonstrators protesting the lockdown measures outside could be heard shouting and whistling loudly in the background. "The reality is that we are not dealing with a harmless flu, which some people like the demonstrators outside still think," he added. "But a virus that can hit anyone hard, not only the very oldest among us." The country of some 17 million people has reported more than 630,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and another spike in cases is well underway there. On Sunday alone, Dutch health officials reported nearly 9,900 new cases. The Netherlands is far from alone, however. Similar spikes have become clear across Europe including in the Czech Republic, where leaders rolled out strict new coronavirus measures the same day the Dutch prime minister delivered his address. The Czech government had loosened its restrictions just about two weeks ago, but Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the worsening situation in recent days meant "we must act immediately." "I can imagine the great disappointment of people who do business in the hospitality industry, who do business in the hotel industry, who work every day, employ people and find it hard to find credit and do business," Babis said, as he announced the reimposition of a curfew and the closure of restaurants, museums and indoor sports venues, among other spaces, beginning Friday. "I understand that this is not good news." On Wednesday, meanwhile, Germany will also be implementing strict coronavirus regulations for the holidays. Restaurants and bars have already been shuttered in the country since last month, but officials now say nonessential shops and in-person classes must also close for nearly four weeks. Germany is restricting the number of people allowed at social gatherings over the holidays with a maximum of five people from no more than two households allowed to gather in a single home. As in the Netherlands, this will be relaxed slightly for three days over Christmas. German Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference Tuesday that federal and state officials have struggled to maintain a balance between public safety and economic and social interests but that, "in view of the numbers, this balance could no longer be maintained." "All of this will impact our holiday season, as we are all aware," German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged on Sunday when she unveiled the new lockdown. "But we must act, and we will act." | 0 |
###CLAIM: a day earlier, mcconnell acknowledged the british victory tuesday after the electors who cast their votes in the 232-vote election formally confirmed him with 306 votes.
###DOCS: The former reality TV performer who is now president of the United States needs to face reality: his show has been canceled by the American people after four chaotic seasons. Every election has one winner and one or more losers, and the Electoral College made it official Monday: former Vice President Joe Biden is the winner of the Nov. 3 presidential election and President Trump is the loser. Biden is now indisputably president-elect and will become president at noon Jan. 20. He received 306 electoral votes, far more than the 270 needed to become our next president. Trump received only 232 electoral votes. JOHN FUND: TRUMP'S LEGACY -- WILL PRESIDENT BE REMEMBERED AS A TRANSFORMER OR A TORNADO? On top of that, Biden won the popular vote in a landslide, capturing almost 81.3 million votes (more than any presidential candidate in U.S. history) to 74.2 million for Trump. And no, Bidens victory was not the result of fraud, as Trump falsely claims. Christopher Krebs, the Republican appointed by Trump to head the federal agency overseeing election security, issued a statement Nov. 12 with state and local election officials calling the election the most secure in American history. Trump fired Krebs Nov. 17 for telling the truth. Even Attorney General William Barr said Dec. 1 that the Justice Department hasnt found voting fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election. Trump tweeted Monday night that Barr will leave his post as attorney general Dec. 23. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., acknowledge the obvious Tuesday when he said on the Senate floor: The Electoral College has spoken, so today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.Look, we all know that no one likes to lose. But no matter how upset Trump is, no matter how much nonsense he tweets, no matter how many people he fires, and no matter how many frivolous lawsuits he files, he is headed out the door. His defeat will bring a welcome end to a disastrous presidency that waged war on the Constitution, our right to vote, freedom of the press, many other fundamental American rights, and the truth itself. The results of the Electoral College vote shouldnt be a surprise to anyone. Joe Biden represents the best of America, has advanced moderate and effective policies, and has decades of government experience. He is a uniter, not a divider like Trump. He bases decisions on facts, and will take the job of being president seriously. Biden rose from modest means, got knocked down again and again in personal tragedies and in failed presidential campaigns, but kept getting up and moving forward. He takes responsibility for past mistakes and doesnt lash out at opponents with hatred and lies. Quite a change from Trump. Beyond his overwhelming vote tally, Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California who will become the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian ancestry to serve as vice president on Jan. 20 - created a winning coalition underpinned by Black women. This successful partnership has broad support among people of color, White college-educated women and men, and working families. The Biden-Harris ticket drew strong support from voters who rejected the lies, misinformation, and mismanagement of President Trump. They voted for Biden despite his imperfections because he acknowledged their pain and represented a potential return to normalcy. For more than six weeks, the American people have witnessed a desperate president try to hold onto power by any means necessary. Sadly, far too many elected officials in the Republican Party have decided to join him on this dead-end train. These leaders, the president, and his supporters have been relentless in their attempts to disparage our voting system, along with our democracy and the brave Americans who work every day to protect it. Now what should surprise and encourage us is the growing number of former Trump allies and Republican leaders willing to finally stand up for their party, the country and the facts. These leaders, including McConnell, have decided to accept the results of this election because they know that we must be humbled by the power of the American voter and respect the peaceful transfer of power no matter what our party. These leaders have a keen sense of what it means to be an American. For more than six weeks, the American people have witnessed a desperate president try to hold onto power by any means necessary. Regrettably for Trump, his presidency and legacy will include his unwillingness to acknowledge the will and power of the American people. His unprecedented refusal to accept his election loss is a disservice to himself, his family, his party, his supporters, and our country. Trump is the nightmare our Founding Fathers feared. Thankfully, they approved a Constitution with firm protections for our democracy that have prevented anyone from seizing power in defiance of voters. Trump's willingness to cast doubt on our election system and call it fraudulent simply because he lost the election has resulted in millions of Americans losing faith in our democracy and its ability to bring us together. This disgraceful behavior will go down in history as a permanent stain on Trumps record in office. As sad as Trump's behavior is, we as a nation must turn the page and start to move forward to write a new chapter of American history. The vote by the Electoral College takes us one step closer. Lets face it, this new chapter has great challenges. Not only are we struggling with the worst of COVID-19, which is now killing more than 3,000 Americans a day. We are also dealing with all that is left in the wake of this horrific pandemic: a broken economy, a divided nation and rampant racial animus. Trump will get praise for early investment in a coronavirus vaccine development and a distribution plan labeled "Operation Warp Speed." To his credit, Americans began getting vaccinated Monday. But Trump admitted downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed over 300,000 Americans. And he has held numerous campaign and White House events that ignored social distancing and mask guidelines issued by his own administration, and seldom wore a mask himself even after recovering from his own hospitalization with COVID-19. The incoming Biden administration will have the task of distributing coronavirus vaccines to every American who wants to be inoculated, and will have to convince the vast majority of us that the vaccines are safe the effective. And the Biden-Harris team will also have to untangle the web of misinformation, denialism and bad policy that has caused record-setting daily COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR OPINION NEWSLETTERIn addition, during his presidency Biden will be tasked with rebuilding the economy a major coronavirus victim. The pandemic has preyed particularly hard on the economically vulnerable, who work in jobs that cant be done sitting at home in front of a computer. People who work in restaurants, supermarkets, food-processing plants, factories and retail stores have borne a disproportionate share of infections and job losses due to the pandemic. And people of color are disproportionately represented among these groups. With more small businesses shutting their doors and evictions at an all-time high, COVID-19 has knocked millions of Americans off their feet. It will be left to Biden and the new Congress to help them and, in doing so, uplift our economy. To some, Biden will be seen as an illegitimate president. Those individuals, usually the loudest voices in the room, represent the minority in this country. President-elect Biden has committed to building a government that looks and feels like America. If he holds to that, he has an opportunity to make this country better. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThrough good governance, Biden can work with local public health agencies to eradicate the deadly coronavirus and rebuild our economy. Through good management, he can restore faith in democracy. Most importantly, the partisan bickering can end, and Americans can begin the hard work of overcoming the divisions that misguided leaders have used to polarize us. No one can force President Trump to ever accept defeat and admit that Biden won fair and square, even though every other losing presidential candidate in American history has conceded and called on supporters to back the newly elected president. But Trump should swallow his pride and do so, if he wants to live up to his own slogan: America First. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM RICHARD FOWLER | 1 |
###CLAIM: jacqui credited her divorce with inspiring her to do something totally out of the comfort zone by competing in strictly come dancing, and saturday she danced a samba with anton and du and beke to prepare for the competition.
###DOCS: Jacqui Smith has revealed she's been going on Zoom dates with her new boyfriend after finding love again following her split from husband Richard Timney. The former Home Secretary, 57, told the Loose Women panel that following the end of her 'long, happy' marriage in January the dates are the first she's had in 33 years, and compared the experience to 'old-fashioned courting.' Jacqui also credited her divorce with inspiring her to 'do something totally out of her comfort zone' by competing on Strictly Come Dancing, as she prepares to dance the Samba with pro Anton Du Beke on Saturday. New man? Jacqui Smith, 57, has revealed she's been going on Zoom dates with her new boyfriend after finding love again following her split from husband Richard TimneyDiscussing her new relationship, Jacqui said: 'Well first of all when you've been in a breakup of a long-term relationship you think you won't find anyone else. 'It's been 33 years since I last went dating, it's all online so you just have to go for it... I'm zooming with my new partner and in some ways it's like old fashioned courting, let's say.' Asked whether the end of her marriage pushed to try something new and sign up for Strictly, the politician added: 'It was terrifying to be in the chamber of the house of commons but I was in my comfort zone. 'I'm in my late 50s, I've had some professional changes, some personal changes, my long happy marriage has come to an end... I wanted to do something totally out of my comfort zone.' Over: The politician split from her husband Richard Timnay in January after 33 years of marriage, and Jacqui revealed last week that she's finally dating someone newStar guest: Jacqui briefly discussed her new romance during an appearance on the Loose Women panelJacqui also revealed that she would be dancing the samba during the second Strictly live show on Saturday with Anton, after finishing bottom of the leaderboard with her debut dance last week. She said: 'Two weeks ago, even on the launch show I only had two or three hours practised... by the time I got to this dance I had six or seven days progress. 'So hopefully this weekend you'll see more progress with my samba. hopefully there will be more wiggling.' Last week Jacqui revealed she'd been dating someone new, as she brushed off any claims she'd be a victim of the so-called 'Strictly curse.' She told The Guardian: 'I won't have it said that Anton is not gorgeous. But he is happily married and I am in a newish, but lovely, relationship. Trust us, there will be no Strictly curse.' Exciting: The broadcaster credited the end of her marriage with inspiring her to take part in Strictly Come Dancing (pictured with her professional partner Anton Du Beke)She also revealed she had tried out online dating but was not sold, as she went on: 'I don't think it's that easy for anybody to meet a new partner after being, in my case, happily married for 30 years...'I don't like to be a dinosaur so, yes, I did do some online dating and met some very lovely people. I haven't had that many dates, but they had all worked out who I was before I met them.' The broadcaster's marriage was thrust into the spotlight under the haze of controversy when she and Richard were embroiled in the aforementioned expenses scandal. Explanation: Discussing her new relationship, Jacqui said: 'I'm zooming with my new partner and in some ways it's like old fashioned courting, let's say'Jacqui, the first female ever to hold the Home Secretary position, apologised to parliament after wrongly claiming 116,000 in second home allowances in 2009 and then lost her Redditch seat in an election a year later. In 2009, Jacqui and her husband, who she employed as her aide on a 40k annual salary, claimed parliamentary expenses from a Virgin media package for two porn films watched by her husband, at a cost of 5 each. They also claimed for the Ocean's 13 at 3.75, and 3.50 for Surf's Up. Richard told reporters at the time: 'I am really sorry for any embarrassment I have caused Jacqui. I can fully understand why people might be angry and offended by this. 'Quite obviously a claim should never have been made for these films, and as you know that money is being paid back.' Drama: Jacqui's husband became ignominiously embroiled in the 2009 expenses scandal after it emerged he had claimed money for watching two adult films (pictured in 1997)Jacqui told The Guardian in 2009: 'It didn't happen a lot, but I was much more angry with him about the fact that we had not, between us, properly checked the expense claim than I was about the film. 'I think porn is wrong because of my feminist background, and I would argue with him about it, but it was as wrong for us to claim for Surf's Up and Oceans 13 as it was for us to claim for porn.' Jacqui said she had 'mistakenly' submitted the expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including the two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency. The 67 bill was submitted as part of Ms Smith's expenses. Ms Smith said: 'I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it. 'As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation. All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full. Exciting: During her appearance on Loose Women Jacqui also revealed that she and Anton would be dancing the Samba during Saturday's live showThe mother-of-two, now a broadcaster, later paid back the money. At the time, she said: 'I'm enormously sad our 33-year partnership has come to an end but I'll always be grateful to Richard for the love, family and career we share.' Jacqui, a former economics teacher, entered Parliament as MP for Redditch in 1997 when she was 34 after winning the former Tory stronghold. One of the original 'Blair Babes', she had already been married to Richard, whom she met at teacher training college, for ten years. By then he was a civil engineer but he gave up his job to bring up their son James when she became an MP. Second son Michael was only a year old when Jacqui, who has kept her maiden name, entered Government as a junior education minister in 1999. After the 2005 election she became Schools Minister before entering the Cabinet as Chief Whip in 2006. Described by friends as 'tough as old boots', she has hung on to the post of Home Secretary for two years. Meanwhile, her ex-husband, apart from looking after their children, was employed by his wife as her Parliamentary assistant, for which he was paid 40,000 a year. Since her career in politics ended, Jacqui has rebranded herself as a TV personality, appearing as a pundit on a variety of current affairs talk shows. Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV. | 0 |
###CLAIM: opinions: californians pay 3. 88 dollars a gallon, the highest rate in the country according to the american automobile manufacturers association.
###DOCS: New York CNN Business Travel-starved Americans emerging from lockdown may need to budget for $3-a-gallon gasoline on their next road trip. Prices at the pump are on the rise, driven higher by oil prices hitting $60 per barrel, a surge of economic optimism, restraint from US frackers and unprecedented production cuts by OPEC and Russia. The energy rally has been further boosted by predictions on Wall Street of a new oil supercycle.The national average price of gasoline has climbed 47 straight days to nearly $2.89 per gallon, according to AAA. US drivers havent experienced a $3 average price per gallon since 2014, though it came close in 2018 and 2019. $3 gas will be the norm by Memorial Day, said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. Weve been trapped inside for a year. People want to get out of the house.Some states are already dealing with $3 gas, including Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. The pain at the pump could cause political problems for the White House. President Joe Biden took swift action this winter to respond to the climate crisis by cracking down on the fossil fuels industry. That has led some critics to try to pin the blame for higher gas prices on Biden even though energy industry insiders say the increase really is not about federal policy. Make no mistake, prices would have gone up no matter who was in the White House, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. This is more about economic recovery.Goldman Sachs: $80 crude is coming this summerAfter getting crushed by Covid in 2020, the oil market has been one of the biggest winners of the reopening surge on Wall Street. US crude hit a pandemic high of $66.09 a barrel on March 5, an incredible rebound from the April 2020 low of negative $37 a barrel. OPEC and Russia gave the oil rally a turbo boost earlier this month, shocking the market with a decision to extend their dramatic production cuts for at least another month. The V-shaped recovery in the oil sector did run into trouble last week. US crude tumbled 6% to $61.42 a barrel on worries over the rocky rollout of vaccines in Europe. But Goldman Sachs is predicting the oil rally will return as demand accelerates. The investment bank expects Brent crude, the world benchmark, to rise from just $65 today to $80 by the summer. We view the recent sell-off as a transient pullback in an otherwise large oil price rally and a buying opportunity, Damien Courvalin, Goldmans head of energy research, wrote in a report to clients last week. Rising demand, subdued supplyDe Haan is taken aback by how quickly gasoline demand is returning to levels last seen just before the pandemic erupted. Based on GasBuddy data on gasoline purchases, weekly US demand during the week ending March 20 stood roughly 1% above the week ending March 14, 2020. Searches for driving directions in the United States have also recovered above January 2020 levels, according to mobility trends published by Apple. By contrast, similar searches in Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy remain well below January 2020 levels. There is a little more cabin fever this spring, De Haan said. The overwhelming odds are that we will at some point see the national average touch the $3 mark.Beyond the desire to take road trips, the energy market is being helped by subdued US supply. The pandemic dealt a crushing blow to the US oil boom, with frackers drastically cutting production to stay alive. Even with US crude above $60 a barrel, the nation is only producing about 10.9 million barrels of oil per day, according to estimates from the federal government. Thats down by a staggering 2.2 million daily barrels from the same period in 2020. Of course, that also means US producers have the ability to pump a lot more if prices get too high. The Keystone Pipeline debateTom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, doesnt think the national average will hit $3 a gallon this year because of high unemployment, remote work and reduced travel to major sporting and entertainment events. Regardless, higher gas prices will feed the narrative that Bidens energy policies will hit US consumers in the wallet. On the campaign trail, Biden had to repeatedly deny claims from his opponent that he would ban fracking. But Biden did move quickly to address the climate crisis. On his first day in office, he rescinded the Keystone XL Pipeline, placed a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic and moved to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change. In late January, Biden also imposed a 60-day suspension of new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits on federal lands unless the Interior Departments leaders approve them. Critically, that policy only applied to new leases and permits, not existing ones. Much to the dismay of climate activists, the Interior Department said earlier this month that the 60-day suspension will not be renewed. Still, energy analysts rejected the notion that Bidens tough stance on fossil fuels is lifting gasoline prices, at least so far. Some blame is being laid on Biden and the Keystone Pipeline but that has absolutely nothing to do with the price of crude or gasoline this year, Kloza said. $4 gas could speed up the EV boomOf course, if Biden does take action to severely constrain US production, that could eventually lead to higher oil prices down the line. Prices are probably not at the level yet where they would eat into demand by causing drivers to cancel road trips. And its not clear what that tipping point would be given the excitement about reopening after the pandemic. $3 gas isnt going to scare anyone away, said De Haan. People are not going to hold back this summer. They are finally starting to feel better.Bigger picture, the oil industry doesnt want to see prices spike too high because that would only accelerate the shift to electric vehicles. You dont want to go there, said Mizuhos Yawger. You will kill the golden goose. | 0 |
###CLAIM: in the world of campaign financing after citizens and united, donations have a new option to fund expenditures: the burden of constraints on formal parties.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareAs Biden voters celebrated in the streets this past weekend, Democratic politicians began to fight among themselves. Although they won the presidency, Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to flip a single state legislative chamber. What went wrong in down-ballot races? Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight That was the subject when House Democrats held a three-hour post-mortem conference call last week. Agitated moderates argued that Republicans easily aimed debilitating attacks at left-leaning positions on defunding the police, Medicare-for-all and socialism. Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.) warned that the party should tone it down to win the Georgia runoffs and take control of the Senate. From the left, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) responded by arguing that the problem was operational, not ideological. The party in and of itself does not have the core competencies needed to run campaigns, she insisted in an interview. She argued that too many campaigns, following the lead of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), failed to build a strong online presence or to invest aggressively in volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote drives, and person-to-person persuasion. AdvertisementThese intraparty conflicts are rooted in the partys relationships to social movements, and will continue. But our research suggests Ocasio-Cortez put her finger on a crucial difficulty for Democrats. They have historically been ambivalent about what political scientists call party building creating lasting organizational structures that would allow partisans to organize. Past Democratic presidents including Barack Obama have let grass-roots Democrats energy and activism dissipate when they came to power. Now we are going to see if this pattern reasserts itself when a new president prepares to take office. American political parties have been hollowed outAs Americans have polarized, both the Democratic and Republican parties have become ever more central to politics. However, they have simultaneously lost their capacity to organize an effective collective response to social challenges. Democrats in particular have historically paid sporadic and superficial attention to the mechanics of voter engagement and organizational investment. In consequence, the party has become hollow top-heavy at the national level, weak at the state and local levels, and lacking a rooted, tangible presence in the lives of voters and engaged activists alike. AdvertisementHow did that happen? Political parties suffered particularly from the atrophy of civic life in the later 20th century. Patronage-oriented political machines and volunteer-led, issue-oriented party clubs alike fell on hard times. Their successors have found it far harder to build party institutions rooted in local communities. Todays polarized parties are less organizations than they are networks, relying on a bevy of blob-like outside entities. These include issue groups, media and consultants. They are linked to the parties but not formally part of them, and they are all looking for a share of the money sloshing through the system. In the new, post-Citizens United world of campaign finance, megadonors have increasingly opted to fund independent expenditures unencumbered by the rules that constrain formal parties. The super PAC counterpart to the DCCC, for example, is the House Majority PAC, which made significant independent expenditures and performed other party-like functions outside the formal party structure, with overall electoral results that still disappointed. Democratic presidents have hurt their parties, not helped themIf any individual can bring order to these unwieldy components, it is the president. Yet paradoxically, the Democratic Party has suffered the most under Democratic presidents. Republican presidents going back to Eisenhower have systematically invested in their partys organizational capacities at the national, state and local levels: funding local party-building initiatives, assiduously recruiting activists, volunteers, and candidates, teaching campaign techniques, and launching fundraising systems. Democratic presidents, in contrast, have repeatedly emphasized enacting policies over party-building. AdvertisementAs Ocasio-Cortez correctly pointed out, Obama failed to sustain the momentum of his groundbreaking 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He diverted the best talent, data, and analytics into Organizing for America, an outside 501(c)(4) group legally prohibited from coordinating with the Democratic Party. The Democratic National Committee (DNC), for its part, abandoned Howard Deans much-admired 50-state strategy. When Hillary Clinton inherited the DNC in 2016, she found it on the verge of insolvency, riddled with bad data and riven with internal strife. Before leaving office, Obama acknowledged he failed as a party-builder: We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.Things are changing a littleThere are some signs of revival. In Nevada, former senator Harry M. Reid professionalized and grew the state party as the central institution in the states Democratic politics. The Nevada partys large permanent staff includes full-time positions in areas like field work and opposition research. That enables party leaders to operate with longer time horizons than the next Election Day and to avoid the coordination problems endemic to party networks. Nationwide, meanwhile, the Trump-era Resistance has revitalized civic engagement. Those outraged by Trumps election a group dominated demographically by middle-aged-and-older college-educated White women have turned sleepy Democratic county offices across the country into hotbeds of activity. Yet this has limits. Yes, Joe Biden prevailed in Nevada despite weakness among Hispanic voters nationwide, and Resistance activists succeeded in getting Democrats elected from the suburbs. But Democrats failed to expand their victories beyond the high-water mark of 2018. Nor did they win down-ballot elections, from state legislative seats to the Senate, which activists had been working for years achieve. Biden ran ahead of House Democrats. AdvertisementIn other words, activists multiyear mobilization never fully made the leap from anti-Trump campaign to full-scale party endeavor. The more Democratic factions squabble, the less they will cooperate on party-building. Yet Democrats face a daunting core challenge in winning majorities: Their supporters skew urban in a political system that advantages rural voters. As politics becomes nationalized, it is ever harder for state and local parties to separate themselves from the partys overall brand. We are about to discover whether the incoming president the person best positioned to rebuild a party from top to bottom will devote the attention and resources that party building would require. Correction: An earlier version of this article asserted that the 2020 electionefforts of the House Majority PAC, led this cycle by Hillary Clintonsformer campaign manager, Robby Mook, seemingly had little electoraleffect. Because no research data is available to evaluate the effortsof Mook or the House Majority PAC, that assertion has been removed andthe story has been updated. AdvertisementDaniel J. Galvin (@Daniel_J_Galvin) is associate professor of political science and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and author of Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Princeton University Press, 2010). Daniel Schlozman (@daschloz) is Joseph and Bertha Bernstein Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and author of When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (Princeton University Press, 2015). Sam Rosenfeld (@sam_rosenfeld) is assistant professor of political science at Colgate University and author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (University of Chicago Press, 2018). GiftOutline Gift Article | 0 |
###CLAIM: shiflett was removed from the home on an outstanding theft warrant and taken to york county jail.
###DOCS: Not all heroes at Disney World wear costumes. A vigilant Disney World ticket saleswoman helped a Pennsylvania woman escape her abusive partner by directing law enforcement to her home after a troubling phone call, according to Harrisburg affiliate FOX43. The woman called the theme park under the pretense of booking tickets, then signaled to the employee on the phone that she was in danger. During the course of the Jan. 9 call, the worker heard the woman telling someone to get off me and get away, the local station reports. The Disney worker started asking the victim discreet yes-or-no questions to determine the nature of the situation. She first asked if the woman was actually calling to book a trip, to which the caller responded, No.The worker followed up by asking the woman if someone was hurting her and she needed police sent to her home. The caller answered, Yes, according to FOX43. Wayne Terry Shiflett was arrested on charges of strangulation, terrorist threats, harassment and aggravated assault. Northern York County Regional PoliceThe Disney employee called the cops, who responded to the Dover, Pa., home and arrested Wayne Terry Shiflett, 38, on charges of strangulation, terrorist threats, harassment and aggravated assault. The victim told officers Shiflett had grabbed her throat, choked her and threatened to kill her, and she displayed visible signs of the attack, according to the report. It was the third time Shiflett had allegedly beaten up the woman, who reportedly told police she was scared for her life. The suspect was apparently enraged when the abused woman told him that his gig as a fire extinguisher salesman was not a real job, the report said. Shiflett, who also had an outstanding warrant for theft, was removed from the home and taken to York County Jail. | 0 |
###CLAIM: her disease, her steadfastness even as history abandoned her, obliterated this journey, her love for her father who left, her child-raising, and the joy and strife that life brought her after years of separation.
###DOCS: Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati has revealed how her mother's dementia battle would 'unlock files of her past' and helped her see her mum 'as a woman'. Actress Shobna, 53, from Oldham, appeared on Lorraine today, where she opened up about her mother Asha, who passed away in November 2019 after being diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 2017. She has since penned book Remember Me? which will detail her mother's battle with the illness, and told how while caring for her mother towards the end of her life, she would discover 'different things' she never knew about her mother. Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati says her late mother's dementia battle would 'unlock files of her past' and helped her see her mum 'as a woman'. Pictured, Shobna with her mother AshaFormer soap star Shobna, 53, from Oldham, appeared on Lorraine today, where she opened up about her mother Asha, who passed away in November 2019'It's really interesting,' she said. 'Once you're sitting in a room with someone with dementia they remember different things that perhaps you didnt know as people. 'Instead of seeing your mum, you see a woman and I was fascinated. It was as if she was unlocking file of her past. They don't tell you everything, they just give you random moments.' The actress played Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street between 2001 and 2006, returning to the popular role between 2009 and 2013. Shobna had named her on-screen daughter, played by Tanisha Gorey, after her mother, and told that it was a 'happy coincidence' that would eventually spark a memory to her mother. She has since penned book Remember Me? which will detail her mother's battle with the illness. Pictured, Shobna as a child with her mother AshaShobna had named her on-screen daughter, played by Tanisha Gorey (pictured) , after her mother, and told that it was a 'happy coincidence' that would eventually bring back a memory to her mother'We would watch television when I was caring for her', she told, 'And she would recognise Asha and I would talk [to her] about naming my TV daughter after her and it helped. 'Mum was diagnosed in 2017 and it was sort of a happy coincidence that helped my mum remember, I was gifted that memory.' Shobna insisted she feels 'really lucky' to have discovered so much about her mother, and found comfort in 're-imagining her' following her death. 'I was really lucky to sort of discover her', said Shobna, 'And she died in November in the loss and the grief of losing her, I found a lot of comfort in re-imagining her and filing in all the gaps, because you don't really see your parents as people.' Shobna told host Lorraine Kelly (pictured) she feels 'really lucky' to have discovered so much about her mother, and found comfort in 're-imagining her' following her deathShe added that her mother would collect 'everything' printed in the press about her daughter''She collected all my press cuttings and she would always collect everything for her three children,' she explained. 'But she collected everything - even thumbnails in cross words if I happened to be a clue.' Last year the actress revealed her mum had lost her fight with the degenerative disease and had died 'peacefully in her sleep'. She said via Instagram she was 'completely heartbroken' and 'still processing' the devastating news, and she struggles to live without her 'amazing' mother. 'Our beautiful mum': Sharing a throwback snap of her mother to Instagram on , the former Coronation Street star paid tribute to the 'lynchpin' of her family'Life is different': Admitting that her life is 'now changed', the actress went on to reveal that she was 'completely heartbroken' and 'still processing' the devastating newsIn her heartbreaking caption, Shobna wrote: 'Our beautiful mum passed away, a few weeks ago, peacefully in her sleep. Still processing, these days are hard. She was our lynchpin connecting us as a family. 'Our lives are changed and life is very different now. She did her very best and in the last 25 years I grew to know her as a person and the amazing woman that was our mum, and for that circumstance and time I am truly grateful. 'She taught me such a lot ... but not how to live without her. Completely heartbroken.' | 0 |
###CLAIM: the points are sold for freezing treatment to ensure that the chocolate cracks and crumbles exactly the same as on the bottom of a cornetto.
###DOCS: Chocolate fans in no doubt that the bottom of the Cornetto cone is the best part of the ice cream favourite are in for a treat - you can now buy just the tip on its own. Food giant Wall's has started selling the wafer and chocolate treats - which have been increased in size to a more sizeable 7cm - after listening to consumers telling them how much they loved the tips. Currently on sale in Tesco, in-store and online, a box of Cornetto Tips will set you back 3 for five. Although there's no actual ice cream in the product, the tips are being sold as a frozen treat - to ensure that the chocolate cracks and crumbles in exactly the same way that it does at the bottom of the Cornetto. Scroll down for videoIce cream giant Walls has answered calls for the 'best bit' of Cornettos to be made into their own snack - and is selling boxes of five tips for 3There were plenty of complaints on social media about the price - 60 pence each - but that's perhaps before shoppers realised the product had been upscaled to a full-size snack, measuring around 7cm. Walls has long since responded to requests from ice cream lovers about novel ways to reinvent an old favourite, with vegan, mini and even Unicornettos all surfacing in recent years. The company has been promoting the chocolate-filled tips, which are full-sized treats and are found in the freezer section at TescoWhether the tips are here to stay remains to be seen. Instagram food critic Kev's Snack Reviews was left largely unimpressed by the treat though, writing: 'I can confirm these are a bit of a rip-off, and really not that amazing. He continued: 'These have no ice cream, just solid compound chocolate (not even real chocolate!) and crunchy wafer, which is fun but the excitement wears off. Also why do they need to be in the freezer section?' | 0 |
###CLAIM: trump laid the groundwork to undermine trust in the electoral process with false and unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
###DOCS: President Donald Trump has made few public appearances since falsely declaring he won the election several hours after the polls closed. Behind the scenes, Trump has been shoring up Republican support for his refusal to concede and doubling down on launching dubious legal challenges to the results. Hes employed government bodies to bolster the effort, and is raising money to build a new war chest that would let him direct funds to Republicans he wants to support going forward. A person who speaks to Trump frequently said he believes Trumps fight, as disruptive as it is, is a way for him to posture for what comes next. If Trump doesnt prevail in his legal challenges and leaves office, as many aides are anticipating, Trump can use a new leadership political action committee (leadership PAC) to fund candidates of his choosing and potentially pay for political travel and events he might want to do after leaving officeor launch a 2024 presidential campaign, says the person close to Trump. In addition to fundraising with an eye toward staying politically relevant after leaving office, some current and former aides believe Trump could try to launch himself back into the media world, either through a broadcasting deal with a news outlet or bringing investors together to start his own media company. So far, Trump hasnt made overt approaches to his Fox News allies like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham about working together on building a media company, the person said, because Trump is still in fight mode, and any whiff of him making moves in that direction would indicate he had given up. After his initial ratings success at the Apprentice, Trump has privately floated the idea to friends of building his own media enterprise for years, a concept people around him refer to as Trump TV. Brad Parscale, Trumps former campaign manager who was fired in July, spent more than four years working closely with Trump and his family members, particularly Eric Trump and Jared Kushner. He believes that if Trump ends up leaving the White House, he wont exit the public eye. He can literally do anything he wants, Parscale says. Hes loved by millions of people.In the meantime, his campaigns email and text message spam lists have been going full bore to raising money to pay off the more than $1.2 million in campaign debts that was already on the books three weeks before Election Day. That debt likely ballooned in the final weeks of the campaign as Trumps fundraising haul trailed Bidens and his campaign tried to fend off being swamped by Biden television ads, says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. In addition, Luntz adds, he needs money to fight these court cases.In the 48 hours after Biden was projected to have won the presidency, the Trump campaign sent more than 53 versions of emails to supporters asking them to donate to his legal defense fund. One of the websites the fundraising emails link to, set up by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, notes at the bottom that 40% of the donations made through the site will go to the Republican National Committee and the rest will go towards Trumps campaign debt. On Tuesday the disclosures in some Trump fundraising emails said that as much as 60% raised would go to Save America, a new leadership PAC set up to support Trump. The fundraising emails seem to have been hastily put together, wavering between cajoling and bullying supporters into chipping in. Some tried to appeal gently to supporters with subject lines like Everything weve worked for and Weve come so far. Another took a different tack, warning: This is your FINAL NOTICE. So far, youve ignored all our emails asking you to join us in DEFENDING THE ELECTION. Youve ignored Team Trump, Eric, Lara, Don, the Vice President AND youve even ignored the President of the United States.During a conference call with high-profile supporters on Saturday, Trumps campaign manager Bill Stepien said he was getting a lot of calls asking how people can help. One way to help, Stepien said, was to contribute to the legal defense fund. You can go to donaldtrump.com and make sure the funds are available. You can certainly do that. This is not a fundraising solicitation, but it is an avenue to help, he said. Stepien also gave out a phone number he called a hotline for reporting instances of election fraud, and told the people on the call to stand at the ready because we may need your help at protests.Trumps active undermining of the election results has real world consequences. His head of the General Services Administration has failed to allow Bidens transition teams to enter agencies to prepare for taking over on Jan. 20, and his Attorney General William Barr told prosecutors to investigate allegations of voting irregularities before results are certified, ignoring 40 years of precedent to not interfere during an election and prompting the departments top elections prosecutor to resign. Hes lined up GOP politicians in Georgia to back his claims, even though their own elections rest on the integrity of those results. Trump has been laying groundwork for months to undermine trust in the electoral process with false and unfounded claims about wide-spread voter fraud, and there are concerns that a large number of Republicans may never believe the outcome. Seventy percent of Republicans dont believe the election was free and fair, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. Republican pollster Luntz argues that allowing the legal challenges and the counts to play out could eventually help allay concerns among some Republican voters that the election wasnt fair. Theyre not going to find anything. He lost. Just let the process work, Luntz says. Trump was at his golf club in Virginia on Saturday, the day AP projected he had lost to Biden, and Trump returned to the links on Sunday, during an unseasonably warm November day. At the golf club, the person familiar with his mood on Sunday said, he was very calm, very calm, no panic, no stress.With reporting by Alana Abramson and Vera BergengruenContact us at [email protected]. | 0 |
###CLAIM: in june 2020, a u. s. air force sergeant was arrested in the shooting death of a federal protective services officer and a sheriff's deputy.
###DOCS: A group that has been planning since November to have armed rallies in Washington, D.C., as well as state capitols, intends to carry out its events Sunday, despite an unprecedented effort to secure the Capitol. In the days since supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in a violent riot that left five dead, officials have installed a massive security apparatus around the complex, where President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20. The FBI warned law enforcement this week about a group calling for its supporters to come to Washington, D.C., and state capitols armed at their "personal discretion." That particular call for armed protesters dates back to a November 24 posting on a website called Tree of Liberty, an online forum for members of the extremist anti-government Boogaloo movement. The online flyer posted that day noted that the "Armed march on Capitol Hill and all state capitols" was planned for January 17 and was intended to be peaceful, but encouraged participants to "come armed at your personal discretion." In a follow-up posted four days after rioters breached the Capitol including some who prosecutors now say were intent on harming the Vice-President and other elected officials the group wrote that its protest was in "pending status given the events that have taken place." But in an email to CBS News Friday, an administrator for the website wrote that the group now intends to carry on as planned. CBS News had reached out to an email address listed on the Tree of Liberty website as being the group's press contact. "The 1/17 events will continue, and safeguards are in place to assure that nothing violent happens concerning the Boogaloo Boys. I cannot speak on behalf of the Proud Boys or MAGA people, and we made it clear that we'd rather not see them there," the press contact, who did not identify themselves, said. The Proud Boys are another group of far right supporters of President Trump. The Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group, describes the Boogaloo movement's ideology as "primarily anti-government, anti-authority and anti-police in nature." Since 2019, members of the group have participated in "rallies around gun rights, pandemic restrictions and police-related killings," according to the ADL. The Justice Department described the Boogaloo movement as a "loosely-connected group of individuals who espouse violent anti-government sentiments" in a December 16, 2020 press release announcing that a Boogaloo member had entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to provide material support to Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Another member of the group has been charged in that case and entered a not guilty plea. In June 2020, a U.S. Air Force Sergeant was arrested for the shooting deaths of a Federal Protective Services officer and a Santa Cruz, California sheriff's deputy. When he was arrested, investigators discovered slogans written in his own blood that linked him to the Boogaloo movement, according to a federal complaint. In the days before the inauguration, about 25,000 troops will be stationed in and around the Capitol, alongside patrols by the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the Capitol Police and law enforcement from cities around the country. In far right chats and forums on Telegram, MeWe and Discord all popular platforms for both open and invite-only extremist discussion users have warned each other against participation in the January 17 protests. Many have accused organizers of helping federal officials stage a "trap." The Tree of Liberty administrator said the group has in fact been in touch with federal law enforcement, despite its anti-government ideology. "We have made it very clear that we are working with authorities to pick out anybody who has plans to do anything violent and ensure that they are intervened with before the event," they said. "Don't get me wrong, if I had the choice, I'd not want to be involved with Law Enforcement. I no longer have that option. I was doxxed, and now I either comply or I go to prison," they said. "Doxxed" refers to a practice in which a person's private or personal identifying information is published on the internet by strangers in an attempt to encourage harassment. The FBI declined to respond to questions about the claim that its investigators have been in contact with Tree of Liberty. A company that hosted servers for the Tree of Liberty website shuttered it Wednesday. Those who try to visit the site are now automatically forwarded to a YouTube page that plays a music video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." Image An armed demonstrator standing outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin on Sunday. Credit... Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe atmosphere was tense in Washington, D.C., and at statehouses across the country on Sunday, as several armed groups arrived at state capitols, where military vehicles and police barricades lined the streets and officials braced for pro-Trump protests that they feared could lead to violence. While some armed protesters arrived at state capitol buildings in Ohio, Texas, Oregon and Michigan, the grounds of statehouses across the country were largely quiet on Sunday, even as many states had fortified the buildings with an influx of National Guard troops. Still, officials were readying for the potential of violent protests in the coming days leading up to the presidential inauguration on Wednesday after the F.B.I. warned that armed protesters could target capital cities across the country. On Sunday, about 25 members of the antigovernment extremist boogaloo movement were among the heavily armed protesters who gathered at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. But the men who are part of a group that hopes a second civil war will lead to the U.S. governments overthrow said they were there for a long-planned gun rights rally that they insisted had nothing to do with President Trump. Henry Locke, 27, of the Ohio chapter of the Boogaloo Boys, said he and other members had planned a unity rally to bring different groups together under the Constitution. Many in his group carried military-style rifles, wore camouflage vests and carried ammunition. Here in Ohio, we advocate for everyones individual liberties equally, Mr. Locke said. A handful of Mr. Trumps supporters did appear at the Ohio rally, as did a group of counterprotesters, but the groups largely milled about peacefully, occasionally trading insults. At least 19 states deployed National Guard troops to their capitols, and several shut down statehouse grounds and delayed legislative sessions in response to the F.B.I. warning. State legislatures and law enforcement officials are boosting security at capitol complexes around the country after the violent insurrection in Washington, D.C., last week and in the face of FBI warnings of armed protests in the coming days. Legislators say they are increasingly anxious about the armed protests, which began last year in response to lockdowns imposed to stem the coronavirus pandemic and are mounting over President Trumps false allegations about election impropriety. Public safety is our first job, and we cannot allow incidents to develop where public safety is threatened, and that includes our staff, said Karen Keiser (D), president pro tempore of the Washington state Senate. Its really heartbreaking to see this, and yet we have to go forward with the business of government.Keiser spoke to The Hill as she looked out her office window at a line of National Guard troops deployed behind a safety fence on the first day of Washingtons legislative session, a week after protesters jumped a fence outside Gov. Jay Inslees (D) residence. Protests this week did not turn violent in Olympia, either because of heightened police presence, a backlash against the insurrection in the nations capital or because of a timely rainstorm. We must have had at least several hundred, I dont know the exact number, law enforcement officers, mostly from the Washington State Patrol, said state Sen. John Braun, the Republican minority leader. I feel very safe.Agencies in other states are also increasing police presences and erecting new safety and security measures. Montanas Capitol complex increased the number of law enforcement officers stationed around the legislature and the governors office. The Wyoming Highway Patrol said it would add officers around the Capitol in Cheyenne. More Alaska State Troopers will be deployed in Juneau, public safety officials said. Texas lawmakers opened their session Tuesday under the watch of a substantially larger number of troops from the Department of Public Safety than usual as a small group of armed protesters gathered outside. Mississippi law enforcement has been preparing safety precautions ahead of expected protests next week in Jackson. I strongly support anyones right to peacefully protest, Gov. Tate Reeves (R) told reporters at a press conference. But I want everyone to understand, in Mississippi we are prepared and we will be prepared.Florida legislative leaders have told staff and even members to avoid the Capitol in Tallahassee in the coming days. In a letter, state Senate President Wilton Simpson (R) asked staff to work from home rather than traveling to the Capitol complex. Lawmakers have been rattled by the increasing number of protesters who show up with long guns, body armor and military fatigues. We get the armed protestors with the machine guns and the 9 millimeters strapped to their legs, and it is scary, said Ohio state Sen. Kenny Yuko, the Democratic minority leader. I will not feel safe until this week passes and we get a better determination of whats going to happen.Heavily armed demonstrators gathered at Kentuckys state Capitol in Frankfort, where they rallied against Gov. Andy Beshear (D) as well as Sens. Mitch McConnell (R) and Rand Paul (R). At least one plot to kidnap and harm an elected official was disrupted last year when federal agents arrested a group of right-wing extremists who planned to attack Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). The dangerous times we find ourselves in thanks to provocations from the outgoing president require that every state take stock in how they are protecting their government, said Michigan state Sen. Jim Ananich (D), the minority leader. Ananich criticized Republicans who voted to ban the practice of openly carrying firearms at the state Capitol but not the carrying of concealed weapons. The tension in legislatures was compounded Sunday, when the FBI warned state law enforcement officials of plans for armed protests in all 50 state capitols and in Washington, D.C., over the coming week. At least 20,000 National Guard troops will be in Washington for President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration. In Ohio, Yuko worried that the insurrection in Washington was a preamble to greater unrest ahead. I have no reason to doubt that theyre capable of doing the same damn things here. Right now they have cover, too, he said in an interview. This type of behavior cannot be tolerated. | 3 |
###CLAIM: now it is known that he and the president will come under pressure and possibly result in criminal charges.
###DOCS: SummaryLaffer says, some people aren`t worth $15 an hour. Koch Org. is pressuring Senator Manchin to oppose Biden. IRS files reveal how wealthiest avoid paying income tax. Biden makes first overseas trip as president. Biden tries to clean up Trump`s foreign policy mess. Biden makes first overseas trip as president. Biden says the United States is back. Republicans in Texas are so triggered by the mere existence of the 1619 Project that on Monday, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that would create the rival 1836 Project, marking the date when Texas gained its independence from Mexico. The U.S. is increasingly unlikely to reach the president`s goal of having 70 percent of American adults partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July. TranscriptARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: So we`re keeping an eye on this but we`re glad the cicadas have not caused any more severe problems. That`s our final thought here on THE BEAT and does that it for us. "THE REIDOUT" with Joy Reid is up next. Hi, Joy. JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: I`m sorry, if I look traumatized, is because you kept saying cicadas and swarm and cicadas and swarm, and I`m terrified of bugs. So I`m traumatized now. Thanks for that. Thanks, Ari. MELBER: Watch out, watch out. REID: OK, bye. Good evening everyone, we begin THE REIDOUT tonight with a very basic question, and a serious question. What does today`s Republican Party actually stand for? Besides voter suppression, the big lie and taking the knee to the orange guy in the diaper, probably. Naturally, if you`re a sentient being you would look back at the past five months and try to take stock of what Republicans have brought to the table. A quick scan shows you that they`re not down for much. They don`t support investigating the January 6 insurrection. They don`t believe in making voting easier. They don`t believe making mass shootings harder to pull off. They don`t believe women should get the same pay as men. They don`t even believe that poor people, and apparently minorities deserve decent wages. Here`s what Art Laffer, a Trump appointee economist, told Fox News. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)ART LAFFER, ECONOMIST: For those people, Sandra, who are coming into the labor force brand fresh, not old timers who have been around for a while, the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven`t the job experience, these aren`t worth $15 an hour in most cases. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Even on infrastructure, Republicans have made it clear that the only way that would happen is if they can make you, the tax payer, cough you have the dough, not wealthy corporations. Can`t detect a pattern yet? Earlier today, Senator John Thune, McConnell`s top deputy, told reporters there is no scenario where even ten Republicans would come together to make infrastructure happen. Here`s the reality. Republicans aren`t serious about working with President Biden on anything. They don`t want to give him the ten votes and the win that Democrats could take it to the next election. McConnell broadcast that last month when he told reporters that his caucus, from Collins to Cruz is, 100 percent focused on blocking the Biden administration. And yet, with only one party that is serious about democracy or governing or anything, why do Democrats keep bellying up to the table in good faith, proposing ideas on how to improve health care, infrastructure, equality and access to voting? At a certain point, shouldn`t it become clear that Republicans love to tease Democrats and the public with a hint of compromise, only to yank it away like Lucy and the football from Charlie Brown? Meanwhile they just run out the clock. How much longer Democrats kind of keep playing along? Joining me now, is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. And, Senator Warren, I am so glad that you are available to be on with us tonight because I have been dying to talk to you. Because you don`t seem like the type of Democrat who is willing to sit around and chitchat with the John Thunes and the Shelly Moore Capitos for like eight months and try to get bipartisanship. You want to get things done. You`re the lady with a plan. Why are Democrats still playing along with this game? SEN. ELIZABETH WAREN (D-MA): So, you know, I see it this way. I think that the president did the right thing. He said, I`m willing to be bipartisan, come in, let`s talk, but not to hold things up. What we`re doing now as Democrats is we`re negotiating out an infrastructure package and we need to make sure that we`re going full speed ahead. Republicans want to join us? Fine. But if they don`t, we don`t slow down for them. We need to move forward. We need to deliver on our promises. And that means now. REID: Well, yes, because also the 2022 election, we can`t lose sight of that, Democrats ran on some stuff and people are expecting it to get done. WARREN: Yes. REID: But if it doesn`t, then they`re like, why do I keep voting for Democrats if they don`t do anything? I do have a challenge, because I`m hearing that. I have to tell you, young folks around me, people that I`m talking to are saying, I`m sick of being told I have to vote. And when Democrats get in, they say I can`t do anything because Mitch won`t let me. Do you see that sense of perception? WARREN: That`s right, this is too hard. Yes, you know, I just -- we can`t stand here and say, this is too hard. No. We have the majority. I know it is a little tiny, skinny, skinny majority, but it is a majority. And that means we need to deliver. We need to deliver on infrastructure. And that means, sure, roads and bridges. It also means mass transit. It also means communications. It also means child care. It means helping women get back into the work force and it means making those jobs that are principally held by women, principally held by women of color, making those care giving jobs, good, dean, dependable, well paying jobs. We need to do that as part of our infrastructure bill. We need to be making the investment in green as part of our infrastructure bill, building a 21st century infrastructure. And, remember, Joy, it`s not just infrastructure. Right now, President Biden this evening could sign a piece of paper and cancel student loan debts for $50,000. He could wipe out all student loan debt for 38 million Americans and substantially cut it for another 5 million Americans. Think what that would mean for people across this country. It`s an economic justice issue and it`s a racial justice issue. We`re Democrats. We ran on getting stuff done, we need to get it done. REID: And that`s the kind of stuff for I think especially a lot of young people, that`s what they voted for and they`re waiting for that stuff to happen. But inside of your own caucus, you do have some members, who I would characterize as chamber of commerce Democrats, right? The chamber of commerce likes them, gives them support. And you`ve got some Koch brothers Democrats. Let`s just keep it real, Joe Manchin is getting a lot of pressure from the Koch organization. They are in league with him in some way. I`m not saying how. But, obviously, he`s got connections to them. Is part of the problem here that the same kind of dark money that S-1 wants to eliminate is also playing a part in some of these Democrats saying, we`re not getting rid of the filibuster, we`re not touching it, we`re not doing voting rights, we`re not doing anything the Koch don`t want? WARREN: Look, dark money has been washing through Washington for decades now and it has just gotten worse. And one of the things we`ve got to do with S-1, and I`m so glad you raised this, is we have to protect the vote that is a key part of S-1. But the second part is we have to be willing to stand up and drive back the corruption. So right now, that`s a big conversation within our caucus. We`re having a lot of talk back and forth. But both pieces need to be strong and we need to go forward on them. I`m hopeful but I`m worried. And more than anything else, I am in this fight. I know it`s been a bad week on this. But when it is a bad week, that means it is time to double down and to get tougher in this fight. We must deliver as Democrats. REID: Well, how do you do that? Because the Kochs have made it clear, there was that audio that was release in January that The New Yorker came out with, and they said, look, you know the idea of getting rid of dark money is popular with Republicans. Well, we can`t argue against this on the merits. We need to kill it. And now you see not just Republicans looking to kill it, you see people like Manchin who was a co-sponsor of S-1. People don`t realize he was a co-sponsor of this bill. Now suddenly he`s on record against it. It makes people wonder whether money is starting to play a part. And by the way, one last thing, off for a win, these are rich folks who don`t pay taxes and they don`t want to ever pay taxes. We just had that big report come out that they pay zero. And they want to keep paying zero. And I worry that people like Manchin and Sinema are helping them. WARREN: Well, we`re not through yet. We`re still in the middle of negotiations around this. And I`m in the fight and there are a lot of Democrats who are in this fight. And we are determined. We`re going to protect the vote and we`re going to roll back the corruption. Those are both key. But, Joy, look, it would be foolish to deny that there are buckets of rich people out there, CEOs who say, you know what, I like the system just like it is and they want the system on stay the way it is. So, sure, there is a lot of pressure back. There`s pressure because the Republicans are in lock step with Mitch McConnell but there`s also pressure from a lot of rich folks, a lot of corporate folks who don`t want to see us make any change but that doesn`t matter. We ran on making change. We made promises to people and it is our obligation to get out there and fulfill those promises. And if we have to go behind closed doors and talk about how to make that happen, then that`s what we`ll do. But we need to come out with an answer as Democrats. That`s who we are. REID: Yes. And what`s the counter-leverage then? In theory, let`s just sort of play it out. I mean, as you said, you got me -- that ProPublica report is damning. You`ve got people who quit legally there not breaking the law, they just actually pay zero in taxes. Everybody out there that`s getting taxes taken out of your check, you pay more than Jeff Bezos and all these people. WARREN: That`s right. REID: So the incentives are so strong, what can you offer back to Democrats who say they`re for voting rights, they say they`re for reform, what is the counter-leverage on people like them? WARREN: Democracy. If we deliver, then people will show up. If we follow through on our promises, then people will come. Remember, we got Georgia when nobody thought we were going to get Georgia. And we got both senators in Georgia. And how did we do that? We did it by saying very clearly, here are our promises and delivering on those promises. We want to win Georgia again, we want to win at any of these states again, then the answer is deliver on the promise that we have made. And we have got to get out and do that. That`s -- to me, that`s what this is all about. So you can say, I understand that there are lots of rich people pushing. But at the end of the day, most of these senators, they want to get reelected. And that means they got to go out and face the people who voted for them last time, face the people who turned out, face the people who put heart and soul on the line. And the argument that I make right now within the caucus, and I`ll say it here publicly, is you want to win, then deliver on your promises. You want to be seen as somebody who fights for America`s middle class, then get out there and fight for America`s middle class. You want to be seen as somebody who isn`t in league with the rich guys but is really here for working families, then get out here and be for working families. Because if you do that, you put your faith in democracy and that is how it is, that people, I hope, I believe, I pray will be drawn back in and will vote again in 2022, 2024. We just got to do what we promised to do. REID: You`re -- I mean, I hope they listen to you, Senator Warren, because that is what people are screaming at their T.V.s right now. There were promises made. Keep the promises. That`s how you get reelected. That`s supposedly the business that politicians run. We`ll see. Senator Elizabeth Warren, it`s always a treat. Thank you so much for being here. And up next on THE REIDOUT, President Biden on a mission to restore America`s dignity on the world stage after four years of orange humiliation. Plus, Congressman Val Demings joins me to talk about her big announcement. She is running against Little Marco. Oh, this is going to be fun. Plus, the COVID situation maybe improving but the epidemic of stupid is still a raging wildfire. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have had these shots and now they`re magnetized. They can put a key on the forehead it sticks, like you can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: THE REIDOUT continues after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: Remember this? This was the former president of the United States famously shoving the prime minister of Montenegro during a 2017 summit so he could be in the front line for a photo op. It was one of many embarrassments and awkward moments with world leaders both at home and abroad. So it was no surprise that Donald Trump earned a reputation of pretty much a joke on the world stage. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was even caught on camera mocking him along with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron back in 2019. In fact, public opinion of the U.S. abroad hit record lows at the close of the Trump administration when the median and approval ratings stood at just 18 percent, according to Gallup. That`s in part because Trump expressed nothing but disdain for our allies while lavishing praise on our adversaries. He gushed that he fell in love with Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea, after their failed summit. But Trump didn`t practice his love on anybody like did he did with Vladimir Putin even siding with him of his own intelligence officials after Russia hack our election. And when it came to historical alliance just like NATO or dealing with the Middle East, Trump made a mockery of U.S. foreign policy every chance he got. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price. And sometimes that is also a monetary price. So we`re not the suckers of the world. You know, we`re protecting Germany, we`re protecting France, we`re protecting everybody and yet we`re paying a lot of money to protect. And if it breaks up NATO, it breaks up NATO. Now we take the oil. We should have kept the oil. Now we go in. We knock the hell out of them. Take the oil. We thereby take their wealth. We take all their wealth. And some people like the idea of bringing Russia back in. This used to be the G8, not the G7. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: After four years of humiliation, President Biden is now trying to salvage our dignity and shore up our alliances, and he`s doing it at a time when democracy isn`t exactly strong here at home. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Joining me now, PBS NewsHour White House Correspondent and the moderator of Washington Week, Yamiche Alcindor. Yamiche, you know, my big question is, how has the January 6th insurrection and the fact that we have a major political party that is not dedicated to democracy anymore, how has that impacted Biden`s sort of sale of America is back in Europe? YAMICHE ALCINDOR, PBS NEWSHOUR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It`s really impacted in two big ways. The first is that our European allies in NATO, in the G7, they`re a little shook up by the idea that American democracy has real deep fissures and they`re really exposed here. Not only, of course, with the Capitol insurrection but also the gridlock that followed and we can`t even get it together to have an investigation, and a bipartisan commission. Europe is looking at all of that because these alliances were built on the idea that democracy is strong. And now we`re seeing to that as being (INAUDIBLE). The other thing that it`s doing is that ahead of the meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin is looking at January 6th and all the aftermath and seeking to exploit that, seeking to have advantages and showing people America has its own problems. It can`t be selling democracy to you when its own democracy is weak. REID: Yes. That`s -- I think that is a huge point. Yamiche Alcindor, thank you very much. I really appreciate you being here this evening. I want to now bring in Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia on the -- in the Obama administration. Hopefully, you heard what you Yamiche just said, Michael, because here`s the challenge. The United States has been sort of the principal salesman for the idea of democracy since World War II. And now we can`t even have a peaceful transition of power. I wonder how that -- just because people -- just because these world leaders know Joe Biden and have known him for decades, does that -- is that enough? MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Joy, it`s not enough. It`s exactly right to focus on it for two reasons. One is, he represents some of America, but not all of America. And they`re worried about those that don`t agree with democracy. We have a fight between Democrats and autocrats within the United States, not just between democratic countries and autocratic countries. That`s the first problem. The second problem is, there`s a lot of doubt about what happens after President Biden. People don`t know, is he the last hurrah of that period that you just talked about beginning with World War II, or is this the beginning of American democratic renewal that will go on for decades? And I think that it`s uncertain what the prediction is, and so they`re hedging their bets about that. And just one more thing, just that -- thanks for the tour of four years. I`d forgotten about just how awful it was, how poorly our president treated our allies, and how nicely he treated President Putin. Well, you know who is talking about January 6 right now? Vladimir Putin. He`s talking about the Democrats and the peaceful opposition that are being repressed right now by the Biden administration and his supporters. In other words, he`s still siding with President Trump to this day in this battle between those that believe in democracy in America and those that don`t. REID: Yes. And, I mean, we started off by playing that Montenegro -- shoving the Montenegro ambassador. MCFAUL: Terrible. REID: But, I mean, that -- even that was sort of a pro-Putin move, right? There was a -- this weird sort of attitude that Putin had toward Montenegro. So Trump just adopted it. He just magically pick that guy of all the people to shove. I wonder, too, because you do have -- even in Russia, they had that sort of interregnum, where it looked for -- like a hot second during the Obama administration during the time when you were ambassador that maybe they would be able to emerge as a democracy. That didn`t last. One election later, Putin`s back. And he ain`t never leaving, apparently. And he does, as you said, have this argument that actually democracy doesn`t work, and as does China, that autocracy is actually better. And it`s hard for the United States to argue that our system is the best when half of our polity doesn`t believe in it. I mean, we have -- I`m not sure all Americans believe in democracy. A lot of them actually have said they absolutely do not. MCFAUL: I couldn`t agree more. There has never been this crisis in democratic values in the United States for a long time. And that weakens President Biden when he goes abroad to say that we need to unite the democracies of the world. Now, I want to be clear, I applaud what he said, and the clip you just said, that we are -- we are back, we`re going to engage with our allies, and we`re going to talk about values. That is exactly the right frame. But Vladimir Putin is out there. And he`s not alone, by the way, but he`s one of the most vocal voices out there that says exactly that, that democracy is passe, democracy is dead, it`s -- liberalism has past its prime. And we are in an ideological struggle with Russia, with China. And we need to get our own house in order in order to make that argument more effectively abroad. REID: Yes, we know that -- I wonder if a little bit we`re fighting the last war a little bit as well. I mean, finally, the president of Ukraine is going to get his meeting with the American president, with President Biden, which is a signal, obviously, to Russia that we`re going to stand with Ukraine. But Russia is being hyperaggressive. I mean, you have had all these cyberattacks. They`re saying it`s not them, but they always say it`s not them, right, all these cyber criminals from Russia who are acting really aggressively against the United States. I wonder if we need to sort of rethink the paradigm of how we deal with that -- with Russia, given the fact that he`s not getting -- he`s not backing down at all. He`s getting worse. MCFAUL: I think we do. I think it`s right for President Biden to meet with President Putin. We always met with Soviet leaders back in the day, after all, and to see where we can cooperate. But I do think we have to get out of this reaction that we`re in, this tit for tat, they do something, and then we respond proportionally. I think we need a grand strategy for deterring Putin that does -- not just response, but is more proactive, on the cyber side, on the corruption side, be -- having an affirmative agenda for democratic ideas, because, after all, there are people inside Russia that do believe in democracy. We`re not -- we`re not engaging them. So, rather than defense, I think we need a comprehensive strategy of offense. REID: Yes, absolutely. And, hopefully, President Biden will remind Putin that he`s locked up Alexei Navalny, because you`re not even allowed to have -- to be in the political opposition in Russia. Here, we`re just struggling with ours saying people can`t vote, which is bad enough. Michael McFaul, thank you very much for being here. Really appreciate you. And up next, Florida Congresswoman Val Demings is officially launching her campaign to oust Marco Rubio from his Senate seat. And, tonight, she`s here to tell us how she intends to do it. Val Demings straight ahead on THE REIDOUT. We will be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): He`s always calling me little Marco. And I admit, the guy, he`s taller than me. He`s like 6`2``, which is why I don`t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5`2``. Have you seen his hands? (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)RUBIO: They`re like this. And you know what they say about men with small hands. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)RUBIO: You can`t trust them. You can`t trust them. You can`t trust them. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: I`m so embarrassed for you. Besides lying Ted, there`s perhaps no more shrunken figure in American politics than little Marco Rubio. Hailed by the Beltway media as the next Obama, Rubio was once the shiny, bright future of the Republican Party, ticking all the boxes, young, diverse, inspirational, Florida. But once orange Julius Caesar cut him down to size, along with every other Republican candidate in the 2016 primary, little Marco fell in line and fell in love, supporting Trump after all that "Access" -- I mean, after that "Access Hollywood" tape came out. And they stayed BFFs throughout his presidency, with Rubio tweeting daily Bible verses, while defending stuff like the Trump administration ripping children from their parents and using force to clear out protesters. While he originally said that Trump bears responsibility for the January 6 insurrection, he soon came to his Trump-loving senses, calling the second impeachment trial stupid and the January 6 commission a partisan joke. Rubio hasn`t forgotten his presidential ambitions, but he has to wait to see if his dear leader wants to run first. So, for now, he`s running for a third Senate term, where he`s gotten the extremely coveted endorsement of his former tour mentor, whom he gushingly thanked for his -- quote -- "leadership on the major issues facing our nation." But now Rubio is facing his nightmare opponent, Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, a black woman, impeachment-managing, Harley-driving former police chief. Demings officially announced her candidacy today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)REP. VAL DEMINGS (D-FL), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: ... grow up in the South poor, black and female, you have to have faith in progress and opportunity. My father was a janitor and my mother was a maid. She said: "Val, never grow tired." Unlike some in Washington, I never tire of standing up for what I believe is right, because no one is above the law. I`m running for the United States Senate because of two simple words, never tired. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: And I`m joined now by Florida Democratic Congresswoman and U.S. candidate Val Demings. Thank you for being here. And I remember, the last time we spoke, I remember saying, when you figure out whether it`s going to be for governor or for Senate, please come back. So I do appreciate you actually coming back. Let`s talk about how you do this, though. I have worked on a couple of elections in Florida. It`s a very hard state to win. It`s a very narrow state. Both the Senate race and the governor`s race were super tight last time. How are you going to pull this off? DEMINGS: Well, Joy, let me say it is great to be back with you. And, look, we are so excited about this race. Florida is my home state. It is where I was born and raised. I love the state of Florida. And I am not willing to give up on Florida. You know my story. I`m the daughter of a maid and a janitor, the youngest of seven children, the first in my family to go to college. I worked 27 years at the Orlando Police Department, had the awesome honor of working my way up through the ranks to become Orlando`s first woman chief of police. I know how to fight a tough fight, Joy. I know how to stand by people when they are having their worst moments. Apparently, Rubio has forgotten one of the most important things in a race. It`s not about him. It is about the people that he is supposed to serve. When people needed him the most, especially over the last year, when we went through some very tough times, Rubio voted against stimulus checks. He voted against help for small businesses, our schools. He voted against helping our first responders, our teachers, our health care workers. I`m not afraid of a tough fight. Rubio is. And I am going to build the most unique coalition. I`m going to travel the state from the Panhandle down to the Keys, from Tallahassee to Miami, and talk to people about what`s important for them. I am a unique candidate, right candidate, right time. And I look forward to this race. REID: I got to know if you`re taking the Harley, because it`s -- the thing that the Republicans like to try to do -- I think we have a picture of you on the Harley. There it is. The thing Republicans love to do with Democrats is to try to immediately stereotype every Democrat as, number one, a socialist. They go right for that. I don`t think they really know what socialism is, but they go for -- right for that. It particularly works in a state like Florida, where people have described the pitch that`s typically made, particularly to Florida Latinos, to Cuban Americans, as F`ing crazy, meaning the conspiracy theories, calling everyone a communist, trying to accuse Democrats of being communists, the QAnon stuff. That`s all particularly lethal in Florida. And, ironically, that kind of politics actually helped Trump a little bit, not even a little bit, a lot, with Hispanic voters in Florida. How do you counter that stuff? DEMINGS: Well, I counter that, Joy, by just reminding the voters of who I am. You`re absolutely right. I ride a 2003 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I intend to be on that motorcycle quite a bit. But it`s really about reminding people who I am, my record as a police chief. I was appointed chief when crime was at an all-time high in Orlando. By bringing the community together, working with the community, reorganizing the department, disbanding some dysfunctional units, standing up some more functional units, we were able to reduce violent crime by over 40 percent. The bottom line is, everybody counts, but everybody is accountable. And just to hear what you just said -- and I know that Rubio will try to do that and his enablers -- it just shows us all that desperate people will do desperate things. REID: Yes. And the other issue -- and I experienced this in 2004, the first race I worked on -- is, it`s a challenge to sometimes get the maximum sort of impact of the African-American vote in Florida. There are a lot of unregistered voters. It was similar in Georgia a long time ago, before Stacey Abrams went in and started to really register voters. How do you take advantage of the fact that you will have a natural appeal to particularly black women, who are the -- carry a lot of the burden in terms of voter turnout? How do you maximize that turnout? DEMINGS: You know, Joy, I am already very excited about the response that I have had, before the launch, but certainly after the launch. This race is about everybody. This race is about leaving nobody behind. This race is about not picking winners and losers based on their ability to pay to play, like Rubio has done. As I said, we`re going to build one of the most unique coalitions. And I know black women are already excited, but every woman will be excited about this candidacy. This is the first time in Florida history that an African- American woman, the daughter of a maid and a janitor -- my dad used to go to work seven days a week to make ends meet for our family -- will be running for the U.S. Senate. This is exactly what about -- the American dream is all about. And I`m really excited about it. REID: You know, and that biography is going to be very difficult for Rubio to characterize in the way that Republicans typically want to do it. But what is going to be your primary case against him? Because he`s sort of an entrenched figure right now. The media has fallen out of love with him because he sort of fell under Trump`s boot. But what`s the main case against why he shouldn`t just stay in office? DEMINGS: Joy, I could take the next 40 minutes and talk about all of the reasons. (LAUGHTER)DEMINGS: But let me just go here. I was in the Capitol on January 6. I was there to watch the peaceful transfer of power, when we know all hell broke loose. What we thought was just people demonstrating turned out to be an angry mob. Found myself crawling around on the floor, donning a gas mask. Now, we have an obligation to find out what happened, who was involved, how that happened, who funded it. You know that the chairman of Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson in the House, and the ranking member, Representative Katko, have been -- negotiated -- or negotiated for months to come up with an independent commission to investigate. Who would not want that? But Marco Rubio voted against it because he doesn`t want -- obviously does not want to know the truth. We know that, wherever the political winds are, that`s where you will find Marco Rubio. And so this is about protecting our democracy, Joy. Everything that we care about and everything that we say that defines who we really are as a nation is caught up in what happened on January 6. So, if there are those that are listening who believe in this campaign and would like to take this journey with me, I just asked you to visit my Web site, ValDemings.com, and let`s get this done. We can do better. (CROSSTALK)REID: And last very quick question. Don McGahn, we finally have his testimony. What do you make of the fact that it`s taken this many years to find out stuff? I mean, it`s not surprising, what he said, but that he was pressured to try to push out the special counsel. DEMINGS: You know, Joy, as someone who served on the Intel Committee and certainly on Homeland Security, it comes as absolutely no surprise. I think the shame of it all is that it took this long to get down to the truth. We know, we knew back then, we now all know that he was pressured, and that pressure could have resulted in criminal charges for him and the president. But we need to continue to get to the bottom of it. We need to know the truth and hold those who violated the law accountable. Everybody counts, but everybody`s accountable. REID: Well, I wish you the best of luck. I want to thank you again for coming on this program to talk about your run out of the gate. Congresswoman, for now, Val Demings, we will see where you go from here. Best of luck. Thank you very much. And up next, did you know that schools in Texas are rated 41st in the nation of quality? I mean, how else would you explain this question from Congressman Louie Gohmert on land management? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): Is there anything the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon`s orbit or the Earth`s orbit around the sun? Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: No, no, no, Congressman. The National Forest Service cannot alter the moon`s orbit or the orbit around the sun. And despite how dumb you sound, Louie, you`re actually not tonight`s absolute worst. We`ll tell you who is, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: Republicans in Texas are so triggered by the mere existence of the 1619 Project that on Monday, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that would create the rival 1836 Project, marking the date when Texas gained its independence from Mexico. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): To keep Texas the best state in the United States of America, we must never forget why Texas became so exceptional in the first place. The 1836 Project promotes patriotic education about Texas and ensures that the generations to come understand Texas values. Project 1836 is now law in the great state of Texas. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Everyone around him looks so awkward. First of all, patriotic education is literally what China called its propaganda efforts after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. So, great branding on that one, Texas. The bill calls for the project to promote the history of prosperity and democratic freedom in this state. Okay, so let`s talk about what the democratic freedom actually entails, shall we? Since there`s no mention of slavery in the bill. Texans love to remember the Alamo. But what actually happened in 1836 was that Texas residents decided to break from Mexico so they could continue to own slaves. Mexico had abolished the vile practice. Slavery was also a major reason why Texas remained its own nation for nine years and after it did finally become a Texas, Texas seceded from the union along with the other southern states because of slavery. Slavery. That`s something that was only added to the Texas curriculum if 2019. 2019. And while the bill does mention Juneteenth, it`s worth nothing that the holiday`s origin are a far from a proud moment for the Lone Star State, since slavery in the state ended a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation since no one bothered to tell those enslaved people that they were free for two whole years. Here`s the thing. As an investigation by the "Texas Monthly" points out, the version of Texas history taught in school is often sanitized and there is nothing in the bill that suggests Texas won`t continue to whitewash history. Meanwhile, another bill is waiting on Governor Abbott`s desk that would ban the teaching of critical race theory, which I should note is only actually taught in law schools. The bill includes language that the school may not require, or make a course the concept that the advent of slavery constituted the founding of the United States or the true founding of the United States. Except that it does, it`s in the actual Constitution. Texas already ranks pretty low on education, 41st in the nation. So it might not want to limit its students` learning. And even worse, Texas affects when the entire nation learns about since Texas is so big that publishers found it was profitable to take a book crafted to appeal to Texas and market it largely unchanged in other states. So, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, for your promotion of Texas` great fairytale history to make your state`s students literally dumber because they`re less informed, you are tonight`s absolute worst. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: The U.S. is increasingly unlikely to reach the president`s goal of having 70 percent of American adults partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July. As of this week, close to 64 percent of adults have received one shot while the pace of new vaccinations is dropping. Vaccine hesitancy is one of the government`s biggest hurdles along with anti-vaxxers becoming increasingly legitimized in our airwaves and even in our government. Like this physician who amazingly told Ohio state lawmakers a very not true thing, that the vaccine causes people to turn into magnets. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)DR. SHERRI TENPENNY, PHYSICIAN: Is it a combination of the protein, which we`re finding has metal attached to it. I`m sure you`ve seen the people on the Internet of people who`ve had these shots and now, they`re magnetized and put a key on their forehead that sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think that there`s a metal piece to that. (EN VIDEO CLIP)REID: Joining me now is Miami cardiologist, Dr. Bernard Ashby, and Dana Milbank of "Washington Post" who`s demonstrating. OK. Now, that actually was my first question and now I have to go to you, Dr. Ashby, because now I`m actually upset. I am in the Pfizer sorority. I ain`t got my magnets. Nothing is sticking to me. I see things sticking to Dana. I feel like I was robbed. And Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is licensed in Ohio and she`s the author saying no to vaccines. Where are my magnets? DR. BERNARD ASHBY, MIAMI CARDIOLOGIST: Joy, what`s going on, first of all? REID: I want my magnet. ASHBY: Yeah, exactly. I want to know where she went to med school at. Disneyworld? I mean, come on. I`m mad that I even have to comment on this, but it would be funny if the implications weren`t so serious. And what we`re having -- what we`re dealing with now at the onset of the vaccine distribution, we had a supply and demand issue. Now we have plenty of vaccine and we`re trying to convince folks to take the vaccine because it`s in their best interest. And what`s particularly disturbing is that a lot of the folks who predicted Armageddon and, you know, zombie apocalypse, they were wrong and we`re still not holding them accountable. And so, we have Dr. Goof Troop (ph) over here saying things that are completely false and actually putting people`s lives and putting our country in danger. And I don`t even know what to say. It`s frustrating, to say the least. REID: You know, absolutely. And, you know, we joke about this lady. What`s her name? Dr. Tenpenny. Don`t let her treat y`all if you`re in Ohio. But I have also encountered people who won`t take it for not goofy reasons, why? They don`t trust it. There are a lot of black folks. I mean, if you look at who`s not getting vaccinated, African-Americans, our vaccination rate is the lowest other than Republicans who are resistant. We`re really in trouble here. What do you say to people who say I don`t want to get this vaccine? What do you say to convince them? ASHBY: I mean, it`s not so much about what I have to say. It`s what they have to say. I think the most important thing is to listen and learn and actually understand their perspective. But it`s hard to ignore the ubiquitous amount of information/disinformation out there. I mean, I said it before and I say it again, it`s been the misinformation Olympics. And what we have to do is combat that and give them information, but also understand where they`re coming from, because a lot of black folks understand that historically and now, today, our health care system fails them in ways that the pandemic has revealed to the world. And so, we have to address those issues, that address the fundamental issues in our government, in our history. I heard last segment talking about critical race theory. That`s important because that validates a lot of what we lived. That`s our everyday life. And so, you have to at least connect with that so you can then give them the appropriate amount of information so they can make good fundamental health decisions that`s in their best interest and their community`s. REID: And, you know, Dana, it would be bad enough if it was just the random quack, but you also got people in politics. You got Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is what she said recently. Let`s just play it. This is her on America`s war room with Steve Bannon. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): It`s a bioweapon. We need to be very clear about what was the intent of COVID-19 and these viruses that they experiment with like some sort of Dr. Frankenstein experiments. These are bioweapons. There`s no other reason to create a virus that makes people sick, spreads so quick and kills people. I don`t believe in that type of so-called science. I don`t believe in evolution. I believe in God. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Marjorie Greene believes a bioweapon. Her proof is because she doesn`t believe in evolution. Your witness, Dana. DANA MILBANK, POLITICAL COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: You know, she frequently leaves us with no words, that fine woman. But the problem is it`s not just her. It`s not just the usual loonies. You have half of the Republicans in Congress won`t get the vaccine. You`ve got Tucker Carlson on night after night telling people teh vaccine kills them. You know what kills people? Listening to Tucker Carlson, because they`re not going to get vaccinated and they will die as a result of taking this advice from Fox News and from the Republican leadership. You know, the skepticism among black Americans is very understandable given the history the doctor was just talking about. The skepticism among Republicans, 40 percent of whom won`t get the vaccine is a case of malpractice by Dr. Greene, Dr. Carlson and the magnet doctor. REID: Well, in addition to that, you`ve got Lindsey Graham saying if the lab leak theory is true, it exculpates Donald Trump from all -- the whole way we think about he dealt with coronavirus would change. Your thoughts on that, Dana? MILBANK: Well, my witness against that is Donald Trump himself. Fifteen separate times he said how much he trusted China and Xi and what a fine and transparent job they are doing. So, if he believed in this lab theory, of course, he never met a conspiracy theory he didn`t like, but if he actually believed in it, why was he praising China`s transparency and honesty for months as people were dying in this country from COVID-19? REID: Yeah, and I`m going to give you the last word on this Dr. Ashby, give me the quick elevator pitch. Somebody is hesitant to get the vaccine, but you really believe they should get it. Elevator pitch. ASHBY: Point-zero-five percent severe reaction to the vaccine. So we had 150 million plus folks who have gotten the vaccine in the U.S. and .05 percent is the number. Look at the mortality rate, look at the death rate, look at the rates in our elderly who got access to the vaccine initially. They are dying less. And so, outcomes matter and we have to get to the point and if your check out our website at Community to Protect Healthcare --REID: Yeah. ASHBY: -- we have some great talking points that you can use with your family. REID: Listen to Dr. Ashby. Dr. Bernard Ashby, Dana Milbank, thank y`all very much. Well, y`all, despite vaccine hesitancy all over the United States, recovery is actual ahead of where President Biden said it would be months ago, which leads us to our moment of Joy". A slice of normal life returns. Thanks to vaccination, Broadway is back, set for a September reopening with Jimmy Fallon, Lin-Manuel Miranda and a star-studded cast reminding us exactly why the show must go on. (VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)REID: That`s the show. Go watch Chris Hayes. Bye. SummaryGOP assault on voting rights threatens democracy. In 1963, MLK warned that senators will use filibuster to restrict voting rights. Democrat Senator Manchin says he won`t support voting rights bill. Myth of bipartisanship is on display in votes on protecting democracy. Filibuster reform is in focus amid GOP obstructionism. Conservative chamber of commerce is backing Democrat Senator Manchin and Sinema. Koch Organization is leading push to defeat voting rights bill. Democrat senators from red states face special challenges. Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is interviewed. VP Harris visits Guatemala to address migrant surge. TranscriptARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Widely seen as a big boost for Wiley, an interesting to see police reform playing out that way. We will continue to cover all of the candidates for mayor in New York, and fairly, of course. That does it for me. "THE REIDOUT" with Joy Reid is next. Hi, Joy. JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Hey, how are you doing, Ari? Thank you very much. Have a great evening. All right everybody, good evening. And we begin THE REIDOUT tonight with a question. How many days, weeks, hours need to pass before we start fighting in earnest for our democracy? I mean, really putting up a fight, making noise and giving it the urgency its fragile position deserves. And I ask because we`re already past the point of handwringing and bipartisanship, yes, that fantasy ship has sailed. We, right now, tonight, are at the point where the big lie is positioned to hijacked our democracy by 2022 with Trump emerging albeit with wrinkled thighs, an incoherent mind that maybe even in adult diaper, back on the campaign trail under the banner of Stop the Steal with his partisan having positioned himself in state government and in the United States Congress to help him pull off in 2024 what he and the January 6th insurrectionists tried, stealing the election. Stop the Steal is the insurrectionist Republican`s banners. Democrats, what`s yours? Because, seriously, there are plenty of folks who are terrified by what we`re seeing and, frankly, baffled by the Democrats` weirdly cordial response. You`d think in the face of actual autocracy that things would feel a little more hands on. And it`s not just me or my friends who are saying this, people who are famous for their conservative beliefs and who have devoted their entire careers to promoting democracy abroad, including this someone I personally have opposed in the past, they are saying it too. People like Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin and David Frum are out here sending out SOS calls, saying America, way up. Because they`re former political party is about to steal our democracy right out from under our noses. We have got democracy scholars, 100 of them, signing a public statement, saying that American democracy is in grave danger and that suspending the filibuster to pass voting rights is vital to ensuring that we continue to be a democratic republic. And if that`s not enough, listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in an interview from 1963, raising the same alarms when senators back then were dithering on passing federal legislation to protect civil rights and voting rights. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: The tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority people from even voting. They won`t let the majority of senators vote and certainly they wouldn`t want the majority people to vote because they know they do not represent the majority of American people. In fact, they represent in their own states a very small minority. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Did you hear that? That was 58 years ago. And we defied the odds because eventually the filibusters failed and after two more years of struggle and racist violence, we finally got a voting rights act, and yet now we`re reliving the past, verbatim. Who else needs to say it for Democrats leader to proclaim that this is a state of emergency? You can`t say that you weren`t warned. Enter West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who this weekend officially crushed any chance that we can save voting rights at the federal level ahead of the 2022 election. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): You know, voting is a bedrock of our democracy, an open, fair, secure voting. We used to go around the world and explain and show and observe voting procedures in a democracy. And now if we can`t practice what we preach and we`re going to basically do an overhaul, an 800-page overhaul of the voting rights or what we call For the People Act, I think there are a lot of great things and I agree in that piece of legislation, but there`s an awful lot of things that basically don`t pertain directly to voting. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: What we sent Manchin`s office a list of questions to find out what he specifically objects to in the For the People act and if he agreed that our democracy is in danger. His office has not responded. Joining me now is Nancy MacLean, Historian and Author of Democracy in Chains. And Nancy, thank you for being here. I interviewed you for my book as a matter of fact, because I read Democracy in Chains and it scared the hell out of me. But as we say on the show is scaring is caring. I think it`s important for people to be real. That last thing that Joe Manchin said about, well, you know, you can`t pass a bill without bipartisan support that changes our democracy. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, 33 Republicans voted in favor, zero Democrats voted in favor and, the 15th Amendment of the Constitution, 39 in favor and zero Democrats in favor because those were the bills that essentially gave citizenship and voting rights to the formerly enslaved. No Democrats voted for that. They were the conservative party at the time. The Ku Klux Klan Act, at 1871, again, 36 in favor, they were all Republicans , zero Democrats in favor. None of those were bipartisan. What -- as a historian, what did you make of Joe Manchin`s claim there? NANCY MACLEAN, AMERICAN HISTORIAN: Yes. I think, unfortunately, he is really living in a past that doesn`t exist anymore. It would be lovely to have bipartisanship, but this Republican Party has shown us for certainly over the last decade that they will do nothing in a bipartisan way. I think the problem is that Senator Manchin and, unfortunately, I think some other Democratic and elected officials really have not fully come to grips with the fact that we -- there is no more Republican Party in the way that people understood that party that many people voted for, for the years as a normal, major party in our system. What has happened is that the major arch right donors, you know most famously, the Koch network have so transformed the party and have so brought it to heal with their agenda, partly through putting dark money to elections and rewarding those who comply and penalizing those who don`t and by also by arousing the Republican base voters with a steady diet of identity agitation of misinformation, et cetera. And so there is the constant barrage of noise, and I think he needs some of his colleagues to go and walk him through connecting the dots, that this is not an isolated instance. You know, on measure after measure, we now have two ideological parties but every political scientist and scholar who studies this will tell you that the Republican are the most polarized, the most extreme, the most resistant to actual evidence and that they will not cooperate on anything. They have shown that most dramatically with their refusal to support an investigation into the most serious attack on our Capitol since the civil war. Now, a party that will not do that, a party that has shown in state after state and nationally that they believe the only way they can win now is to suppress the vote, a party like that is not going to vote for any kind of voting rights. So he`s living in a world that no longer exists. REID: Exactly, and they`re not -- and none of them are going to vote for the John Lewis -- you can call it John Lewis and Dr. Martin Luther King Act. None of them are voting for it, Joe Manchin, right. But I want you -- you touched on something that I think it`s very important. Manchin said that he doesn`t support everything in the bill. He wouldn`t tell us on this show what is it he doesn`t support. But I suspect the part that he doesn`t support and that Krystin Sinema some of the others don`t support are the stuff the chamber of commerce doesn`t like. The chamber of commerce has supportive of both Manchin and Sinema and some other Democrats, these Chamber of Commerce Democrats. And you talked about the Koch brothers. There was a great piece in The New Yorker about how the Koch brothers have been gone all out to stop this bill, to stop the For the People Act. Not just because they don`t like voting rights and you can explain to us why these super rich, mega rich don`t like people to vote but they don`t like the end of dark money. Dark money is in this bill too. Explain what these super rich people really want. MACLEAN: What these super rich people really want is something so frightening that they understandably do not ask for it by name but instead they have operated by stealth for years now, steadily rigging the rules of our democracy until we are at the point now where I think about it almost as a noose. There are so many threads in the noose on our democracy now that it`s almost impossible to count them. You know, all of these has been extremely coordinated on the right. It`s part of a very, very interwoven, long-term strategy and until we understand that strategy, we shadow box. REID: Yes. MACLEAN: Because we cannot look at any of these issues in isolation, whether it`s the voter suppression or the attempts to make it, so that legislatures can -- state legislatures can count the vote however they choose or the efforts to undermine the independent judiciary in states like mine in North Carolina. All of these things are part of an integrated strategy that is slowly shackling and strangling democracy. And we need figures like Joe Manchin and Krystin Sinema to understand that, that`s how much is at stake. REID: Yes. MACLEAN: I will say people should be aware too that the Koch-backed right is up in Joe Manchin`s grill in his home state, right? REID: Yes, a 100 percent. MACLEAN: (INAUDIBLE) is organizing heritage, bussing in people from surrounding states, running constant ads so they are really going after him and Krysten Sinema to try to make sure that they report Democratic priorities. REID: There you go, and that is the piece that I needed people to understand and that is why I wanted to talk to you. Nancy MacLean, thank you very much. Read Democracy in Chains, you all. It will scare the hell out of me, but you need to read. Joining me now is Congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York. And I hope that you were able to hear some of that, Congressman, because this is the piece we don`t talk about. It`s easy to say Joe Manchin does not care about black people, right? He doesn`t have a lot of black folks in his state. He doesn`t need them to win. Who knows if he didn`t going to run for reelection in 2024? His numbers are deeply under water, by the way. He`s in the 30s in terms of approval, he probably can`t get re-elected. But the question then becomes why would he do this? Because he is friendly with the chamber, he`s friendly with the Kochs, he`s friendly with big -- and those people want an oligarchy, they want a country where we can`t stop them from drilling. We can`t have universal pre-K, we can`t have universal health care, we can`t have these things because they`re rich and don`t want to pay for it. So here`s what I want to come to you. You have Senator Raphael Warnock, a good man, a man of God, telling Politico that he spoke with Manchin. And he says, quote, I remain hopeful, I think that Joe Manchin understands, that this is a defining moment in American history and that our children are going to judge us, grand children are going to judge us based on what we do right now to preserve them for democracy. Senator John Tester of Montana saying in look, he said in The Wall Street Journal, he`s kind like to get S done, okay? I think being on T.V. and having a gang reporters around is fine, I just like to get things done, they`re all sounding the right note. But do they understand what they are dealing with, sir, in your mind? REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): I don`t believe so. I mean, this is a historical moment for all of us. We are a part of a system that is rooted in white supremacy, and it has evolved into a system where corporate-backed actors and the wealthy elite are literally controlling Congress. The reason why they don`t support HR-1 is not just the voting rights piece, that`s a big piece and it`s very important, and we want to past it retroactively so we can supersede what`s happening at the state level. But HR-1 also gets big money out of politics and pushes through publicly financed elections. So I am one of a few Democrats who do not take corporate-backed money because we don`t want to be beholden to corporations, we want to be beholden to our constituents, the people that we are supposed to serve. Joe Manchin and others are no longer beholden their constituents. They`re beholden to the Koch brothers, they`re beholden to the Chamber of Commerce and they`re beholden to the wealthy, elite overall who have control of our democracy. This is why we can`t pass the $15 minimum wage. This is why we can`t pass common sense gun control laws. This is why we can`t pass common sense immigration reform. We are not allowed to evolve into the multiracial democracy that we are because white supremacy has its tentacles around Congress in the form of wealth inequality and the wealthy elite controlling our Congress. Another thing, corporations within our system are considered people and money is considered free speech. That is insane. That is the system that we are currently operating within and Joe Manchin, while he speaks to being, you know, holier than though and upholding our democracy and looking to save it, he`s really upholding a system of white supremacy through wealth and equality through people like the Koch brothers. REID: And say it louder for the people in the back, Brother Bowman, because here is the reality. You`re going to have civil rights leaders go and talk with Manchin tomorrow, maybe they`ll eventually try to talk to the diva, Ms. Sinema, who thinks that she`s also running things. If you aren`t running that, I don`t know what you talk about. Let`s put the people -- let`s put the list up here. We`ve got people we think are opposed to changing the filibuster. We`re not really sure. They`re like open but not committed, 19 people. There are only three who are on the record opposed and you have 27 who say, repeal the filibuster. If you`re not talking -- if those people who are open but not committed are also taking money from huge corporations that are also beholden to these huge corporations and to the chamber and they need the money too, how do you convince them that voting rights are more important than that money? Because you`re right, that money is keeping us from having health care, good schools, infrastructure, they don`t want any of that because these rich folks don`t want to pay taxes. BOWMAN: And they want to remain in power, not just at the federal level, by their state level and city level. This is about minority rule and this is about power. You know, we have -- Republicans represent 40 million less Americans than Democrats, yet they are wielding a disproportionately amount of power. This is about power. White supremacy is about power. So that`s the other piece. And this is why grassroots organizing and mobilizing young people who think differently and believe differently about what America should be, this is why this is critical, because people are more powerful than money, and if we can keep people organized in states across the country to push back against the corporate elites controlling our Congress, then we can threaten their seats. And if we threaten their seats and run in the couple elections and win in the couple elections, then we can see the transformative of change that we need which is happening in the House, but it needs to happen in the Senate as well. On Charles Booker is one example of that, get people like him in there and many others can bring the transformative change that we need. REID: And that is the thing they fear the most, do the thing they fear. Congressman Jamaal Bowman, thank you so much for being here and preaching on this Monday. I appreciate you very much. You can get an amen from me right now. Up next on THE REIDOUT, startling but not surprising, new reporting, we are on the same sort of train here about Mark Meadows` effort to get the Department of Justice, get this, to legitimize the most bonkers election theft theories in the final days of his boss presidency. Plus, pop quiz, what is an AR-15 assault rifle just like a Swiss army knife. How about never? Tell that to tonight`s absolute worst. Plus --(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: Kamala Harris` high stakes first foreign trip as vice president to try to get to the root causes of mass migrations in Central America, and all that. And Jane Fonda joins me later in the hour. THE REIDOUT continues after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: In pushing the big lie late last year, the former president embraced a vast array of specious claims and dubious allegations, all of which were easily debunked and universally rejected by the courts that heard them. Now "The New York Times" has revealed yet another, more covert effort by the Trump White House to invalidate the 2020 election in the closing weeks of the last administration. E-mails obtained by the time show that Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asked Jeffrey Rosen, then the acting attorney general, to examine debunked claims of election fraud in Mexico -- New Mexico and an array of baseless conspiracies. And here`s the kicker. That included a fantastical theory that people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States and switch votes. So, it`s not just Margie Q. Greene who`s coo coo ca choo enough to believe that Jewish space lasers really exist. Mark Meadows apparently believe that Italian vote tampering satellites had been launched into orbit. According to the report, while the acting attorney general thankfully did not comply with requests, Meadows` outreach to Rosen violated longstanding guidelines that essentially forbid almost all White House personnel, including the chief of staff, from contacting the Justice Department about investigations or other enforcement actions. And with me now is Tim Miller, writer at large for The Bulwark. This was, Tim, not a surprising story. Just a few details here. And I think it shows the urgency and the sort of desperation of the former president to try to stay in office, that he even considered replacing the acting attorney general with somebody who was willing to do the crimey stuff. What do you make of this reporting? TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK: Yes, Joy, remember when Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch met on a plane tarmac, and that was the biggest -- biggest attorney general crime of the century over on FOX and everywhere else? I mean, this is literally the White House pressuring the attorney general to try to interfere in an election. I think it`s completely next level. And here`s the thing, Joy. This is not just a random, oh, I got an e-mail about the Jewish space laser and just whatever theory comes up, I`m going to talk to the attorney general. This is a concerted effort. It dates all the way back to 2015, where people in the MAGA orbit were trying to make the case that there is this network -- a global network that includes the Italians and the Brits and these other countries, that were -- that are trying to stop Donald Trump. I swear to God, it`s the same theory that`s tied to, if you remember Obamagate...REID: Yes. MILLER: ... where they claimed that the Italians were working together to fabricate the Russian collusion. All of this stuff is nutty, but it is deliberate. And so I think it is extremely important, now getting to the politics of it, that the Democrats on the Hill make Meadows testify, create as much as -- pain as possible, get as much information out about this as possible. And I was listening to Representative Bowman before this, and he`s talking about how great of a threat this is to the democracy and what that means for the bills that need to be passed. And that`s true. But it also means how you have to act politically. And the Democrats need to act accordingly. If this is as great of a threat as it seems -- and it is -- they need to be dragging Meadows up there. They need to be using every tool at their disposal, just like Trey Gowdy did back with the Benghazi hearings, to ensure, to maximize pain, get as much information out about what exactly was happening as possible, and make the Republicans own this. It cannot just be a story in "The New York Times." I`m telling you, the voters are not going to see that matter. REID: You know, and the reason I like talking with you and talking with other Republicans is because I feel like disgruntled Republicans are the only people who understand politics. I worry that Democrats are so un -- anti-theatrical. They`re not even just un-theatrical. They`re anti-theatrical. They think we will just have a coffee with our friends on the Republican side, and we will serve cookies, and everyone will get a kind of cookie they like. And you see, then -- this is how they react to literally our democracy crumbling in front of them. I don`t get it. You have Liz Cheney out here saying that people couldn`t vote to convict Donald Trump, even though they knew he was guilty, because they were afraid they would be killed by their own supporters. Liz Cheney understands how dangerous the people at the base Republican Party are. Can you understand why Democrats are so casual about all this and why they`re not putting Capitol Police and Mark Meadows and dragging all -- and putting all these people on TV? Do you understand it? MILLER: I wish I could say yes, but I don`t, Joy. Look, I understand what the White House is doing. The White House has a big job right now. They have to get this vaccine rollout. There -- we just saw in the preview Kamala down in Guatemala. They have a lot on their plate. What is happening in the Senate, I`m a little bit confused about. They let the Republicans off the hook with this Friday vote right before Memorial Day weekend, where they killed the committee. Why did they hold the vote at that time? Why didn`t they kick this into next week and make sure that there was a bigger show, as you were saying, around the fact that they`re trying to cover up this domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol? That`s -- it`s just one little tactical thing. But I think it is an example of a mind-set that is wrong. The mind-set has to be, do what is possible to create as much pain as possible and to get as much information out as possible -- this is where the politics and what is right align -- in order to hurt the Republicans for all their complicity ahead of 1/6. And I think that that same logic applies to some of the policy questions at hand as well. REID: I don`t get it. I really don`t understand it. It`s almost as if they don`t notice that this is happening, or they notice it, but they literally think that putting out policy papers will fix it in "The New York" -- put a policy paper in "The New York Times" and everyone will know. No one is going to see that, unless one person, one of us on TV reads that on TV. Most people don`t read "The New York Times." They don`t -- I hope they do the puzzle, because in the puzzle this weekend. You should do the puzzle. (LAUGHTER)REID: But other than the puzzle, no one`s reading that. Tim Miller, I`m sorry. I`m yelling...MILLER: Certainly not swing voters. REID: I`m yelling at the world. I`m yelling at the clouds. Tim Miller, thank you very much. I really do appreciate you. I don`t get it. Kamala Harris travels to Guatemala to address immigration issues on her first trip abroad as vice president. But, first, a federal judge striking down a California assault weapons ban, saying these deadly weapons are really just multipurpose tools, puts him in the running for tonight`s absolute worst. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: This past weekend saw a spate of gun violence in cities across the country, which are now tragically all too common. In Chicago, five people were killed and at least 53 were wounded in a series of shootings. In New Orleans, a woman is in critical condition after being shot in the face early Sunday. Seven others were injured. And, in Miami, three people were killed and five were injured after suspects opened fire on a graduation party at a strip mall, that just a week after a gunman killed three and injured 20 in a shooting at a banquet hall also in Miami. The Gun Violence Archive reports there`s now been 253 mass shootings so far this year, with 72 last month alone. Meanwhile, a federal judge in California has decided that that state`s ban on weapons of war was, as he put it, a failed experiment. In a 94-page ruling Friday overturning California`s 32-year-old assault weapons ban, Judge Roger Benitez ruled that the state`s ban on military-style rifles is unconstitutional. Judge Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, argued that it deprives Californians of weapons allowed in other states. But the absolute worst is how he described the AR-15, which has been used in some of America`s deadliest mass shootings, along with other military-style weapons, like the AK-47. Judge Benitez wrote -- quote -- "Like the Swiss army knife, the popular AR- 15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment, good for both home and battle." That, of course, is totally illogical. A Swiss army knife is a multipurpose tool that you can use to cut up an apple. AR-15s are an adapted version of the M-16 military rifle, designed with one purpose, killing lots of humans quickly. California Governor Gavin Newsom said the comparison undermined the ruling and is "a slap in the face to the families who`ve lost loved ones to this weapon," an understatement, to say the least. So, federal Judge Roger Benitez, for making California an easier place to do mass shootings, and doing so in a ruling that reads more like an audition to be the next president of the morally and literally bankrupt NRA, you and the blood that will be on your hands when the inevitable additional mass murders happen in that state, are the absolute worst. And we still have a lot more REIDOUT to go, including the one and only Jane Fonda. Stay right there. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home. At the same time, I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. (END VIDEO CLIP)REID: A blunt statement from Vice President Kamala Harris in Guatemala today, her first foreign trip since taking office. Harris met with Guatemala`s president and community and civic leaders to address the root causes leading migrants to make the perilous journey north, mainly the economy, climate and food insecurity. The vice president`s visit is -- to one of the Northern Triangle countries is part of a larger effort she`s been tapped to lead to address migration across the Southern border. In addition to her warning to prospective migrants, Harris also announced a new joint task force to address anti-corruption efforts and to address human trafficking in the region. Tomorrow, she will meet with Mexico`s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. And joining me now is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. And he`s a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Assess what it is that the Biden administration, in your view, Senator, can accomplish with this trip? SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, I think it`s important to note why the vice president went to Guatemala. This is a country that still has a lot of problems, a lot of issues with endemic corruption. But they have made a much more fulsome commitment to try to right the economic ship and security ship than the other Northern countries -- Northern Triangle countries. And so I think part of the purpose here is to show other countries, like Honduras, for instance, that you can have a closer relationship with the United States if you get more serious about confronting economic, security and corruption issues. That being said, Guatemala still has a long way to go. So, it was an important announcement that we`re going to be sort of pushing them to get more serious about corruption, and I think also important that the grants that Vice President Harris was announcing are mainly going to the private sector, to entrepreneurs, for instance. It is, I think, a strong message to these governments to say until you get your acts together, you should expect to see that USAID dollars as part of the Biden administration`s ban to lift up the Northern Triangle is likely to go to the private sector once you show that you can fairly and efficiently administer private sector dollars, U.S. taxpayer dollars, then maybe we`ll think about putting money through the government. I think that these were important messages that she was sending on this first very important foreign trip. REID: You know, it is notable that the first clip that`s` come out of it is don`t go on the perilous journey northward and we`re going to reject people coming without prior permission. But when you think about getting close to the United States, I mean, in a country like Guatemala, in Guatemala specifically, that used to be the United Fruit Company used to run essentially Guatemala. They had something like 70 percent of the usable land. They owned it. The 70 percent Mayan population were basically almost sort of slave plantation labor and then we overthrew their government when they spent 10 years building -- you know, just 10 years, they have a little democracy. We overthrew that joint in 1954. At some point, do we have a credibility issue when it comes to telling governments to be non-corrupt when we essentially, they had a 30-something year civil war. That was partly the CIA`s doing. How do we turn around and say, behave yourselves? By the way, our democracy is crumbling, too? MURPHY: Yeah. I mean, listen, your last point may be the most important, right? We can`t be a credible interlocutor for fighting corruption when, you know, we have our own oligarchs who are increasingly in charge of the decisions being made in Washington and state capitols. So, we have to clean up our own act which is why there isn`t any distance between the democracy reform agenda in Washington and our efforts to try to rebuild credibility of our government and our country around the world, and to try to clean up corrupt governments that often end up in people making that perilous journey to the United States without documentation. So, yeah, we always have a credibility gap between what we preach overseas and what we practice at home, and we`re foolish to think that folk stone (ph) notice. So, the more serious we are in Washington of that re-capturing power for the people away from the corrupt elites, the better we`ll be at convincing governments like those in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to clean up their own act. REID: Can you tell Joe Manchin about that? Sorry, I`m not going to give to you that job. But we would love somebody have a conversation with him about. I want to ask you while do I have you here. There is this headline from NBC News that the U.S. has recovered $2.3 million in bitcoin that was paid to these hackers, these DarkSide hackers in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attacks. We are increasingly vulnerable to ransomware attacks from other countries. It`s difficult. They`re targeting sectors that aren`t the good guys liek the oil sector. What can we do about that? MURPHY: Yeah. I don`t think we can rely on sort of this latest pattern. It looks like this might have been a very unique circumstance in which we are able to recover this ransom through the cryptocurrency system. In the future, we`re going to need a much more collaboration with the private sector and the public sector. I`m going to be honest, over the course of the next five to ten years, you know, we`ve seen these vulnerabilities in the private sector, particularly when it comes to critical infrastructure and there`s been difficulty in getting them to share information in real time with the government about the threats that they are dealing with. We can`t really help them protect themselves from these foreign actors unless they tell us what kind of hits that they`re getting on their system. So, we`ve got to build a better integrated system between the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector so that we get real-time information and we can share what we know with them and they can share what they know with us. Together, we can build I think a better prophylactic. But there`s been hesitancy from the private sector to sort of share with government. REID: We can take the subsidies away until they agreed to share information that could help out national security because they do get a lot of money. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you very much. I really appreciate you being here. And joining me now is Sergio Gonzales. Executive director of the immigration hub and former senior policy adviser to Senator Kamala Harris. And I want to jump back to what I was talking about earlier, because, you know, whenever we talk about this region, I can`t help, but then go into a deep dive on the history of this sort of this sort of Kissingerian foreign policy that got them where they are. I feel like there are a lot of chickens coming home to roost in the Northern Triangle countries. Is that fair to say in your view? You`re muted. You`re muted. Hold on a second. Unmute. SERGIO GONZALES, FORMER SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR TO SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: A year into COVID and still don`t know how to work it. Thank you for having me back, but I think that is fair to say. I mean, these challenges in Central America are long, intractable problems, right? And we heard it a long time ago and the fact that this administration has committed itself from the beginning to addressing these issues is really important because these solutions are not going happen overnight. I also think that you`re right and Senator Murphy was right. What we do in this country is watched very closely by our regional partners and allies and that`s especially true for the southern hemisphere, and I want to say, on that note the fact that Kamala Harris, and I don`t think it has been covered very much, or being covered by the pundit world (ph). The fact that Kamala Harris is visiting there as the first woman, female vice president, the first woman of color, to visit that region, herself a child of immigrants, that speaks as well to the people of those countries. REID: It does, but at the same time, as you said, they can see and they can get on the internet. They can see on TV, what we are dealing with in this country is that we have oligarchs that are attempting to take control of our country just like oligarchs like the United Fruit Company took their country basically hostage and turned it into a giant plantation, right, and then they had a civil war. All of these outgrowths of autocracy, they`re still dealing with them and so no wonder they have a lot of corruption and climate degradation and so they`re doing the only thing they can think of, a lot of these moms and dads and saying get my kid out of here, right? Are we in a moral position to judge what is the decisions being made by a Guatemalan mom when we helped create the mess her kids are stuck in? REID: You`re right. And I think it is, as you said, the symbolism of having a mom -- a mom of color up there talking, you know, about these situations. I think it is important. What general impact do you think that Kamala Harris has had, thus far, as vice president both symbolically and practically? GONZALES: I think that there`s been a lot of progress made in just a few months. This announcement was made back in April. So, we`re not talking about a lot of time. But already, I think there`s been a really multi- faceted approach which recognizes the complexity of the issue. And she`s announced partnerships with businesses and philanthropies and that`s extremely important because you have to start building economic opportunity, allow people to believe that there`s going to be the opportunity to have a job, the opportunity to make a living in order to pay for food because industries like (INAUDIBLE) have been wiped out because of two hurricanes. REID: Yeah. GONZALES: I also think that the administration (INAUDIBLE) legal pathways for immigration, which is really important, so people can legally come to the United States. REID: Yeah, absolutely. I think we should also note that Harris announced that the U.S. is going to be providing 500,000 coronavirus vaccines to Guatemala and that is hugely important and a very good thing. Sergio Gonzales, thank you very much. We appreciate your time. And up next, actress and activist Jane Fonda joins me as environmental and tribal groups protest plans to replace an aging oil pipeline that could endanger sensitive tribal areas in the Upper Midwest. Don`t go anywhere. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)REID: Activists today protested against the ongoing construction of the Enbridge pipeline at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota. Per organizers, around 2,500 people attended the protest. As around two dozen protesters occupied and locked themselves to equipment at one of the pipeline pump stations earlier today. The Department of Homeland Security helicopter attempted to disperse them. The oil pipeline which runs from Canada to Wisconsin is meant to replace an aging pipeline that runs a similar route. Pipeline company Enbridge says the new pipeline is needed to improve safety and the current pipeline is corroding and can operate at only half capacity. Opponents say that the pipeline which will cross the Mississippi River violates tribal treaty rights to the land and will exacerbate climate change. I`m joined by actress, activist and author Jane Fonda who spoke at the protest today, and Tara Houska of the Couchiching First Nation. She`s a trial attorney and former adviser on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders. I want to start with you, Ms. Houska. I understand there`s a lawsuit trying to appeal a decision by tribal groups and environmental groups who want to overturn -- I think we`ve lost her. I think we have lost her. TARA HOUSKA, TRIBAL ATTORNEY: This is happening right now. REID: Oh, are you there? HOUSKA: This is happening right now. REID: That`s perfectly okay. We`re going to watch what`s happening behind you. I know these protests are still ongoing. Tell us what the tribe wants to see happen, as we`re looking at what`s going on behind you. HOUSKA: What the tribes -- pardon? REID: What do the tribes want city happen regarding this pipeline? HOUSKA: The three Ojibwe nations are suing against this project because it directly violates the indigenous (ph) right to harvest wild rice and it passes the Ojibwe (ph) territories. It`s very, very clear in the law, perfectly clear, this is an illegal pipeline and it`s not in a similar route. It`s actually in a completely new route. It`s in an untouched area, 100 wetlands, 200 bodies of water. This is a new pipeline. The solution to an old aging one is not to build a brand-new one through a new place. The solution is to clean up the old mess and move on from fossil fuels. REID: Yeah, absolutely. And, Jane, let me bring you in here because you`re using your platform to highlight this issue. You alerted us and that`s why we are -- have the two of you on. I feel like this is a story about America`s constant subordination of our freedom and the freedom of our first nations to big oil. Big oil just runs this country. We`re enslaved to them. Is that a wrong way to read that? JANE FONDA, ACTRESS & ACTIVIST: No, I think it`s absolutely correct. Big oil has a stranglehold on our government, and while President Biden has done some wonderful things, and we`re so grateful to him that he has rolled back some of the Trump policies when it comes to drilling and more fossil fuel development, but there`s still too much that he`s doing that needs to be stopped. He has the power to stop this. Let me just give the big picture for a second. We are confronting a looming catastrophe. Climate scientists are virtually unanimous that we have nine years to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half in order to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, no higher than that if we want to avoid catastrophe. Even the conservative International Energy Association that usually supports new fossil fuel development is saying no, this is it. We cannot, cannot do any more development, no more drilling, fracking, or mining of new fossil fuels. We can`t even burn what we have already developed, because we`re going in the wrong direction. Fossil fuel emissions are rising, and we have to cut them in half. Otherwise, it`s a catastrophe. Otherwise, we`re compromising the future of our children and grandchildren. This pipeline would bring double the amount of tar sands oil from Canada, as Tara said, across pristine land, under water, that is very, very precious and pure, headwaters of the Mississippi. It has to stop, and Biden, President Biden has the power to do that, because it was -- the permit was given as the Trump administration, the lame duck administration was on its way out, and the proper environmental impact work wasn`t done. They haven`t really studied the impact this would have on climate, the impact it would have on the water, and of course, the flies in the face of environmental justice. Three things the Biden administration has said they are in favor of. He wants to be the climate president, so he must, must call on the Army Corps of Engineers to pull the permit and take a second look at this. HOUSKA: Defenders all over the globe led by indigenous people, we are 5 percent of the population globally, native people. We`re holding 85 percent of its biodiversity. They`re coming for the last sacred places on Mother Earth, and we are defending them. We have been defending them. And more and more allies and folks of other walks of life recognize this is the one home that we have, the one shared place we have. This is more than just an affront to climate science. It`s an affront to future generations that have a right to live. It`s an affront to tribal nations who have been here since before the United States. It`s an affront to all of us who are no longer going to be sacrificed. This is theft of land, but that`s this country is founded upon. And it`s time for a different, time of new era of justice and equity. REID: Hey, can you -- can you show us what`s happening behind you and tell us a little bit about this protest that we`re hearing that`s behind you? HOUSKA: Yeah, sure. So what you`re seeing is -- you`re seeing massive Enbridge line three pump station. This is the amount of infrastructure actually needed to electrify line three and its tar sands sludge they`re sending from Alberta down through to the Mississippi headwaters to the plant to the shore of Lake Superior. That`s what you`re looking at. Young people scaled the fences of this pump station this morning and locked every last bit of last equipment they possibly could. There`s blockade actually up the road from where I`m standing. There are hundreds of people here who have been here holding space. REID: Very quickly. HOUSKA: It has to change and we have to be willing to make the sacrifices to do it. REID: Indeed, Jane Fonda, what can we do? How can we help? FONDA: You can call or write President Biden. You can go to firedrillfridays.com/takeaction. And you will find out exactly what to say and what to do to pressure President Biden to call upon an ending of this pipeline. REID: We will do that. We will make sure we put that on all of our social media. I put that on my social media as well. Jane Fonda, thank you so much. Tara Houska, thank you, bless you. We`re rooting for you. That is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now. | 3 |
###CLAIM: two days after pictures of elliott started circulating on the social media, video of james climbing a horse that died next to a gallop emerged.
###DOCS: The British Horseracing Authority has welcomed comments by Denis Egan, the chief executive of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB), which clarified ... that Denise Foster is now entirely responsible for the training of horses at Cullentra House stables during Gordon Elliotts six-month suspension. Elliotts licence was suspended by the IHRBs referrals committee six days ago after a picture emerged on social media of him posing astride a dead horse on his gallops in 2019. Foster, who previously trained a small string of horses nearby in County Meath, took over responsibility for Cullentra House on Tuesday, but without any conditions attached to her licence regarding Elliotts role, if any, in day-to-day operations. A statement on Elliotts Twitter account on Saturday said he would be available to assist [Foster] as she requires. Though swiftly deleted, it led to speculation that Elliott could remain in effective charge of the 300-horse stable before the Cheltenham Festival next week, when Cullentra House will field a large team of runners. Those concerns diminished, however, when Egan told the Racing Post that Foster is fully responsible for everything that takes place at the yard and that Gordon is not supposed to be involved in training. Despite Fosters lack of experience with such a large string and the fact that Elliott has a house at the yard the IHRB anticipates that her level of involvement will be similar to that of leading trainers Henry de Bromhead and Willie Mullins, who took over the training of several horses from Cullentra House shortly after the image of Elliott emerged. This would mean that Elliott is available to answer questions about specific horses, but in relation to the day-to-day training, [Foster] is responsible for everything that goes on up there and shes given a commitment to that effect. While it remains unclear if the IHRB has communicated this formally to its British counterpart, a BHA spokesperson said on Thursday: We welcome the comments from the IHRB chief executive which have clarified the position to make clear that Denise Foster is now entirely responsible for the training of horses based at Cullentra. As the licensing authority, it is now for the IHRB to enforce the suspension in line with the outcome of last Fridays hearing which placed the sanction clearly on Mr Elliott. Assurances have also been provided that Gordon Elliott Racing will not be promoted at Cheltenham or other courses in Great Britain whilst in the care of Denise Foster.The IHRB, meanwhile, also published further details on Thursday of a referrals committee hearing on Wednesday into the case of Rob James, an amateur rider who steered Elliotts Native Milan to victory at last years Cheltenham Festival. A video of James briefly climbing on to a horse which had died next to a gallop emerged two days after the picture of Elliott started to circulate on social media. James, who lost his riders licence for four months with a further eight months suspended at Wednesdays hearing, told the panel that he was 22 at the time of the incident in August 2016 and riding work for the trainer Colin Bowe. He had been asked to assist with the removal of the horse, Three Hail Marys, which had died of a heart attack while exercising, and that a senior member of staff encouraged him to jump on the horse. Thank you for your feedback. Being young and naive, James said that he reacted to the peer pressure and did so for a couple of seconds before patting the mare as he got off her. This, he added, was an attempt to show some respect having immediately realised what he had done. James also told the panel that while it was a stupid act, it was not one that he would try to defend as that would only add insult to injury but he did immediately recognise his wrongdoing. Colin Tizzard, who enjoyed the biggest success of a hugely successful career when Native River won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2018, said on Thursday that he expects to hand over his licence to his son, Joe, at the end of the season. Joe will be on the licence soon, Tizzard said. I dont fancy [a joint licence for] Colin and Joe. Im 65 [and] it wont change anything, Ill still argue with him every morning. He deserves to go on as you dont want to go on too late in life. He is doing a good job and [retirement] was always going to be 65. Ive got other things I wouldnt mind doing. I dont want to wake up every morning worrying about horses all the time. He should be on [the licence] by next season. It wont change one iota as Joe is doing more and more. He deserves to have his name at the top.Fridays best betsDostal Phil (2.30) and Sexy Lot (4.45) make plenty of appeal as Sandowns Imperial Cup meeting gets underway on Friday, as both can be marked up on their latest efforts and have obvious chances on earlier form. The best bet of the day, though, may be Going Places (2.05) on the all-weather card at Lingfield, for the in-form team of Archie Watson and Hollie Doyle. Trainer and jockey have teamed up for five wins from nine so far in March, and Going Places ran well to finish third last time despite racing freely throughout. He is lightly-raced for a five-year-old and a mark of 89 could prove to be lenient if Doyle can get him to settle a little better. Cobra Commander (4.05) and Star Ascending (7.15) make most appeal at Leicester and Wolverhampton respectively. | 1 |
###CLAIM: no, i remember it being more of a show than it is here on fox news especially since she was trying to make sure the school could reopen in chicago.
###DOCS: This is a rush transcript from "The Five," May 20, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters along with Dana Perino, Katie Pavlich, Juan Williams and Kennedy. It's 5:00 in New York City and this is "The Five." This is a Fox News alert. Prince William responding to a bombshell case of media malpractice involving his mother, Princess Diana. An investigation found that BBC reporter Martin Bashir used "deceitful tactics" in order to secure a landmark tell-all interview with Princess Diana back in 1995. Benjamin Hall is standing by in London with all the details. Benjamin? BENJAMIN HALL, FOX NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jesse, good afternoon. Yes, you remember this interview from 1995. It was groundbreaking. The first time Princess Diana had spoken publicly about the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles, about his adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles. In fact, she said in the interview "there were three of us in these relationships, it just didn't work." She spoke about her rampant bulimia and many people feel that this interview led to events that led to her death a couple of years later. Well, what it is now -- what has now emerged is that she gave that interview after being shown forged bank documents which made it look as if members of the Royal household were being paid to spy on her. Prince William released a statement just in the last few minutes saying "It is my view from the deceitful way the interview was obtained, substantially influence what my mother said. The interview was a major contribution to making my parents relationship worse and has since hurt countless others. It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC's failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her." It was always thought strange that Princess Diana chose Martin Bashir, a relatively young, unknown journalist to do this interview. It's now clear she did so because he duped her and had asked the BBC graphics team to draw up these fake documents to convince her. Some have compared that 1995 Diana interview to the one Prince Harry recently gave to Oprah. They both talked about how hard they found royal life and how it affected their mental health. But an incredibly open, personal letter from Prince William in the last few moments, he has often said that he felt the media hounded his mother. Well this letter goes a little bit further and said had she known about the deceit at the time, things may have turned out very differently. Jesse? WATTERS: Thanks, Ben. Hang tight, we want to ask you a few questions. Dana Perino, go right ahead. DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, Jesse, I know you are an expert on this case so I'm glad you've tossed it to me. Just kidding. I do have some questions, Benjamin. First of all, why in the world would Diana's team, the P.R. team -- I'm sure she's not making these decisions on her own, have asked for, you know, bank records? Why -- how does that happen? HALL: Well, first of all, her team was actually quite diminished at the time. The Royal Family by all accounts had rather cut her off and she was left with quite a small team, her brother being the main one. And this journalist, Martin Bashir approached the brother saying, I've come across these documents which show that members of your household and of Princess Diana's household have been accepting money, totaling about 10,000 pounds, about $15,000 to give information on her life to both the tabloids as well as to the security services. And it was that piece of information that encourage Diana to go with Martin Bashir. It was widely reported that she was wanting to give an interview anyway but certainly not to this young Bashir, and certainly the interview would not have been, many people think, as groundbreaking and such a big, open, honest interview that she gave. But she was very angry with the reports that Martin Bashir brought to her. PERINO: But what about this report that there was a handwritten note that she wrote that said she was happy with the interview? HALL: She did and that's what Martin Bashir continually brings up, but that's because there had not been an investigation at the time. The BBC had an internal investigation which showed Martin Bashir was at fault here, but they held that, they covered it up, they didn't release it. So, the feeling is at the moment that Princess Diana just didn't realize the true extent of the fraud that was played on her. PERINO: That being said --WATETRS: Wow. I believe Kennedy --PERINO: -- I mean, I just that -- I think it diminishes her intelligence. She was clever and she was smart, and she was an intelligent woman and she put it out there that there were three people in the marriage. Maybe that was hurtful, maybe that led to additional things, but it just seems to me that if you give an interview to a reporter at least here, it would be a little bit different. Thanks, Benjamin. HALL: Thanks, Dana. WATTERS: And Kennedy, would you like to ask Benjamin a question? KENNEDY MONTGOMERY, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes. You know, often times we have a saying, obviously, the ends justify the means, but the means were fraudulent, and the end was utterly tragic for this woman. Can you put into context how she obviously was the brightest burning royal at the time? There was years and years of gossip about the Wales' marriage but when that fell apart and this interview came out before before they were divorced, how did that interview change how she was pursued by the press and how did that lead into her son's reaction? HALL: Yes. It played into it in a big way. And you're right, she was the shining star of the Royal Family at the time. And frankly, many people have said that Prince Charles in particular really didn't like that. He couldn't stand it. He was the heir to the throne. He was the one that was supposed to get all the attention. And Princess Diana was the people's princess. She was the one that people turn to. And so when the divorce or when the marriage broke down, people started to side with her and they didn't like that. And then as soon as she spoke to the press, she kind of cross that line. You know, royals tend to be given some sort of privacy in the U.K. They certainly did in the '90s. But when she came out and gave that big interview it was almost as if the gloves came off and that she was fair game for the rest of the press and really it was that point that we started to see them hound her, not just one or two paparazzi, but hundreds and hundreds at a time following her everywhere she went and she was not given support or security by the Royal Family. That what she argues. The counter side to this is that she very cleverly used the media. She knew she was heading into a divorce battle. She knew that she needed to improve her own standing and become the people's princess. And so she was off to known to give tipoffs to the media and to the tabloids when it suited her and then also didn't want the attention when it was bad. So, you know, there are two sides to how Princess Diana interacted with the media, but certainly, there is no excuse for the kind of journalistic malpractice that comes with forging documents to get an interview. WATTERS: Juan Williams, why don't you jump in here? JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST: All right. So, you know, this week there was news here in the U.S. when Prince Harry, I guess, said, you know, he thinks the first amendment here in the United States is confusing to him. He doesn't understand it. And I know that Fleet Street is famous in Britain for its aggressive tactics, you know, tapping phones and all the rest, but is there a different set of rules just for us as Americans to understand as we take in the story? Is there a different set of protections for public figures like Diana that are being applied now in this BBC report? HALL: Well, you know, certainly, there was an understanding between the papers and the Royal Family, that there are the two princess would give x amounts -- I think it was only a few media events a year. And in exchange, they would be given their privacy. And that's been a long-standing agreement between the press and the princess over here and the Royal Family. That started to change, and I think we've seen that the world over. Social media also started to mean that, and of course, that came a bit later, but they were everywhere. And paparazzi, the '90s was the heyday of paparazzi and these pictures are being sold in other countries. So, the U.K. press could no longer control it and there was a big discussion as to whether if these photos were being taken so often of Princess Diana were being published around the world, well, why should the U.K. press also have to -- why should the U.K. have to be silenced and not be able to publish them? And so, we started to see a relationship change between the Royal Family and the media. But yes, you talk about Prince Harry and I think, you know, many people say that he is just as savvy as his mother was when it comes to using and playing with the media and we've seen that now. He called the first amendment "bonkers" I think it was. And it's surprising that Prince William was the first one to come out with a statement because it is almost always Harry who is quickly on Instagram or Twitter with his replies. Interestingly, we will see the two brothers together on the 1st of July because it would've been Princess Diana's 60th birthday and they are unveiling a statue together, and it will be the first time we've seen them since Prince Philip's funeral and since the big rift has continued to widen. So, all eyes will be on that, but it seems like there are two different camps of the moment. You have William who often comes out with these rather more restrained statements than you have Harry with this far more emotional ones and some people feel that he's really following the Diana model. But this statement today from Prince William was emotional and raw to the core, and he talked about the pain and the suffering that this interview caused him. So, I think we are seeing a game player between the two of them. Prince William doesn't want Prince Harry to be the one who carries the mantle of his mother. He wants to say -- be able to remind the world that she was his mother too and he has just as much of a right over her. So, it's an interesting battle playing out between the two brothers. So, we'll all be watching when they come back together again on July 1st. WATTERS: Yes. William's statement actually included the phrase "fake news" which I had to do a little bit of a double take there. I didn't know that it become so popular across the pond, Benjamin. Katie P. would like to ask you a question so stick right there Katie. KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS HOST: So, Benjamin, you're mentioning this rivalry that seems to be brewing between the two brothers, and color me suspicious, but this was an independent inquiry, so can you please talk about who was behind the independent inquiry because this interview took place 26 years ago and now you have Harry in the U.S. working with Oprah. There was a headline this week saying he was going to drop more "truth bombs" about the Royal Family. So, who is behind the investigation and why is it coming out now? HALL: Yes. There have long been rumors that this interview was based on fraudulent reporting. The BBC did its own internal investigation about 25 years ago and they covered it up. This new investigation came along, it's called the Dyson inquiry headed out by Lord Dyson who is, you know, a well- known legal figure over here. And it came about just because of changes in the media that we are seeing. We had the phone hacking scandal which took place, you know, 10 years or so. We've seen a number of cases brought back and re-investigated. This has been one of them. And as a result, this has come to light and it has now been accepted by the BBC who always denied it. Well, there will be ramifications, we just don't know at the moment, but the press really are being held to account more and more over here. I think you mentioned the phone hacking, which took place around 10 years ago. That absolutely changed the way the media was seen over here. It was the Wild West for them. They were, you know, hacking into Prince Harry's voice mail because a lot of these voice mails were just generic passwords. And all this information is being splashed over to the newspapers and they really cracked down on that. And what we are seeing now, frankly, is the media continuing to try and clean itself up and perhaps address old mistakes. WATTERS: Thanks a lot, Benjamin. I guess it's true that media corruption has no borders. And Prince Harry has released a statement saying, "To those who have taken some form of accountability, thank you for owning it. That is the first step towards justice and truth. What deeply concerns me is that practices like these, and even worse, are still widespread today. Then and now, it's bigger than one outlet, one network or one publication. My biggest concern was history repeating itself. I've said that before on numerous occasions very publicly and what I was seeing was history repeating itself up but more, perhaps, or definitely far more dangerous because then you add race in and you add social media in. And when I'm talking about history repeating itself, I'm talking about my mother." Very interesting that he would say that at this point. WILLIAMS: Yes. WATTERS: And we will leave it at that. Up next, a cease-fire reached between Israel and Hamas, but the tensions here at home are ramping up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)PAVLICH: Well, after 11 days of fighting like that, there's a cease-fire between Israel and terrorist organization Hamas. President Biden is said to react to the news at the White House. While that situation has cooled down for now, the conflict over the fighting in the Middle East is heating up in America. New video shows a shocking attack on Jewish diners by what witnesses say is a pro-Palestinian mob. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNKNOWN: (BLEEP)! Guys, guys! Hey, hey, hey! (END VIDEO CLIP)PAVLICH: So, Dana, we've been watching this play out in the Middle East, 4,000 rockets fired by Hamas at Israeli civilian targets over the last 11 days, but it's boiled over into the States and we've seen Jews hunted down in the streets by what people are saying are pro-Palestinian protesters. I would call them more than that, but that's what we're seeing on the videos. PERINO: Right. So, and being investigated as a potential hate crime. Also, there are some -- because of social media or new technology there are ways that these groups can organize and say, you know, meet up, this is where were going to be. And possibly that will lead police to be able to, one, either protect people that are out and about or at least tracked down perpetrators of this. Another piece of this as Joe Biden gets ready to make a statement in about 25 minutes, first of all, I don't understand how Hamas has conditions for a cease-fire, right. And I understand that the protection of life is very important, but we also to be very clear about the root cause of who supports Hamas and what Hamas has done, even to the people of Gaza. Putting these missile targets right there in the middle of hospitals and schools. And the propaganda that Hamas is able to get out of this is that they are strong, that they are the position -- in the position of being the big guy, the one that can save everybody when actually they are putting so many people in danger. Last thing on this, that there is just not enough attention, I don't believe, Katie, on the fact that the Democrats in Congress, some Democrats in Congress, are trying to put a halt to a recently approved weapons sale from the United States to Israel. This has been the kind of pro forma. These things are almost always put forward and agreed to. All of a sudden that is in jeopardy. And it's like those Democrats that are calling for that are watching right there on their screen. They can see that Israel has utilized that money well. You can see that the Iron Dome is protecting innocent people. And the Democrats somehow think that there should be less of that. I think we should pay a little bit more attention to that before Joe Biden gets to the podium in about 25 minutes. PAVLICH: Yes, Juan, what about that? We've seen the squad saying they don't want to replenish the Iron Dome, but you can argue that the Iron Dome actually saves the lives of people in Gaza because it gives the Israelis a buffer not to react with full military operations every time Hamas, the terrorist organization, fires a rocket at civilian targets. WILLIAMS: Yes. I don't think there's any question here that Israel is the far superior military power. They also a far superior economic power, Katie. But, you know, to my mind I think what's going on here is there has been a tremendous shift in public attitudes here in the United States. That kind of violence that we showed earlier is to be condemned. It's reprehensible. Luckily, I haven't heard about this being any kind of widespread phenomenon here in this country. But what is true is that we live, and I think Dana mentioned this, in an age of social media. This is the first time we've really had Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this, you know, kind of social media milieu. And so a lot of voices that were previously ignored are now being heard and I think a lot of those voices no longer, you know, for most of my life, Israel was a vulnerable state and, you know, one that the United States need as an ally to be supported. And now Israel is a powerhouse in that region. We make deals with them in terms of taking on the Iranians and the like. And I think there's a lot of people who are questioning how they are using their power at this moment. That's why I think worldwide opinion is going in the other direction and Bernie Sanders, a Jewish U.S. senator is leading the drive to take away the money for further military weaponry. PAVLICH: Kennedy? MONTGOMERY: If you're going to take money away from anyone in terms of selling weapons, take it away from Saudi Arabia. That is most concerning to me, absolutely. Hamas is a terror organization. So, the question is, you know, do you stand for freedom or do you stand for Marxism? Because Marxism, they embraced and loved Hamas. And they are defending Palestinians in a rationalizing terroristic violence. Israel is a lone democracy in the Middle East and it is our ally because they stand for freedom. And that is the big goal in our society and across the world right now. What do you stand for? Do you stand for Marxism or do you stand for freedom? It's that cut and dry. And I hope that we have a president who is able to handle this diplomatically. I don't have a lot of faith in him, but I do support him and I hope he brings peace. PAVLICH: Jesse, last word to you. WATTERS: Juan said worldwide opinion has shifted against Israel. I never knew worldwide opinion was ever with Israel. That's news to me. And let's all remember why they are there. It's because of the holocaust. Millions were slaughtered in Germany and they were put there by the British because that was a British territory. And Harry Truman, a Democrat was the first to recognize the Israeli country there. And since its founding, they've been fighting to the death trying to survive, being attacked from all sides. And they are fighting a terrorist organization. This terrorist organization, they are not trying to avoid civilian casualties. Israel is trying to avoid them. Hamas is not trying to avoid them. So, if you're living in Long Island and Manhattan is just shelling you indiscriminately with rockets all day, and the world is calling for restraint while the insurgents are hiding in hospitals and schools here in Manhattan, you do your best to avoid civilian casualties. But you are going to take those people out as surgically as you can to save your own people. And to make peace and that's what the Israelis are doing. PAVLICH: Yes. All right. We'll see if the cease-fire holds. Ahead, CNN's Chris Cuomo caught giving his brother advice on how to fight back against sexual harassment allegations. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)PERINO: If you thought the Cuomo brother's cue tip interview was in poor journalistic taste, wait until you hear this one. A new report says top anchor Chris Cuomo took part in strategy conference calls with his governor brother on how to respond to sexual harassment allegations. CNN giving us a statement saying that Chris Cuomo has stopped covering his brother on air and added "it was inappropriate to engage in conversations that include members of the governor's staff, which Chris acknowledges. He will not participate in such conversations going forward." Jesse, what do you think of that? WATTERS: I think they have three problems. One, they should never have tagged Cuomo as a journalist at CNN. He's not a journalist. He's an opinion guy. And if you tag someone as a journalist, then yes, they have to abide by very strict journalistic guidelines. If you're an opinion guy, you could maybe tell a politician, hey, watch out for the fake news. It's a different dynamic. The second thing is, I completely understand helping your brother out. He's your brother. You're going to help him out. But now, the stench of Cuomo the elder, has gotten on Cuomo the younger, and that stench is now wafting down the hallways at CNN, and that is also the problem. The third problem is staffers at CNN are going to hate this, especially female staffers. And that's an internal problem that they're going to have to deal with. I did find it ironic that Cuomo on his show has mocked the idea of canceled culture yet advised his older brother to use cancel culture as an excuse to make his problems go away. He does seem like a golden boy over there at CNN. I looked up. I don't know. He was in 29th place on Tuesday. No one is watching his show. For some reason, he's protected over there. Maybe he's just a really nice guy. PERINO: 29th, but who's counting? Kennedy, you got to have a take on this one. MONTGOMERY: I think they're both meatheads, and I think it's reprehensible. And they obviously skipped the lesson in ethics. They should be ashamed of themselves. The reporter who asked Governor Cuomo if he had the blood of dead New Yorkers on his hand, if this book was written on the backs of dead New Yorkers, and he snapped at them and said, you know, these are lessons that we should learn from the pandemic. Yes, the first one is, don't put COVID-positive patients in nursing homes with healthy people who then succumb to the illness and die. He hasn't taken responsibility for that, or the sexual harassment allegations. He's blamed his accusers. And if that's the advice his brothers giving him, they should both be ashamed of themselves. PERINO: Katie P.PAVLICH: So, we all know that Governor Cuomo has bad judgment. But the idea that he would call his brother, Chris Cuomo, when he has all these resources, you know, lawyers to talk to, the government of New York to talk to you about handling the situation. And the fact that they weren't smart enough to just maybe have a personal phone call rather than jumping on a conference call to give this advice, where there are other people listening, and they could just say that this was going on, again, shows that their judgment is really bad. And if this were happening at another network with this massive conflict of interest, on a basic level, with Chris Cuomo being related to the governor and having to cover the city -- or the state of New York, that's a conflict by itself. But you add all this other stuff in there and you do wonder what Jesse said. Why did they continue to protect him in this way? PERINO: Juan, that is actually a great point that Katie makes, which is, I can't understand wanting to talk to your brother if this happened. But to do it with government staffers on the phone, that seems weird, bad judgment. WILLIAMS: Yes, it was wrong. You know, I mean, it's hard to condemn a man who wants to help his brother. I mean, blood runs deep, you know. And in the Cuomo family, politics and media, I think, are a family business. But clearly, this crossed the line in terms of journalistic ethics. He should never have been on that call. He acknowledges that. It said in the statement and says that he wouldn't do it again. He thinks it did hurt and it's going to hurt him and his standing, you know, in this business to do that. It's just sad. PERINO: All right, Juan, thank you. Up next, Chicago's Democratic Mayor defending her decision to only give interviews to non-white reporters. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)MONTGOMERY: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defending her decision to only give interviews to non-white reporters. That's lovely. Lightfoot claims it is necessary after slamming the "overwhelming whiteness, and maleness of the Chicago Press." The mayor said this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D-IL), CHICAGO: The facts are the facts. And the fact is that this press corps does not reflect the diversity of the city. And it makes a difference in the kinds of coverage. We're having a powerful and important conversation around systemic racism in every institution. And press and the media can't be exempt from that conversation. (END VIDEO CLIP)MONTGOMERY: Juan, this is an overwhelming zero-sum racial bias on her part and there's no way around that. I don't understand how she wants to exclude an entire racial category of reporters who might ask her some very important questions. How do you feel about this? WILLIAMS: I think she's gotten to a very important point, Kennedy. I think there's -- it's hard to argue that the legacy, the old school major media platforms in Chicago are overwhelmingly white and male. I don't think we can argue that. I think she wants to make a point of encouraging diversity in the media. It's just that she's not doing it effectively. Instead, she opens the door to people to say something, you know, like, oh, this is reverse racism. Well, obviously, the status quo, it might be described as real racism. What she's doing though, is ineffective, I say, because it would be more effective if she said something like, I'm going to give interviews to younger people, you know, at more of the minority outlets. I'm going to give a greater share to them. Because then, it wouldn't come across in this way. It wouldn't allow her critics to suddenly scream reverse racism. Or she could use the interviews with anybody to talk about the need to invite more voices to be heard on life and politics in Chicago. That would be more effective. I think it's just ham-handed. MONTGOMERY: That's a really good point, Juan. And when I read this story, Dana, the first thing I thought is, well, why not go to the journalism schools at the University of Chicago and Northwestern and, you know, go back a few steps and make sure that their outreach and their recruiting includes a number of different voices. This just seems like she's protecting herself from certain reporters asking certain questions, Dana. PERINO: She was trying to get some good press for her two-year mark after her inauguration there. I remember, especially as she really tried to make sure that the schools could reopen in Chicago, there was no show that covered it more than the ones here at Fox News. I thought she made a great point. Like, we're really happy to drive it. And to my thinking, whenever you're trying to communicate, you're going, what's your goal? What do you want to achieve? She wants to get good press about her trend in two years. OK, great. So, then how are you going to do that? But then, by taking it to this step, she's basically just modeled all of that. And now, that's -- no one's talking about the two-year tenure. Everyone is just talking about this. So, one, I think that was completely ineffective, as Juan said. But also, I think, it gets increasingly difficult to figure out who then is going to qualify for her -- under her categories because the Latino reporter that was offered the interview declined to do it. And he said, actually, this is -- I think that her policy is wrong. I'm not going to do it. And when you look at the census for -- especially for younger Americans, as they start to be asked a question, how do you identify? Well, many of them are of mixed race. And it's like, well, are you white, are you brown? I don't know. To me, a blind test in terms of who is a reporter, who's a good reporter, that would be a better way to go about this. MONTGOMERY: Absolutely. So, Jesse, how are things going in Chicago, swimmingly, I assume? WATTERS: Not well. What was it last weekend? 37 people shot, six kids. I know -- that wasn't -- it doesn't matter to me who asked her questions, black, white, purple. You got to ask her about how she's going to stop the bloodshed on the south side, right? Who cares who asked her the question? She can have women ask. She can have the foreign press ask. Notice who she doesn't let ask her questions, a conservative. Conservative reporters are probably the most discriminated reporter there. You put a tenacious conservative, you give them access to city hall, they will take her apart in 10 minutes in a live shot. 10 minutes, it's all you need, because she doesn't have a plan. And this is just a distraction to divert from a really bloody summer. And my other question is, why isn't the liberal media hiring more black reporters? She said they're underrepresented. Well, who does the hiring? It's all the liberal newspaper barons. They do the hiring in Chicago. All the network affiliates run by liberals. Why aren't rich, white, so-called open-minded liberals hiring black reporters? MONTGOMERY: Katie? PAVLICH: Yes. This mayor is not engaged in reverse racism. She's just engaged in racism by choosing people to cover her as a government official based on their skin color. And maybe she should be more focused on black victims in her city being shot by the dozens every weekend, rather than focusing on this absurd equity argument that is poisoned. Any kind of logical thought in big cities around the country, you know, when you're engaging in this equity argument, you have to discriminate against somebody, some people in order to make your case for whatever diversification of whatever group of people you're trying to engage in. And so, somebody eventually has to sue over these things, because it's a violation of the Civil Rights Act. You can't discriminate against people based on race. And if you just go based on merit and pick the best person for the job, well, then everybody gets a fair shot. MONTGOMERY: We'll see if they're in solidarity within the Chicago Press. Thank you. A shocking claim about UFOs. A former top military official says the government has the physical proof. They've got good. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WILLIAMS: Big news about UFOs this week setting off a frenzy of speculation on whether they exist. That includes revelations from a 16-minute segment that's getting so much attention. We also have new video of an unidentified object disappearing into the ocean. And now, a former Pentagon official is making this explosive claim. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)LUIZ ELIZONDO, FORMER OFFICIAL, PENTAGON: The United States government is in possession of exotic material, and I'll leave it at that. More analysis needs to be done. There are pockets in the U.S. government that are willing to have the conversation and conduct the analysis. I'm not going to say those right now what those elements are because I'm worried frankly for the -- for the same type of reprisal that I'm facing currently. (END VIDEO CLIP)WILLIAMS: Dana, do you believe in UFOs? Anybody in your family, friends ever dealt with aliens? PERINO: You're leading me down a path where someone I am very close to will get probably frustrated with me for characterizing his position incorrectly. So, for 10 years, my whole life actually, but for 10 years on this show, anytime we talk about UFOs, I'm like such a skeptic. I'm like, nope, nope, nope. But then you had the interview on "TUCKER" last night. We had another guy on this morning on "AMERICA'S NEWSROOM." But it was President Obama in an interview where he was asked about this the other night on The Late Show in which he could -- he was very cautious in choosing his words. And I was looking at him thinking, OK, there's something here then. He was trying not to reveal whatever he knows in terms of the classified information. I mean, I guess there's like three possible explanations in my mind that these things are out there and maybe it's something that technology we're testing or technology somebody else is testing like the Chinese or the Russians, or that is absolutely extraterrestrial. Because as that person who lives in my house who was very close to me said, they are defying the laws of physics as we know them. So, now, I'm not as much as a skeptic. WILLIAMS: Jesse, with all this world of cameras, social media, no secrets, shouldn't there be some hard evidence? WATTERS: Well, first of all, how did Obama let it slip and Trump didn't? I mean, God. Yes, Juan, I need to see evidence. And I don't want to see like a little funny-looking metallic scrap metal from Neptune. I want to see little green men with bug eyes, right? I want to see a James Carville face with a gecko lizard body. That's what the evidence that I need to see. Because right now, I need to be convinced. I'm sure they're observing a swan. And I can guarantee you they're disappointed in what they're seeing down here, what are we like. It's all - - it's all violence and pandemic and the Cuomo brothers. I'm sure they're just radioing back to the captain. Yes, this little planet is obsessed with race and Bitcoin. They're lightyears behind us. I think we just skip this whole galaxy. I'm not impressed. PERINO: Yes. They just let their show with Princess Diana interview from 1995. WILLIAMS: Katie, maybe we should build a wall, Katie. What do you think? PAVLICH: Well, I'm looking at that that UFO on the screen from the Department of Defense and that looks like a cicada to me, and I've seen lots of those flying around. Also, I just want to know if I can pay these UFOs to hitch a ride to space. Like how much does it cost? Take me up. It might be kind of fun. WATTERS: It's like an Uber. WILLIAMS: By the way, Kennedy -- Katie, do you think that they'd be friendly or they'd be foes? PAVLICH: No. MONTGOMERY: Are you asking me? I would say, they are -- we don't know. If you've seen Mars Attacks, they appear friendly, but then they emulsify you. They're here. They're real. And if you're watching, hi, guys. PERINO: Take Juan first. WILLIAMS: I bet they'd like you, Kennedy. PAVLICH: Come on the show. WILLIAMS: Oh, I'm going. I'm going. All right, "ONE MORE THING" is up next for you right here on THE FIVE. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WATTERS: It's time for "ONE MORE THING. Dana. PERINO: All right, Thursday, that means there's a new podcast for Everything Will Be Okay. This week I talked to my co-anchor Bill Hemmer and a University of Virginia professor Dr. Meg Jay, who wrote a book called The Defining Decade. This is all an episode devoted to the graduates of 2021. Congratulations to you all, some great advice in there. Also, I did an interview with an adorable 7-year-old from Idaho. Her name is Emmy Eaton. She had seven questions for me and answered them all very honestly. Here's a clip. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)EMMY EATON, KID REPORTER: Question number one. What's your favorite part about your job? PERINO: Oh my gosh. I love reading the news and talking about the news. And when I worked at the White House, I used to answer questions about the news. So, this is just perfect for me this job. I love being involved in journalism and working with my friends here at Fox. EATON: I love doing journalism too. PERINO: I can tell. (END VIDEO CLIP)PERINO: Jesse, I highly recommend an interview for you for your book to her. Big sales. WATTERS: That is the cutest thing I've ever seen. I love that, Dana. Speaking of my book though, Dana, we are debuting a little segment where I will be reading a titillating excerpt from How I Saved The World. So, here we go. Let's begin. "Dick was 50 and intimidating and I was still drunk. This was a bad situation, so I got changed and jumped into his truck. 45 minutes later, I'm in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It's a public school classroom filled with drunks and drug addicts and me." So, if you want to find out how that whole situation got resolved, go to Amazon or HarperCollins.com, wherever books are sold. PERINO: It was quite a tease. WATTERS: Order that and it'll come on July 6. PERINO: Vivid imagery. WATTERS: Kennedy. MONTGOMERY: Thank you, Jesse. And if you want to know where Jesse stole the name for his book, it's from my podcast which you can find on FoxNewsPodcast.com. PERINO: It's true. MONTGOMERY: It's called Kennedy Saves The World. Tomorrow I'll be talking to California gubernatorial hopeful Kevin Paffrath about ending high-speed rail in California, legalizing gambling across the entire state and cutting taxes drastically. He's a very interesting candidate. And also, here's a very quick video of a dad (INAUDIBLE). He's having his gears grinded. His child was being pulled by an R.C. car. And that's remote his hand. He's doing no pushing at all. Only at Boston. PERINO: Smart dad. WATTERS: All right, Juan, take it away. WILLIAMS: All right, so with the pandemic easing, big weddings are making a comeback. Take a look at a groom ready for a first look at his bride in her wedding dress, but he's the one who gets the surprise. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God. (END VIDEO CLIP)WILLIAMS: Obviously, that wasn't the bride. It was his friend, his best man dressed up in a wedding gown. That video has attracted over 750,000 views on TikTok. Now, that's a wedding joke that's going to last a lifetime. PERINO: It's pretty funny --(CROSSTALK)WATTERS: Katie, there's no time. Yes. And thank God we're out of time --PAVLICH: It's OK. I'll be here tomorrow. I'll see you then. WATTERS: -- because I had a few things I was going to say about that video that I probably just shouldn't say. And we want to just go right to "SPECIAL REPORT" with Shannon Bream. Go ahead, Shannon. Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. This is a rush transcript from "The Five," May 21, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Juan Williams along with Katie Pavlich, Gillian Turner, Jesse Watters, and Kennedy with an exclamation point. It's five o'clock in New York City, and this is The Five. The fighting has paused in the Middle East, but things are getting pretty heated here at home. A disturbing wave of hate aimed at Jewish-Americans like this next scene in New York City where pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with pro-Israeli activists. And in Los Angeles, an SUV with a Palestinian flag was caught on camera chasing down a Jewish man. The victim says he thought he was going to die and the perpetrators were yelling Allahu Akbar. Republican Senator Ted Cruz blaming the rhetoric of far-left Democrats for what is happening. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): It's reprehensible, the anti-Semitic violence we are seeing. And we've been seeing a rise of anti-Semitic violence both in America and Europe. Unfortunately, it is encouraged, that's encouraged by radical Islamic terrorists. It's also encouraged by the angry left, the far left, that regularly traffics in anti-Israel rhetoric, anti-Semitic rhetoric. (END VIDEO CLIP)WILLIAMS: Jesse, this kind of partisan violence here at home is just upsetting. I mean, to blame Jewish people for Israeli policy, that's wrong. It's just like blaming Chinese people for China's COVID policy. What would you suggest political leaders do to calm people down here? JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, the squad is disparaging Israel as an apartheid state. They might want to dial back language like that. Because if this were the other way around, and Trump said something, and someone did something like this, they would probably draw up an impeachment article. But I mean, I'm looking at this on the screen, Juan. Is this the Mideast or is this midtown? This is just right across the street from Fox. This is in the Diamond district. I got my engagement ring right there. I hope my jeweler is OK. But I hope everyone is OK. This is -- this did not look, to me -- they are calling it a firework. That looked like a commercial grade. That was not a little MAD right there. And it was premeditated. These aren't people getting carried away at a bar. This is a textbook hate crime. This was people getting into a truck and driving to the Diamond district with the intention of causing violence. And if you adjust for population, anti-Semitism in America is the biggest hate crime. Jews make up just a smidgen of the U.S. population, yet they are more targeted for hate crimes than any other group, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians. And the media doesn't talk about it. The media looks at video of Black Americans attacking Asian-Americans. They don't talk about that either, but if you are going to cover crimes, you have to treat them fairly. You don't have to wait and see the race or ethnicity of the perp or the victim. You just have to call balls and strikes. And it makes people very angry that hate crimes in this country are suppressed in order to protect a political group. And that's what's happening here. I think everybody needs to chill. We don't want this country to look like Gaza. We don't want factions attacking each other in the streets. I can't even believe I'm seeing this. And this is right outside of where we are broadcasting right now. It makes me sick. WILLIAMS: Kennedy, we were also seeing this happen inside Israel. Again, it's disturbing. You know, I don't know if everyone realizes it, but 20 percent of the Israeli population is Arab. And for the first time, you have now widespread outputs of violence between Arabs and Israelis. What do you see happening there? How can that calm down, or is that do you think it's just going to get worse? KENNEDY MONTGOMERY, FOX BUSINESS HOST: I think it's going to get worse before it gets better because we don't really have a solid, diplomatic solution on the table. I thought the Abraham Accords were really, really good place to start, and any time your focal point is economic prosperity and cooperation, you are going to end in a much better place. And that's obviously what we want to see. We want de-escalation, you know, we want a ceasefire, we want people to be safe. We want them to thrive. And Hamas is not the Palestinian people. We have two separate events. Jewish people in America, you are right, Juan. They are not the Israeli government. There is no rationality for this type of violence. And you are seeing it in New York, where there is a concentration of Jewish offenders on 47th street, and the Diamond district. And they were a magnet yesterday for violence. One man said that he was standing there, speaking in Hebrew, and a man came up, was listening to them, ran up into the crowd, came back, with 10 guys that surrounded them, and attacked them. You know, one guy has the flag of Israel torn out of his hands. He turned around to grab it back from the guy, he got punched in the stomach. twenty- six people were arrested yesterday. We were in the studio right upstairs where I broadcast my Fox Business show. And as we were getting ready for the show, we could see people running around. People were terrified. Because you don't know if that's an MAD, you don't know if it's an explosive. You don't know if it's a gun. And it's -- you don't know how much more it's going to escalate. We cannot live like this. It has to get better. And yes, some of those anti-Semitic lawmakers they really have to tone it down. WILLIAMS: So, Gillian, what's next in terms of on the ground in the Middle East? We know that a ceasefire is very tentative. Everyone is anxious to see that it does hold. Do you think there's any hope that we can get back to like the Oslo Accords and talk of a two-state solution? GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No. To put a fine point on it is the answer to that question, I wanted to make a comment, Juan, if I may, about what's happening here in U.S. streets. WILLIAMS: Sure. TURNER: Watching this footage in the few minutes is like -- the rest of America is finally now waking up to the reality that American Jews have been ringing alarm bells about four years now, that anti-Semitism is alive. It's more virulent than ever before inside the United States, and it's spreading like wildfire. There was this Pew survey, they do these periodically, it came out a few days ago -- that found three quarters of American Jews think there's more anti-Semitism in the United States today than five years ago, and more than half of American Jews, 53 percent, say that as a Jewish person in the United States, they feel personally less safe now than they did five years ago. This speaks to the timeline here. This is not a new problem. This is the first time we are maybe seeing anti-Semitic violence erupted in broad daylight in the middle of Times Square for a long time, but this problem has been bubbling and simmering and now exploding. It's taken a long time to get here. I also want to say that I think doling out blame to one or the other political parties in this country does a disservice to the underlying issue, which is anti-Semitism. I don't think you can pin this squarely on the squad, though their rhetoric isn't helpful. This started a long time before Ilhan Omar or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were in Congress. It's going to continue on. It's a stain on the country frankly. WILLIAMS: All right. So, let me ask Katie then, just give us a quick sense, if you could, Katie, about what you think comes next in the Middle East. Where is this going? Is there any hopeful ray of light here? KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. So, I'll get to that in just the second. First, I want to say, you know, we've heard that this, that the Jewish Americans are not responsible for what is going on in Israel, and that is true. But because the Palestinians both in Israel and Palestinian Americans here believe that if Jews fight back and defend themselves, that they will not be held accountable for attacking them, but rather, the Jews will be threatened and said that you need to ceasefire, you need to make sure that you act with restraint. They think now that they are going to be able to get away with this kind of violent activity, whether it's in L.A., in New York, in Florida, because there's no accountability for these violent attacks on Jews. The issue is anti-Semitism, the issue is not Israel, Israelis, or American Jews. It's anti-Semitism in general. As far as what's going to happen in the Middle East, I talked to someone who has watched the Middle East, lived there, worked there for many years, and they believe that a third intifada is coming this summer. And the reason is, if you look at the so-called ceasefire, which really is just -- was really the Israelis defending themselves against a terrorist organization in preventing civilian casualties. There are thousands of people on the Temple Mount today at Al-Aqsa Mosque and they are unfurling posters of Iranian leaders and Hamas flags on the Temple Mount. That does not bode well for the future of what's going to happen there, in terms of any time kind of peace agreement, especially when you have the Biden administration negotiating in Vienna to infuse and take off sanctions on Iran, which means they will just have more money for weapons. The Palestinians and the Hamas factions in the Middle East, and other factions as well, quite frankly, have no interest in peace for Israel. And one last thing. There is a civil war brewing in the West Bank between the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas. Hamas is upset. The elections were cancelled for President Mahmoud Abbas. They wanted to win those elections to take over the West Bank. So, Israel will then be used as a scapegoat in the middle for those two factions of terrorism to fight each other for credibility and power in the Middle East. So, I don't see this going anywhere soon in terms of the Middle East. And also, what's happening and in the United States, and Jewish Americans being attacked by Palestinian protesters. MONTGOMERY: Juan, one quick thing that would help, because you asked about a solution, is if Hamas was not allowed to borough and hide behind civilian outpost inside Israel anymore. Hospitals, media outlets like we saw this week. Schools. That's something where the U.S. can actually make a huge difference. WILLIAMS: Ok. I think, yes, I think that's right. And I think, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that he really appreciates President Biden's support so far. We'll see if that continues. Up next, Nancy Pelosi blasting Republicans for defying her mask rules. But did she just give her critics ammo by showing up maskless at the White House? We're going to have more on that for you next on The Five. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)PAVLICH: All right. First, I have to say, all of the paddle borders there have dogs on the front of the paddle boards, which are awesome. Got to learn how to do that. All right. Anyway, anti-science Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being called out for some serious hypocrisy. New video shows her without a mask talking and hugging people at a crowded White House events, that's after slapping Republicans, several of them, with $500 fines for violating her House floor mask mandate. Republicans say Pelosi should follow CDC guidance, but the speaker isn't backing down. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), UNITED STATES SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We have a responsibility to make sure that the House of Representatives chamber is not a petri dish for the -- because of the selfishness of some not to be vaccinated. (END VIDEO CLIP)PAVLICH: All right. So, Jesse, is the White House now a petri dish or a super spreader event? WATTERS: Yes. I had a boss one time in politics. And remember we used to be able to smoke inside in offices? You know, the boss can sit there and smoke inside the office. TURNER: You are not old enough for that, I'm sorry. WATTERS: I am. You'd be surprise. TURNER: Don't lie -- don't lie to us. There was never smoking in offices when you are --(CROSSTALK)WATTERS: And everybody else said to go outside but the boss is out there just ripping cool in everyone's face. The same with Nancy. We are tired of the mask shame game. It has lost its potency. It worked maybe in the fall, but not anymore. Vaccines are here, baby. And to the Democrats, the masks were the vaccine. Remember that was their deal, the masks. But Trump had the vaccine, and the vaccine actually worked. WILLIAMS: My gosh. WATTERS: The masks work about this much, only works inside and varied to a small extent. Are members of Congress even that close to each other, where they need masks? I thought they all hated each other! Is Representative Greene and AOC like, face-to-face in a hallway? No! Everyone steers clear of each other! TURNER: Sometimes. Sometimes, they get close. WATTERS: Well, yes, I did see or hear something about that. But for the most part, no one is spreading it in the comment. TURNER: No commentPAVLICH: So, Kennedy, this is obviously Nancy Pelosi is a woman who only cares about power. And she has this opportunity to be a little petty, and she's using it. MONTGOMERY: Yes, that's exactly what it is, Katie, it's petty. And this is why people hate Congress. And this is why we can't have nice things. I did the math, 72.3 percent of all House members have been vaccinated, at least the ones were reporting it. I would say conservatively, 10 percent have natural immunity after having contracted the virus. So they are well above herd immunity in the House, so either she doesn't understand science, she doesn't understand math, she know something about the vaccine she's not telling people, she doesn't trust the vaccine, or she just is so petty and hates Republicans so much that she'll do whatever she can to engage in these childish games. You know what, how about fix immigration? How about do something so kids don't end up in DHS facilities unaccompanied? Why don't you do something so people understand whether or not the southern border is open or closed. Do your job. Fining people $500 a pop because they are not masked when you are not masks? Over. PAVLICH: It's a tall asked, Kennedy. So, Juan, what about the discrepancy here and the two visions of what we've see? WILLIAMS: Well, it seems you guys don't like Nancy Pelosi, but I don't understand what this big fuss is all about, I really don't. Because to my mind, let's make a deal. You know what? The Republicans in the House get vaccinated, then Nancy Pelosi will lift the mask rule for the House floor. Right now, what we've got is less than half of the Republicans in the House of Representatives saying that they have been vaccinated. The House doctor says --PAVLICH: Doesn't mean they don't have it. WILLIAMS: Yes. Nancy Pelosi is right, that we need a mask mandate until we can be sure that the majority of people on the House floor, not more than the majority, the least 70, 85 percent have been vaccinated. TURNER: They have. WILLIAMS: And right now, they're not. TURNER: Seventy-two-point five percent. WILLIAMS: In fact, 85 percent of Senate Republicans say they've been vaccinated, but it's less than half of House Republicans. So, they are trying to make a political statement. PAVLICH: Yes. WILLIAMS: They don't want to be vaccinated. Well, there's going to be a consequence, and the doctor agrees with Pelosi. So why attack Pelosi? WATTERS: Well, she is vaccinated, why does she care? (CROSSTALK)PAVLICH: So, Gillian --TURNERY: Also, the rest of the --PAVLICH: Gillian --TURNER: -- the rest of the country has been asked to move to an honor system, so it doesn't really make sense that we can't trust our own members of Congress to do the right thing and follow CDC guidelines on their own. Katie, one quick thing --(CROSSTALK)WILLIAMS: Well, they said -- they said they have --PAVLICH: Gillian, I want to ask you. Let Gillian. Let me get to you real quick. MONTGOMERY: That's not true, Juan. They have not reported! It's not that they don't have it, they have not reported! PAVLICH: Right. MONTGOMERY: Different. WILLIAMS: No, they said that they asked and they said it. (CROSSTALK)PAVLICH: I was just going to make the same thing that Kennedy did about how just because you don't say that you have it doesn't mean that you're not vaccinated. A lot of people think it's just nobody's business what their health records are and what their health decisions. TURNER: That's true. PAVLICH: But Gillian, the White House today tried to make -- tried to actually do some damage control on this today by saying we're open! Everything is normal. TURNER: Yes. PAVLICH: We're getting back to normal now after that video came out. TURNER: Yes. I would actually, so Katie, sometimes people put things into more succinct words than you could ever hope. So, I got this tweet for you. His name is Rory Cooper, I don't know who he is. He is on Twitter. He is a genius. He says, if you are worried about people not wearing masks, get vaccinated. If you are vaccinated, then you don't need to worry about who's wearing masks. That kind of sums it all up. WATTERS: Well, that's what I just said, Gillian, so I must be a genius, too. TURNER: Sorry, I wasn't listening. WATTERS: No one does. It's OK.TURNER: I'm just kidding. PAVLICH: Jesse is always a genius. TURNER: You're always a genius. PAVLICH: Up next, more bias from CNN, the liberal network giving Chris Cuomo a free pass after helping his brother fight sexual harassment allegations and scandals. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WATTERS: It's always a different set of rules for libs. Case in point. CNN not punishing Chris Cuomo after he got busted giving his governor bro advice on how to deal with numerous sex scandals. This wasn't just a one on one phone call with Andrew to offer up some brotherly sibling support. Chris Cuomo took part in strategy sessions with lawyers, political aides, and a number of outside advisors. The liberal network host is now saying he's sorry, but only after he got caught. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)CHRIS CUOMO, HOST, CNN: It was a mistake because I put my colleagues here, who I believe are the best in the business, in a bad spot. I never intended for that. I would never intend for that, and I am sorry for that. I've never tried to influence this network's coverage of my brother. In fact, I've been walled off from it. (END VIDEO CLIP)WATTERS: Well, of course you are supposed to say sorry after you've been caught. Why would you say it before you were caught? I mean. So, Juan, you've seen the apology. It's longer than what we just showed. As someone who has probably given hundreds of apologies, Juan, over the course of many, many years, how would you assess the apology? WILLIAMS: Well, I think it's appropriate, think that's the right thing to do on the air to the viewers and to his colleagues at CNN, especially the journalists. You know, Jesse, one, I just want to say, I think family ties bind pretty tightly. I'm not ever going to, you know, unload on somebody for protecting his brother. WATTERS: Right. WILLIAMS: But the thing is, as you pointed out, it's the fact that he was on the phone with all the paid political advisors and lawyers. At that point, it's like he's working for the governor. And that clearly is a violation, that clearly crosses the line. Not only for himself, but for others in the journalistic enterprise at CNN. Now let me say, I am not going to be hypocritical about this. I think that all cable networks, all newspapers, all radio stations, web sites, they should have a bright line right at the door that says if you are hosting a show, you shouldn't be advising politicians. You shouldn't be on stage at a rally with a politician. You shouldn't be in advertisements for politicians. You know, these are things that erode public trust in us as people in the media, left-wing or right-wing. So, it's got to be said. You know what, they did wrong, and we know that sometimes some of us do wrong, so let's be honest about it. WATTERS: Yes. If I have advice for a politician, I'll just say it on The Five. Kennedy --WILLIAMS: That's easy! WATTERS: -- if you were a producer or an executive at CNN, God bless your soul, and you found out about this, that one of your big stars, if you can call him that -- the ratings are not good -- was advising his brother to just kind of say these women, don't believe these women, I'm being canceled, to hang on. Would that as a female producer or executive, would that make you feel uncomfortable if you saw Chris Cuomo in the hallway? MONTGOMERY: Absolutely. I'd be uncomfortable if I saw him. I would be uncomfortable if I work on his team. And apparently, within CNN, there is a lot of displeasure with Chris Cuomo right now, because if he was part of that strategy, if he was in any way the author of that strategy, that strategy was horrendous. It was insensitive, and incredibly misogynistic. And that's why, you know, some feminist groups like Ultraviolet have taken issue with the governor's response to some of his sexual harassment victims. His response has been so egregious and outdated. It's awful. So, if Chris Cuomo was a part of that, he's got very, very deep problems. And women at CNN should absolutely be concerned about that. WATTERS: Katie, I wonder if he advised his brother on nursing home scandals as well. PAVLICH: Well, see, this is the question, right? Chris Cuomo is not advising his brother Governor Andrew Cuomo simply because he's his brother. They could make a phone call to each other and talk about all of his problems directly together. He's clearly on these phone calls to advise his brother about the media strategy surrounding how he's going to handle these sexual harassment allegations. And Kennedy is right. I mean, the way that they handled these things, they essentially said that he kisses people all the time, that the women making these allegations are crazy, that he wasn't going to resign. And so, unless Chris Cuomo has some other skill set in terms of knowing how to manage allegations of sexual harassment or other scandals or putting people into nursing homes, and leading them to their deaths, the only clear answer here is that he was there specifically to help manage the media fall out. And for him to say that he's never influenced CNN's coverage, the fact that they don't talk about the scandals on his show is influencing their coverage of the scandals. WATTERS: That's a pretty good point. PAVLICH: So, they tried to be transparent in this and it actually only breeds more questions. WATTERS: That is a very good point. So, the governor was asked about this $5.1 million book deal which he got while he was covering up the amount of deaths in these nursing homes. Gillian, listen to his reaction, and then you can react. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I thought your question was stupid and offensive. I wrote a book saying this is what we should learn from what has happened so far in COVID. (END VIDEO CLIP)WATTERS: Stupid and offensive. TURNER: You know, it was a mighty Trumpian comment from a sitting governor who spent most of the last four years criticizing former President Trump. If you'll remember, a couple of years ago, President Trump told Abby Phillip of CNN during a gaggle that a question she asked was stupid. It blew up the internet, it blew up social media. Governor Cuomo was one of the people that stepped in and said it was a racist and sexist thing to say. WATTERS: All right. TURNER: We don't know what the reporter on the other side of this question looked like, but maybe someone should find out. WATTERS: All right, I'm going to have Johnny all over it in the break. "THE FASTEST" is up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)TURNER: Welcome back. It's time for "THE FASTEST." First up, so getting vaccinated could now help you score dates. The White House is teaming up with apps that are offering cool perks for people like badges to show off their vaccination status and boost on their profiles to get more potential matches. It sounds great. Has anyone on the panel ever online dated? Because if you have, I'm coming to you first. We should really recuse ourselves from this segment. PAVLICH: We're too old. TURNER: We're too old. I'm sorry. Well, all right, let's put it this way. Jesse, if you had online dated or if you were currently online dating, would you be enticed to reach out to somebody and connect with them because they've been vaccinated? WATTERS: I don't answer hypotheticals when it comes to dating. I'm married, so -- I'm smarter than that. I'm not taking the bait, Gillian. But I wouldn't say in general, men don't care if she's vaccinated. It's not that big of a deal. Women probably are going to look for the badge. There's -- I think we're just a little bit different in that sense. TURNER: All right, Kennedy, what do you say? MONTGOMERY: Well, apparently you get 14 percent more matches if you have a vaccination badge. I wouldn't be so worried if I were on some of these sites, some of the hookup sites about the COVID vaccine. I would want you to be vaccinated for --PAVLICH: Yes, yes, other things. TURNER: Juan, it pains me to ask you this question. But if you were online dating, would it make a difference for you? WILLIAMS: Well, I'll tell you, it gives me a laugh as an old guy because I really know nothing about all his swiping. I would -- I do think -- I do think as a serious matter, though, that it's brilliant. I just think it's a brilliant idea. If it can, you know, act as an incentive to get more people vaccinated. I think we got 50 percent of the country vaccinated now. The next 50 percent, it's going to be really tough because a lot of people are -- they could be afraid of needles, listening to conspiracy theories, think they're young and will never get sick. This could help. This is like that lottery in Ohio. It works. TURNER: Katie, would you believe people who said they were vaccinated just because they put a little sticker or something on their profile? PAVLICH: I actually think if I were online dating -- I'm very happily married, but if I were, Gillian, I find this sticker to be obnoxious. It's like, OK, cool, bro. Like, whatever. TURNER: For a bunch of people that have never online dated, I think we kind of covered a lot of ground there so we can move to the next topic. So, Kim Jong-un --WATTERS: Just swipe right. TURNER: Swipe right on that one. Kim Jong-un is banning skinny jeans in North Korea because he fears it can influence the young people and lead to him being overthrown. He's also reportedly outlying mullets and other kinds of haircuts. Now, Katie, we've discussed this before. If you're going to start banning things, ban things that are trending. Skinny jeans are done. They're already over. WATTERS: I'm going to make sure it returns. PAVLICH: So, what's trending right now? I'm a little bit -- I'm afraid. Yes, I'm afraid to -- I'm afraid to look and see what fashion choice is trending. But I wouldn't defer to Jesse because he is an expert on mullets and extravagant hairstyles. So, if that could bring down the North Korean regime, I understand why he would ban them. WATTERS: Pull up little Rocket Man's photo. I think my hair looks like his hair. MONTGOMERY: Yes, you got the fade for sure. WATTERS: Oh, my God. Aren't all jeans in North Korea skinny jeans by the way? I mean, they're starving over there. If I was the dictator, I'd probably want skinny jeans because you can't hide weapons in skinny jeans. And I'd be worried about assassination attempts. PAVLICH: Well, Kim Jong-un can't fit. WATTERS: So, I'd want to see the bulge of the weapon. PAVLICH: Kim Jong-un can't fit into skinny jeans. TURNER: We're swiping right on Jesse right now. Kennedy, what do you say? MONTGOMERY: I think that he obviously hates BTS which is the K-pop supergroup. TURNER: He does. He hates them. MONTGOMERY: Because everyone in BTS has skinny jeans and exotic hairstyles. So, he despises them. Why not -- why not ban concentration camps? You know if you don't want people to be upset where he lives --TURNER: That's a good idea. MONTGOMERY: -- why don't you ban famine? That's a better place to start. TURNER: Juan, if you were an evil dictator, what would you ban? WILLIAMS: Well, if I was a fat evil dictator, I ban skinny jeans. That's what I think. TURNER: Maybe it's a smarter move than we thought. All right, one last topic I want to get in. So, it turns out that bluffing your way, AKA lying through life, should actually be seen as a skill. Researchers are now saying it is a sign of intelligence. Jesse, the floor is yours. WATTERS: Well, if bluffing is a sign of intelligence, you call me Albert Einstein because I've been spinning my wheels all life long. When I saw this story, Gillian, I thought of one person, Trump. Great bluffer, and boy is he good. And also, very stable genius, so it makes sense. TURNER: Very stable. Very stable. Kennedy? MONTGOMERY: I think two of the -- in this study, they gave students two terms, subjunctive scaling, and declared a fraction, which are completely made up terms. And the people who did the best coming up with fake definitions for them were actually the most intelligent in the class. WATTERS: I like it. MONTGOMERY: Yes. They had no idea what they were saying, but they knew how to sound smart and put enough quick thoughts together. WATTERS: It's like our job on TV. TURNER: They should come here to Washington and run for office, right, Katie? PAVLICH: Well, speaking of Washington, this explains a lot about the intelligence of people on Capitol Hill. That's why they try to lie about it, but they're really bad at it. So, I don't think that they fit into this study. TURNER: Juan, what do you think? WILLIAMS: I think the five of us is proof that if you can bluff you can get on TV and be a genius. You know, I mean, the only problem -- the only problem is when somebody calls your bluff, then you got to show you know. TURNER: Yes. Jesse, I'm sorry I've been ragging you -- ragging on you all hour. I'm going to stop now. WATTERS: No, please, please. TURNER: I can continue? WATTERS: The audience loves it. TURNER: All right. PAVLICH: Please keep going. TURNER: OK, then never mind, I'm going to keep going. But stick with us because "FAN MAIL FRIDAY" is up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)MONTGOMERY: Welcome back. It is "FAN MAIL FRIDAY" and we are answering your questions. Here we go. Question number one. Facebook question from Patricia W. If you could keep your job but you could move to a different state, would you and what area of the country would you relocate to, Jesse? WATTERS: Big Sur, California. TURNER: Oh yes. WATTERS: I loved it out there. One of the most breathtaking pieces of real estate in North America. MONTGOMERY: It is absolutely stunning and very high taxes. I'm surprised you said that. Katie, same question. PAVLICH: Scottsdale, Arizona. Pro-second amendment and I love the desert. MONTGOMERY: Beautiful. Gillian. TURNER: I was going to go with something outrageous like Carmel just because what's not to love. But then I realized I probably have to like sell my soul because I think the average property prices they're like $6 million. But if money is --MONTGOMERY: Your soul is worth five and a half though. TURNER: But if money is no object, I'm going to Carmel. MONTGOMERY: It is beautiful. And Juan, are you happy or are you going to relocate? WILLIAMS: If I was relocating, I guess I go to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I just think it's a pretty wonderful place. MONTGOMERY: It is lovely. I would go to either Texas or Tennessee. Right now, it just seems like a really fun place to be. I want to live on a lake. I want pontoon boats, I want to wakeboarding boat, and I want cocktail hour with my friends and I want to get my girls on the water every single day. TURNER: And by the way, paddle boarding with dogs is amazing. You should all try it. It's easy. PAVLICH: Yes. MONTGOMERY: I'm totally going to borrow a dog because mine would drown if I did that. TURNER: No, they love it. MONTGOMERY: French Bulldogs don't swim. TURNER: Our Boston does it. He weighs like 150 pounds and he loves it. MONTGOMERY: Different kind of dog. French Bulldogs are made of Fortville bricks. OK, here's question number two. This is from Frenchi F. What is your most useless skill and your most valuable, Juan? WILLIAMS: I guess I'm a good writer. And so, that's a pretty useful skill in this business. And my most useless skill, I don't get into fights anymore, but I'm a pretty good fighter. MONTGOMERY: Solid. Juan, I was not expecting that from you. Katie Pavlich. PAVLICH: I guess my most useful skill is staying calm under pressure. And my most useless skill is growing Basil. MONTGOMERY: I think that's quite useful. I think those are both quite useful. Jesse. WATTERS: Most useless, I'm going to go with spearfishing. And my most valuable, I'm going to say bluffing. MONTGOMERY: I think you just discovered how valuable that is because of the survey in the last block. Gillian. TURNER: I would say my most useless skill is definitely that I can spell backwards. My most useful --MONTGOMERY: That's good if you ever get pulled over for DUI, allegedly. TURNER: So, maybe it's also my most useful. Can I just give that as my -- can you spare me the other answer? MONTGOMERY: Yes, absolutely. You can -- you can take them both. My most useful is I'm very curious. I think that's useful. And my most useless, I've got a number of them. I'm real chatty, and my mouth trumpet skill is not entirely useful but really fun. That's it. TURNER: Very, very fun. PAVLICH: We love them. MONTGOMERY: Thank you. "ONE MORE THING" is up next. It's going to be so good. Stay here. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WILLIAMS: President Biden holding a news conference with the President of South Korea. Let's watch. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. | 2 |
###CLAIM: marca also gave him a 0-0 mark saying : `` the image of him laughing at chelsea players above all has hurt real and real madrid supporters above all because it shows he really is a laughingstock with so little sign of life on the pitch. ''
###DOCS: Patience finally ran out with Eden Hazard on Wednesday night. Not when he was taken off a minute from the end having had almost no impact on the biggest game of the season, but about five minutes later when cameras zoomed in on him laughing it up as Real Madrid crashed out. 'He can't stay a minute more at Real Madrid!' said the presenter of Spain's late night football show El Chiringuito. Marca and AS both gave him no mark in their ratings and one columnist said: 'Zidane stubbornly insisted on making him a starter, and he repaid him with a lamentable performance.' The paper said a system had been picked to suit him, sacrificing the attacking potential of Vinicius who was shifted to wing-back, and in return Hazard produced 'a thousand touches back towards his own goal'. Marca also gave him zero marks and on Thursday morning said: 'The images of him laughing with the Chelsea players are what really hurt Real Madrid supporters, above all because he had shown so little signs of life on the pitch during the game.' For supporters of Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, this was a chance to laugh and rub some salt into Madrid's wounds. One Barcelona journalist tweeted a picture of the Chelsea team celebrating in their dressing room after the game and captioned it: 'All that's missing is Hazard'. And one Atletico Madrid supporting account 'Torren' with close to 300k followers wrote: 'Imagine signing a star player who is meant to make everyone forget about Cristiano Ronaldo and he turns up fat and he cracks up laughing when the team has just gone of out the Champions League after spending the whole season injured and disappeared. He is one of ours.' The same account suggested he now be referred to as 'HahahaHazard'. El Chiringuito splashed 'Hazard laughs at everyone' across the screen as they discussed himOne big Atletico Madrid fan account label Hazard 'HaHaHazard' after the full-time incidentThe laugh is on Madrid who having spent around 100m on a player who has since started just 21 league games in two seasons and whose value has gone through the floor. Jorge Valdano said last night in post-match analysis: 'The reality is the that problem was identified a long time ago: a lack of goals. Benzema needed a partner.' Hazard was supposed to be that sidekick for Benzema. He got 21 goals in his last season for Chelsea, he has five in two years for Madrid. It's no laughing matter. Patience among Real fans is running out with Hazard and Zinedine Zidane has work to do When Real Madrid president Florentino Perez was pushing his European Super League, one of the phrases he repeated several times was that unless something was done to save it, football would be 'dead' by 2024. The year 2024 also happens to be when Eden Hazard is due to end the five-year, 25m-a-season contract he signed for Real Madrid when he left Chelsea in 2019. The two things are not unrelated. Madrid's fear about falling off a financial cliff, and having to pay a player 78m gross over the next three years, when he is currently averaging around 20 games and two goals a season. Eden Hazard did not have his best game against former side Chelsea on Wednesday nightIt just hasn't happened for Hazard in Spain, with the Belgian already written off by manyMarca's editorial called Hazard, 'the worst signing in the club's history, at least until he proves otherwise', on Friday. The problem for Madrid is that they still have little alternative but to make it work. It's all well and good for a Madrid television programme to demand that Hazard never plays for the club again after he joked with Chelsea players on Wednesday night but they know it's not that easy. They can't give away their all-time record signing, and no one right now would want to buy him. He's on a long contract on high wages and as Gareth Bale has shown in recent years, players in those circumstances cannot be forced out Bale enters the final year of his contract this summer and Madrid's only hope is that Tottenham will extend his loan and pick-up a good chunk of the tab. Bale's biggest problem was that, despite two good seasons when he arrived and an extraordinary record in finals, he never won over the Real Madrid supporters. It might have been different this season but with no supporters inside the stadium, Hazard has escaped being whistled by a full Bernabeu. Next season he will have to face the fans but he still has four games this campaign to change the perception of him as a flop and for all that he failed to see Madrid past Chelsea on Wednesday, there have been signs in the last two games that he is approaching something like full fitness. It's not the level that would have stopped Real Madrid being blown away by hurricane Chelsea on Wednesday but it might be enough to enable him to positively influence Real Madrid's remaining games at home to Sevilla, away to Granada and Athletic Bilbao, and home to Villarreal. There were high hopes for Hazard when Real signing him from Chelsea back in 2019The Belgian finds himself completely boxed in by blue shirts in Wednesday's second legA respectable end of season, especially if it were to result in a league title would take the pressure off for next season. But even without that, Madrid are stuck with a player they have already paid 100m for, and they might have to shed out more in add-ons before his long contract ends. Hazard ultimately had to apologise for larking around with his former team-matesHe issued an apology on Thursday for sharing a post-match joke with Kurt Zouma but it did little to change the mood among his detractors. 'We had to wait until 8.30 in the evening for it' said Diario AS columnist Tomas Roncero. 'I suppose better late than never'. He added: 'I'm tired of having to look up old videos of him playing for Chelsea to remind myself how good he is. 'He needs to leave the childish giggles to one side and play these remaining four games with the same enthusiasm he shows when playing for Belgium.' Zidane is likely to use him for the run-in. The French coach could yet walk away from the last year of his own contract at the end of this season and with his future up in the air he is not going to stop trusting Hazard at this late stage. The coach and the signing he always wanted will be united to the end. The word around Madrid's Valdebebas training ground has always been that Hazard has a carefree attitude. Zidane relates to that and does not equate it with a player who does not want to win. If the two can win La Liga together then they may go renewed into next season. If not then Zidane will decide whether he remains in charge and Real Madrid will decide what to do with Hazard but the options for the club will be limited. Hazard could ultimately end up like another Gareth Bale - an expensive flop at Real MadridIt's unlikely that Paris Saint Germain will be interested in him being packed up as part of a Kylian Mbappe deal, although it's a question Madrid are likely to ask. The likely way forward is that he is reminded of his responsibility to Real Madrid and asked to finally start delivering in his third campaign. As Marca editor Carlos Carpio wrote in that editorial on Friday: 'Hazard is in debt to Madrid - and he still hasn't realised it yet.' | 2 |
###CLAIM: the historian joshua freeman, who has focused on china and inner asia and translated uighur poetry, said : `` the essential purpose of this campaign is to bring an end to culture and identity -- the targeting of intellectuals and cultural figures sends a clear message. ''
###DOCS: A few weeks ago Mamutjan Abdurehim was trying to remember a poem that he and his wife used to teach their four-year-old daughter. The rhyming couplets were easy to remember instructions on etiquette at the dinner table to say bismillah before eating and to start with ones right hand. He hoped that by helping his daughter recite the qoshaq, a traditional Uighur folk poem, she would remember where she came from even as the family was living overseas. Memories like these are dear to Abdurehim who has not been able to see or speak to his family in Xinjiang in almost five years. His daughter is 10 years old now; his son would be 5. He believes his wife has been detained in an internment camp or sent to prison, one of more than one million Uighurs caught up in what human rights advocates say is a state-led campaign of cultural genocide. Abdurehim, now living in Sydney, asked his friends on Facebook if anyone knew the rest of the poem but no one could remember. Few cultures revere and incorporate poetry into daily life as much as Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic population in northwestern China whose elevation of the written verse dates back centuries, drawing comparisons with other cultures of rich poetic traditions from the Persians to the Russians. According to poets and researchers, Uighur poetry is now on the verge of extinction as the Chinese government detains and silences poets. Outside of China, Uighurs in the diaspora are fighting to keep the art form alive as authorities double down on their campaign to assimilate minority populations of Xinjiang into mainstream Han Chinese culture. Mamutjan Abdurehim in 2015 in Malaysia with his daughter, baby son and wife. He now lives in Australia, while his family are in China. Photograph: Abdurehim familyPoetry is the genre that kept us goingFor decades, poetry has been interwoven into regular life for Uighurs. Children were taught in school and encouraged to write. At book markets, volumes of poetry often made up the bulk of the selection. Most district and county newspapers featured sections for residents to publish their poems. Writers posted their most recent verses on their WeChat accounts. Today poets continue to be some of the most influential and celebrated public figures in the Uighur-speaking world. Every generation has their own poets and their own styles and comes up with something newer. Its almost like pop music. If you are a really good poet, you are almost as popular as the most popular singer, said Fatimah Abdulghafur, a Uighur poet and activist who grew up in Kashgar and now lives in Australia. Its popularity stemmed in part from an ability to evade the brunt of censorship. While Uighur writers came under pressure to praise the party during the fanatical years of Mao Zedongs Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, a period of openness in the 1980s allowed for a new generation of poets. Uighur poet Fatimah Abdulghafur now lives in Australia Photograph: Lily Kuo/SuppliedInspired by the menglong or hazy Chinese writers disillusioned with the Cultural Revolution, modern Uighur poets branched out into free verse, heavy with symbolism. Throughout periodic crackdowns and tightening control throughout the 1990s and 2000s, poetry thrived in the region. Uighur poets wrote about a longing for spring, a symbol of freedom or new life. Poetry is the genre that kept us going, said Abdulghafur. At the age of nine she read I am not a white flag by one of the best known Uighur poets, Abdurehim Otkur, and saw resistance in his description of a majestic snow-capped mountain. Its always been in the poetry, just in a more hidden form, she said. A lot of people have gone silentIn 2017 as the new crackdown got underway, book stores were shut and a once vibrant publishing industry ground to a halt. Tahir Hamut Izgil, a poet and filmmaker, was living in Urumqi when he got word from family in southern Xinjiang of Uighurs being rounded up. Having grown up in Kashgar he had experienced the various strike hard campaigns but this time was different. Everyday we heard of people being taken, of schools and government offices being turned into camps, of peoples passports being taken, he said. Izgil, who fled to the US with his family later in 2017, knows of at least 20 poets who were detained. A list almost 400 detained writers, teachers, scholars and other intellectuals maintained by activists includes more than 33 poets, one of the largest categories. Authorities in Xinjiang and Chinas ministry of foreign affairs did not respond to requests for comment about the alleged detentions. Photographs of prominent Uighur intellectuals detained by China as protesters gather across from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles during a global day of action called by Resist China Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty ImagesI think it is abundantly clear that their crime was being born Uighur. The targeting of intellectuals and cultural figures sends a clear message that this campaign is essentially to end Uighur culture and identity, said Joshua Freeman, a historian focusing on China and Inner Asia, who translates Uighur poetry. Among the detained poets are cultural giants like Abdurehim Heyit, a singer, musician and poet, whose rumoured death in 2019 caused such an outpouring that authorities released a video of him affirming he was alive but under investigation. The modernist novelist and poet Perhat Tursun was detained in 2018. He has reportedly been sentenced to 16 years in prison. Abdukadir Juma, a poet, translator and businessman, who translated Red Sorghum by the Nobel-prize-winning Chinese writer Mo Yan, is believed to have been sent to a camp in 2017 and later to a forced labour facility, according to his brother Memetjan Juma, deputy director of Radio Free Asias Uighur service. Poets still in Xinjiang may have little choice but to write in service of the state. A volume of the Uighur literary journal Tarim celebrates the 71st anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China this year with poems such as Love for my motherland and photos of smiling Uighur women waving Chinese flags. Some people might have to write these poems, and some people might feel like the government would like them. A lot of people have gone silent, said Izgil. There is no bigger crimeIn response, writers in the diaspora are working to keep Uighur poetry alive. In Turkey a publishing industry releases poetry and other works now unavailable in Xinjiang. Artists abroad perform the poems of now silenced Uighur poets. In 2018 Izgil and other writers started the World Uyghur Writers Union. Izgil continues to write in Uighur and Abdulghafur, among other young poets, publishes online. Mukaddas Mijit, an ethnomusicologist and performer based in Paris, has performed poetry by Uighur poets such as the late Ghojimuhemmed Muhemmed, who continued to write when the crackdown gained momentum. Freed from the constraints of being within China, diaspora poets are able to write directly about Uighur life under Beijings rule. We were forced to write in a different way to express ourselves. Now its like we were freed from the cage and able to fly anywhere we want, Hendan said. Drawing comparisons to Chinese writers who drew from the trauma of the Cultural Revolution when intellectuals as well as minorities were targeted, she said: What we are writing now can also be called scar literature.Still, some doubt how long Uighur-language poetry can last when separated from its key audience of 12 million Uighurs in Xinjiang. While the children of those in the diaspora grow up in a new culture and language, the next generation of Uighurs in China are being encouraged to speak Mandarin over their mother tongue. Uighur poetry is the soul of the Uighur language. If the soul of Uighur language dies, the language dies, said Ekhmetjan Osman, known for leading the new movement in modern Uighur poetry in the 1980s. The core of peoples beliefs, ways of thinking, customs, history, construction of society all of this is based on language. This is all going to disappear. It is disappearing, he said. The very act of this language being taken away from my existence is the greatest insult and invasion of my humanity, my value as a human being and my dignity as a person, he said. What other crime is there than erasing the whole of a nation? To me there is no bigger crime.This loss for people like Abdurehim is personal. He and his family were living in Malaysia when at the end of 2015, his wife travelled back to Kashgar with their children to renew her passport. She was unable to travel back for financial reasons and in 2017, he received word she had been sent to study, a euphemism for a re-education camp. Shortly before that happened Abdurehim had ordered a few books to be sent to his family in Kashgar, including the novel Golden Shoes by Halide Israil about the experiences of Uighurs during the Cultural Revolution. Another prominent poet and publisher, Chimengul Awut who edited the book was later reported to have been detained along with the author. Friends of Awut say she has since been released. Just after sending those books for them to read a second Cultural Revolution began. I wonder if they were questioned because of them, he said. I always think about that.Unable to see his family, he relies on memories like teaching his daughter poems to help her remember the language of her people. He occasionally gets glimpses of the children through videos from friends. In one from last year his daughter is talking with a friend in the street, speaking in Uighur. As the person with the camera approaches she switches to Mandarin. | 0 |
###CLAIM: other groups signing the media and matters letter include the center for american progress, friends of the earth, glaad and the action fund and moveon.
###DOCS: Liberal group Media Matters and 43 other progressive organizations called on companies to not advertise with Fox News because of its opinion programming in an open letter posted Tuesday. In this case, advertisers dont even need to put their money where their mouth is. All they need to do is refrain from partnering with and funding an engine of violence and extremism like Fox News, the groups said in the letter. The letter comes a week after Fox presented to ad buyers and clients about its programming at an annual event where broadcast, cable and digital video companies promote their content. Our ask to you as media buyers and advertisers is simple: Stop funding lies and hate; dont buy ads on Fox News, the groups letter added. A Fox News spokesperson said the campaign is partisan and ineffectual, and comes from a familiar, partisan critic in Media Matters. FOX News is about to close out its fourth consecutive year delivering new records in advertising revenue, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. So clearly Media Matters predictable ongoing partisan attacks have zero impact outside of their irrelevant echo chamber on social media.Fox has come under repeated criticism from Media Matters and other liberal critics over its coverage, with host Tucker Carlson coming under recent scrutiny for remarks on the coronavirus pandemic and over remarks about Democratic immigration policies being designed to dilute the voting power of Americans. The latter remarks were not made on Carlsons prime-time program, but on Fox News Primetime.Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called for Carlson to be fired, and later called for a boycott of the program over the comments referencing replacement theory. Fox Corp. CEO and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch defended Carlson, writing to the ADL and pointing out that Carlsons disclaimer during the segment said he was addressing voting rights issues, not the racial makeup of U.S. society. Other groups signing the Media Matters letter included the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Friends of the Earth, GLAAD and MoveOn. | 0 |
###CLAIM: shortly after running the story, this number of propagandists like jim, clapper, john, and brennan (all star lieutenants who lie under oath and never get punished) denounced the story as soviet style disinformation.
###DOCS: In October, the New York Post, the oldest daily newspaper in this country, published a trove of documents showing that members of Joe Biden's family have been selling access to the former vice president to a number of foreign governments, including the communist government of China. That's a blockbuster, but the rest of the media decided to kill it before you could read it. Social media companies banned their users from sharing the Post's reporting. Other news organizations simply ignored it. On Oct. 22, 11 days before the presidential election, National Public Radio -- an organization that is literally state media, funded against your will by your tax dollars -- explained that they would not say anything negative about the Bidens. "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories," NPR managing editor Terence Samuel was quoted as saying, "and we don't want to waste the listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions." FLASHBACK: NPR SLAMMED FOR DISMISSING COVERAGE OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP SCANDALIf you think that's the single dumbest, most dishonest, high-handed, infuriatingly arrogant thing you've ever heard, you didn't see RNC spokeswoman Liz Harrington submit to an interview with CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. Here's how that went. AMANPOUR: As you know perfectly well, I'm a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts and there has never been any issues in terms of corruption. Now, let me ask you this. Yesterday, the FBI --HARRINGTON: Wait a minute, wait, wait wait. How do you know that? AMANPOUR: I'm talking about reporting and any evidence. I'm talking to you now --HARRINGTON: OK, I would love if you guys would start doing that digging and start doing that verification. AMANPOUR: No, we're not going to do your work for you. I want to ask you a question. The FBI --HARRINGTON: It's a journalist's job, it's a journalist's job to find out if this is verified! AMANPOUR SLAMMED FOR COMPARING TRUMP'S TERM TO NAZI KRISTALLNACHT"I'm a journalist and a reporter," says Christiane Amanpour, who of course is neither of those things and never has been. She is a celebrity script reader, a half-wit whose self-esteem far outpaces her accomplishments. She is also, it turns out, the personal flack for the Biden family international finance corporation. And so it went across the entire American news media until the presidential election. Now, six weeks later, it is finally safe to speak freely. We now know the New York Post was right all along, and so was poor Liz Harrington of the RNC. Wednesday, millions of Americans learned -- some for the very first time -- that the Biden family has indeed been deeply enmeshed in a series of sleazy international business deals that undercut America's core interests. We learned that there is an active federal criminal investigation into Joe Biden's son, Hunter, for that very reason. What's interesting is how we found this out. The media didn't tell us, and neither did the Justice Department. Hunter Biden has far better connections than, say, Roger Stone. Hunter Biden was allowed to tell his own story. He wasn't rousted from bed at 5 a.m. by dozens of armed paramilitaries in front of a live CNN audience. He's a prominent Democrat, so he was spared those humiliations. WILL JOE BIDEN FIRE THE HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATORS? Instead, the Biden-Harris transition team broke the news in the form of a bizarre press release that informed us with a straight face that Joe Biden was "deeply proud" of his boy Hunter, who, by the way, may have had some minor tax trouble that he will clear up the minute his accountant returns from Cabo. No big deal, and Happy Holidays. But actually, and you may have guessed this part, it turns out there's more. A report in Politico reveals that Joe Biden's younger brother, Jimmy, is involved, too. Jimmy Biden is under federal criminal investigation over alleged corruption in the hospital business. We should stress that we don't know more than that, and that Jimmy Biden is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law by a jury of his peers. For the few who were able to follow the details of the Bidens' business deals back in October, none of this comes as a complete surprise. At the time, we talked to Tony Bobulinksi about what he saw. Bobulinski was a business partner of the Bidens as they tried to wheedle money from companies connected to communist China. At some point, Bobulinski began to wonder what the hell was going on. In our interview, Bobulinski described one of his meetings with Fast Jimmy Biden. Bobulinski wanted to know why the Biden family was so brazen, so open about peddling Joe's influence to oligarchs and enemies of the United States. Here's how Jimmy Biden responded. 'PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY': BOBULINSKI CLAIMS BIDEN FAMILY SHRUGGED OFF CONCERNS ABOUT RISK TO 2020 BIDBOBULINSKI: And I remember looking at Jim Biden and saying, 'How are you guys getting away with this? Like, aren't you concerned?' And he sort of looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said, 'Plausible deniability.' CARLSON: He said that out loud. BOBULINSKI: Yes, he said it directly to me, one-on-one, in a cabana at the Peninsula Hotel. When your business partner tells you that your business strategy rests on plausible deniability, that's not reassuring. It certainly wasn't reassuring to Tony Bobulinski. An independent media wouldn't be fooled by plausible deniability, either. They'd demand answers. Except they didn't. When the New York Post published the outlines of this story, the media raced to find its own plausible deniability, to find some reason, any reason not to report the story. Any reporter who broke rank and decided to state the facts was quickly disciplined and brought to heel. Politico's Jake Sherman, for example, apologized in public for the crime of discussing the New York Post story after Twitter suspended him for posting it. POLITICO'S JAKE SHERMAN SAYS TWITTER SUSPENDED HIM FOR SHARING NEW YORK POST STORY ON HUNTER BIDENOver at CBS News, a kid called Bo Erickson didn't get the memo on the boundaries of this new journalism, so he tried to get Joe Biden himself to respond to the story. Biden attacked him as a liar and a propagandist. Interestingly, none of Bo Erickson's colleagues in the news media came to his defense. In fact, several former flacks for Barack Obama mocked him on social media. Now, we're being told to pretend that none of this ever happened. In an article published Thursday in The Daily Beast, probably the single worst example of bad journalism on the Internet, we learned that, "evidence of the larger [Hunter Biden] probe was apparent in the markings on a series of documents that were made public -- but went largely unnoticed -- in the days leading up to the November election." One group who did notice were the professional liars in our so-called intelligene community, the ones who work hand-in-glove with so-called journalists in our media. Shortly after the New York Post story ran, a number of these all-star propagandists like Jim Clapper and John Brennan -- people who have lied in public under oath and never been punished for it -- denounced the New York Post series as Soviet-style disinformation. The stories, they said had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation. They didn't explain what that meant, but they didn't need to. The media class ate it up like the seals they are and clapped and barked in unison. GRENELL CALLS OUT CNN'S TAPPER FOR BELATEDLY COVERING HUNTER BIDEN STORYNow there are calls for a new special prosecutor to investigate what we have learned so far about the Biden family's business dealings abroad. As anxious as we are to find out the truth, a special prosecutor is something that no one in this country should be eager to see. We've seen over the past four years what a special prosecutor can do to the normal functioning of a government. Open-ended investigations of politicians are hallmarks of corrupt regimes and dictatorships. Most Americans are skeptical of those kinds of probes, and rightly so. But unless our media start doing its job and telling us what our politicians are up to, the Justice Department and Attorney General Bill Barr may have no choice. And if they do move forward with a special prosecutor, they will have one unlikely supporter: Joe Biden himself. Last year, Joe Biden went on the record confirming that he would not interfere with any Justice Department investigation. BIDEN: Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. I'd let them make their independent judgement. I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated. That's not the role of the president of the United States. Follow the law. Let the Justice Department make the judgement as to whether or not someone should be prosecuted, period. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPWe should note that if the current president was directing the Justice Department for political ends, he didn't do a very effective job of it. Robert Mueller spent millions of dollars and ruined many lives purely as a favor to people who could not believe that Donald Trump really beat Hillary Clinton. This country might not survive another investigation like that. On the other hand, you've got to wonder how long a democracy can survive a leadership class like the one we have now. This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson Tonight's opening monologue on the Dec. 10, 2020 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight." | 1 |
###CLAIM: fears for the future of 5, 000 british jobs grew after the administration collapsed mainly over financial backing for sanjeev and the guptas ' steel empire.
###DOCS: Fears are growing about the future of 5,000 British jobs after the main financial backer of Sanjeev Guptas steel empire collapsed into administration. Greensill Capital, a bank that is Guptas key lender, said on Monday that it was in severe financial distress and formally appointed administrators. Greensill said Guptas GFG Alliance business empire was currently experiencing financial difficulties and had started to default on payments. Guptas companies, which include Liberty Steel, owe Greensill about 3.6bn, according to the Financial Times. A spokesperson for the Community union, which represents Libertys steelworkers, told the Guardian: Sanjeev Gupta needs to tell us exactly what the administration means for Libertys UK businesses and how he plans to protect jobs. The future of Libertys strategic steel assets must be secured and we are ready to work with all stakeholders to find a solution.Union officials are due to hold crisis talks on Tuesday with Gupta, an Indian-born British billionaire who was nicknamed the saviour of steel when he began buying British steelworks in 2017. These included several UK steel and aluminium plants that many experts said could not compete with cheap imports from China. The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, held emergency meetings over the weekend with Jon Ferriman, the boss of Liberty Steel UK. They reportedly discussed contingency plans if Greensill, which includes former prime minister David Cameron among its advisors, went bust. Liberty says it is the third largest steelmaker in the Britain, with nine sites employing about 3,000 people. In total about 5,000 people work for GFG Alliance in the UK. According to court documents seen by the Financial Times, GFG said last month that it would collapse into insolvency if Greensill stopped providing it with working capital. Liberty is a significant employer in and around Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The local Labour MP, Sarah Champion, said reading reports that Greensill collapse could bring down Guptas empire was terrifying. Losing Liberty would decimate our economy, because its not just the steel jobs but the many more in the shops and cafes that depend on them, she told the Telegraph. Champion, who serves as the shadow minister for business and consumers, added: This is a deeply concerning situation and a very worrying time for Liberty Steel workers. Its vital that the government acts with the urgency required and doesnt wash their hands of the situation.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskA government spokesperson said: The government has put together a far-reaching package of support to help businesses and workers through the coronavirus pandemic. However, this could generate as little as $60m (43m). Just last year Greensill, which is run by the Australian businessman Lex Greensill, had sought to value itself at $7bn. Greensill, which allows businesses to borrow money to pay their suppliers, was thrown into crisis after its own financial backers, including Switzerlands GAM Holding and Credit Suisse, withdrew support amid concerns about the firms management and the growing pile of loans issued to GFG Alliance. The crisis at Greensill has also triggered alerts at the Bank of England and the European Central Bank. The BoEs Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), which is in charge of monitoring financial stability in the UK, has asked banks to reveal how much of their business is linked to Greensill or GFG Alliance. While Greensills parent company is registered in Bundaberg, the Australian home town of its founder, Lex Greensill, the majority of its business is based in London, where it employs about 600 of its 1,000 global staff. Greensill, the BoE and the ECB declined to comment. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskThe Bank of England has forced GFG Alliance to inject about 75m into Wyelands Bank, a lender in which Gupta is a shareholder. It is understood that the regulators decision followed longstanding concerns about the banks business model. Wyelands will use the money to return cash to its almost 15,000 savers in Britain, who made 726m in deposits, according to its 2019 annual report. The bank said last week it was solvent and has sufficient financial resources to meet all of its obligations and repay all depositors. | 1 |
###CLAIM: does knocking on doors by aggressively reaching voters through text, calls, social media, hand-written cards, posters, letters and the deluge of advertisements knock on doors because of the pandemic?
###DOCS: Arizona is a rapidly changing state, says Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report. Maricopa County alone is about 60% of the vote, and thats a rapidly diversifying, well-educated area.Maricopa, combined with Tucsons Pima County, now accounts for more than three-quarters of Arizona votes. The urban tilt could propel Democrats to a stronger showing in Arizona than in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, all of which have larger concentrations of rural voters. In many ways, Yasser Sanchez embodies the states changing electorate. An immigration lawyer originally from Mexico, he recently quit the GOP, saying hes fed up with the president over immigration and values. Mr. Sanchez lives in Maricopa County a longtime Republican stronghold that encompasses Phoenix and its fast-growing suburbs. Changing demographics in the nations fastest-growing state where most voters live in one of two major metro areas have made the home state of Barry Goldwater and John McCain fertile ground for Democrats. Its no exaggeration to say that the election outcome here could determine control of the White House as well as the Senate. After going for Donald Trump by 3.5 percentage points in 2016, Arizona has been rapidly shifting from red to purple and now, maybe blue. On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris were headed to Arizona, for their first joint campaign appearance since the convention. Vice President Mike Pence was also visiting the state, for the fourth time. Two years ago, Yasser Sanchez was all in for Martha McSally. An influential leader in the Latino community, he took the Republican Senate candidate around to Spanish-language radio, television, and newspapers. He put up signs for her. Now, hes planning to vote for her opponent. Senator McSally, Mr. Sanchez explains, is in lockstep with President Donald Trump whom he vigorously opposes. I thought she could be the next maverick from Arizona, says Mr. Sanchez, about the first female fighter pilot in the United States to fly and lead a squadron in combat. But she will do whatever the party tells her, because if not, it will make her life impossible. She holds tight to the president.Why We Wrote This Changing demographics in the nations fastest-growing state where most voters live in one of two major metro areas have made the home state of Barry Goldwater and John McCain fertile ground for Democrats. Its no exaggeration to say that next months election in this once conservative stronghold could determine control of the White House and the Senate, as well as a state legislature thats been dominated by Republicans for more than half a century. With just weeks to go, both parties are pouring resources into a state that went for Mr. Trump by 3.5 percentage points in 2016, but has been rapidly shifting from red to purple and now, maybe blue. On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris were expected in the state, their first joint campaign appearance since the convention. Vice President Mike Pence was also scheduled to visit, for the fourth time. President Trump was supposed to hold two Arizona rallies this week, but those were put off after his COVID-19 diagnosis. Courtesy of Yasser Sanchez Yasser Sanchez, a prominent immigration attorney in Mesa, Arizona, stands in front of a billboard in September 2020. The former Republican paid for the message on 10 billboards, timed to coincide with a visit from the president. In many ways, Mr. Sanchez embodies Arizonas changing electorate. An immigration lawyer and family man, hes originally from Mexico and is part of a growing Latino population that is becoming a larger share of the vote here and leans heavily Democratic. Mr. Sanchez himself quit the GOP last year, saying hes fed up with the presidents values and his attacks on immigrants, among other reasons. He plans to vote for Mr. Biden for president joining other crossover Arizonans like the late Sen. John McCains widow, Cindy McCain. Perhaps most crucially, Mr. Sanchez lives in Maricopa County a longtime Republican electoral fortress that encompasses Phoenix and its fast-growing suburbs. Maricopa, combined with reliably blue Tucson in Pima County, now accounts for more than three-quarters of Arizona votes. That urban tilt could propel Democrats to a stronger showing in Arizona than in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, all of which have much larger concentrations of rural voters. Arizona is a rapidly changing state. Maricopa County alone is about 60% of the vote, and thats a rapidly diversifying, well-educated area, says Jessica Taylor, who follows the Senate for the Cook Political Report. The report now rates Arizona as lean Democrat for both the presidential and Senate races. Maricopa County is the bellwether, says Democratic consultant Chad Campbell, at Strategies360 in Phoenix. Once Maricopa goes Democratic consistently, if youre a Republican, you have serious problems, says the former legislator in the Arizona House. Bellwether Maricopa CountyTwo years ago, Arizona voters sent Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate; she beat then-Representative McSally by 2.4 percentage points. It was the first time the state had elected a Democratic senator since the early 1980s. Later that year, the governor appointed Ms. McSally to the seat of the late Senator McCain, setting up this years election to fill out the final two years of his term. Senator McSallys Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, is a former Navy fighter pilot and space shuttle commander. Many here know him as the husband of Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman from Tucson, widely admired for her struggle to recover from an assassination attempt in 2011, when she was shot in the head at an outdoor event. Six people died in the mass shooting, and the couple have become strong advocates for common-sense gun regulations. On a recent Saturday in the Ahwatukee section of Phoenix, about 25 Democratic volunteers were gathering at 8 a.m. to pick up signs and literature to drop on driveways. Democrats have not been knocking on doors due to the pandemic, but have aggressively reached out to voters through texts, calls, social media, and handwritten postcards and letters along with a deluge of advertising. Those who show up mirror the trends moving in Democrats favor. Theres Barbara Geiswite, a recently retired dental assistant, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but switched her registration from Republican to Democrat in April after her son urged her to think for myself. Mark Swanson, an independent, has cast votes for both parties, but this year plans to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot: We need to restore balance in the country.Helping behind the scenes is a recent graduate from Arizona State University, John Gimenez. He works in marketing for a mortgage company, and in his spare time helps the local Democratic Party with social media and digital advertising. When he was 11, his parents immigrants from the Philippines moved the family from Los Angeles to Arizona, where housing was much more affordable. Its a typical story and helps explain Maricopa Countys nearly 50% population increase over the past two decades. The state is the fastest growing in the nation and is expected to gain a congressional seat after this years census. When Mr. Gimenez began to come out as gay in high school, he says it was clear which political party he would support. There was one side actively fighting against me and one side actively fighting for me. He started the first Young Democrats club at Hamilton High School in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb that has attracted a lot of young families. The club had three members, including himself. Republican refugeesIn recent years, the influx to Arizona has included younger people from all over the country not just retirees from the conservative Midwest. People dont realize it if they dont live here, notes Mr. Campbell, the Democratic strategist. We have a young population, heavily Latino, that is much more progressive on a lot of issues.Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor Sue Harrison, vice president of the PebbleCreek Republican Club, participates in a flag-waving and voter registration event in Goodyear, Arizona, on Sept. 26, 2020. She calls President Donald Trump "a salty sailor who gets things done." But Republicans are also still heading to Arizona, many of them political refugees from the West and East coasts. They are happy to come here, where they can be free to be conservatives, says Sue Harrison, vice president of the Republican Club at PebbleCreek, a luxury retirement resort in Goodyear, a suburb of Phoenix thats also part of Maricopa County. Ms. Harrison is sitting on a folding chair on a busy corner near the resort, registering newcomers to vote, while a few dozen people wave Trump signs and American flags at honking cars and roaring Harleys as they pass by. One of the flag-wavers is Denice Ballas, who moved to the resort about three months ago from Pleasanton, California. She and her husband were the only ones in their old neighborhood to put up a Trump sign though under cover of night, she says, people would knock on their front door and thank them. Several people in the group note with concern that more and more progressives are moving to their community. One quotes a favorite T-shirt: Dont California My Arizona.Caroline Anderegg, spokeswoman for the McSally campaign, dismisses concerns about Maricopa County turning blue, calling them a lot of opinions by the chattering class. Still, she emphasizes that the senator was ranked the sixth-most bipartisan senator by the Lugar Center at Georgetown University. Ms. McSally recently won the endorsement of a group of Hispanic faith leaders who applaud her stance against abortion rights and in favor of religious freedom. Latinos are not a monolith, says Ms. Anderegg. Growing Latino cloutThats true, but in 2018, three-quarters of them voted Democratic in Arizona, according to polling firm Latino Decisions and the Democratic data company Catalist. Latinos played a significant role in Senator Sinemas victory and were a higher proportion of the electorate that year, up by three percentage points from 2014. Despite the pandemic, grassroots organizers have managed to register more than 160,000 new Latino voters so far, about 80% of them in Maricopa County, says Eduardo Sainz, state director for Mi Familia Vota. That tops 100,000 new voters four years ago. Weve made a years-long effort to hear from and reach Latino voters across the state, said Kelly campaign spokesman Jacob Peters, in a statement to the Monitor. Top of mind for Latinos are health care, jobs, and education. Immigration is also part of the mix. Immigration attorney Mr. Sanchez blasts President Trumps 2017 pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an immigration hard-liner, as a blatant attack on the Latino community. Latinos helped oust Mr. Arpaio, a Republican, in 2016, even as Mr. Trump won the county and the state. Mr. Arpaio, along with Arizonas highly controversial stop-and-check-immigration-status law, known as SB 1070, turned off a generation of Latinos to Republicans, many say. We already went through this anti-[immigrant] wave, says Mr. Sanchez, whose reception room features a photo album of people he has helped obtain green cards and citizenship. We thought we moved past that and Donald Trump came and [revived] all these things we rejected, and made them national.Mr. Sanchez is running get-out-the-vote events from his law-firm parking lot in Mesa, right around the corner from the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose followers founded the city in the late 1800s. He himself is a committed church member who leads services and one of a number of Latter-day Saints who have turned against the president. In Arizona, the most prominent is former Sen. Jeff Flake. Utahs Sen. Mitt Romney is another. Masked-up, he distributes Biden signs, stickers, and Adios Trump T-shirts. Last month, he posted that same message on 10 billboards during President Trumps visit. Next up: a caravan drive for Mr. Biden. All efforts are socially distant (Mr. Sanchez was in bed for 10 days with the virus earlier this year), but hes concerned the lack of in-person events and canvassing is hurting outreach. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he departs Wilmington, Delaware, Oct. 8, 2020, en route to Arizona. Republicans, by contrast, have been full-throttle with in-person events, including visits from the president, vice president, and various surrogates. Their turnout operation is a well-oiled machine. People have amnesia and forget the president did win Arizona in 2016, points out Ms. Anderegg. While the state is incredibly independent, it is a right-leaning state.Republican consultant Sean Noble believes Senator McSally will ride President Trumps coattails to victory. He estimates there are still some 100,000 new votes to be found for Mr. Trump, compared with 2016 from conservatives who voted for the libertarian or a write-in candidate, or who left the first line of the ballot blank. Now that theyve seen what the president has done on things like taxes, regulations, and judges especially the Supreme Court they may be on board. I just have a hard time thinking the character shot at the president is going to matter, he adds. It didnt matter in 16 even after the [Access Hollywood] tape came out.Thats certainly true for the flag-wavers of PebbleCreek. Promises made, promises kept, says Ms. Harrison, who describes the president as a salty sailor who gets things done.Get stories thatempower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. Still, Democrats are hopeful that years of grassroots engagement of Latinos, combined with shifting demographics and the anti-Trump factor, will make this the year that Arizona finally turns blue. Its a perfect storm, says Democratic consultant Adam Kinsey. We have a spectacular top-of-ticket with Biden, Harris, and Kelly, and all this engagement work being done. Its very exciting, as a long-suffering Arizona Democrat. | 0 |
###CLAIM: but many of their victims had no way of arranging an encounter with marks, said devinney, adding that many of his clients often told police they were marines.
###DOCS: A former Marine convicted of pimping out hundreds of women including some he plied with drugs over nearly two decades has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Jesse Gabriel Marks, 38, was sentenced May 7 after pleading guilty in September to sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, the US Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced earlier this month. Court documents showed Marks who was reportedly discharged from the Marines as a private in 2002 prostituted hundreds of women over nearly two decades, including at least one minor. Federal prosecutors said Marks used drugs like heroin and methamphetamine to keep his victims dependent on him and to continue working for him. After meeting Marks, many victims either developed addictions or deepened their addictions, ruining their health and, in many cases, their lives, prosecutors said in a statement. Marks also plied the women with drug cocktails without their knowledge and sexually assaulted them while unconscious or nearly unconscious. He recorded many of the attacks on video, prosecutors said. Marks joined the Marines in Lansing, Michigan, in April 2000, the Marine Corps Times reported. He was last assigned as a rifleman at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina prior to his discharge in 2002, the outlet reported. The entrance of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on March 19, 2013. AP Photo/Allen Breed, FileCourt records show that Marks, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, was initially arrested in a 2019 methamphetamine drug bust in Onslow County, according to the report. At least two of Marks victims were adult military dependents and many of his clients were enlisted in the military, a spokesman for the US Attorneys Office told the Marine Corps Times. Indeed, evidence indicated that he used his experience as a Marine to teach women working for him how to better target Marines, spokesman Don Connelly wrote the outlet. He also sold drugs to Marines.Jesse Gabriel Marks was a Marine from 2000 to 2002. Onslow County Sheriff's OfficeMarks admitted to prostituting more than 200 victims, but one witness put the number closer to 600, Connelly wrote. The drug charges were reportedly dropped under a plea agreement that requires Marks to pay $249,700 in restitution to multiple victims. Evidence from the investigation is now being shared with police agencies in and around Camp Lejeune in an attempt to identify Marks civilian and military clients, the Marine Corps Times reported Tuesday. This guy is no longer a Marine, Onslow County Sheriff Hans Miller told reporters Tuesday. He is an ex-Marine. Im so glad he was taken off the street and I think our community is safer for it ... This case is over, however, there is still additional evidence that we are aware of that we will follow up. There may be more predators out there.Many of the Marks victims interviewed by police said the majority of their clients were Marines, Naval Criminal Investigative Service Carolinas Field Office Special-Agent-in-Charge Sean Devinny said at Tuesdays press conference. But the victims did not arrange the encounters themselves, Devinney said, adding that many of them told police Marks often identified the clients as Marines. The Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina on October 28, 2017. Corbis via Getty ImagesEvidence indicated that some active-duty military members were communicating with Marks, but the review did not provide actionable intelligence, Devinney said. The data will be shared with investigators at the Marine base and other nearby police agencies, according to the report. | 0 |
###CLAIM: i leave there, trying to shape up quick, hop on the d, head down to the complex, do a podcast and link up with desus.
###DOCS: SAM SANDERS, HOST:It is such an honor to talk to you both. I know both of your voices so well, but some of our listeners might not. So both of you, one by one, say your name and the first concert you're going to attend once the pandemic is over. DESUS NICE: Yo, it's your boy Desus Nice. You know it from Showtime's "Desus & Mero." I am the chocolate one. SANDERS: (Laughter). DESUS NICE: The first concert I'm going to attend when this panoramic is over is going to be Coachella, and it's not going to be attending it. Me and Mero are going to be headlining it, and it's going to be great. SANDERS: Wow. THE KID MERO: (Laughter) Yes. And I am The Kid Mero, the human durag. I am the caramel one. I'm the Steph Curry-flavored one, if you will. (Laughter). SANDERS: (Laughter) Love it. THE KID MERO: Yo, we headlining Coachella, bro. That's - we dropping a bomb right here on NPR. We're going there in a chopper. SANDERS: OK. So if y'all are going to headline Coachella, is it going to be, like, a Beychella situation with, like, the marching band and all the dancers in the bleachers? THE KID MERO: You know it. SANDERS: Like, how big will this production be? DESUS NICE: It's going to be great. We're going to bring in classic Bronx icons. So, you know, J.Lo's going to come through. We're going to have Justice Sonia Mayor (ph) come through on a hovercraft. SANDERS: (Laughter). DESUS NICE: We're going to have the Big Pun hologram. It's going to be fantas (ph) - it's going to be mind-blowing. We're going to have French Montana singing an opera. THE KID MERO: It's - oh, man, you guys aren't ready. Y'all not ready for the French Montana doing sotto voce. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)SANDERS: You're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Sam Sanders. And you just heard my two guests for this episode, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero. The two of them host a late-night show on Showtime called "Desus & Mero." So this show, it is an incredibly hilarious mix of pop culture and politics and Internet and random headlines. And also, these two on this show, they book some pretty big guests - fellow Bronx native Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DESUS & MERO")DESUS NICE: Is it hard to get a good bacon, egg and cheese in D.C.? ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Impossible. DESUS NICE: Yeah. OCASIO-CORTEZ: There's no bodegas anywhere. I don't know how anybody eats in Washington, D.C., which probably explains why everyone's fighting all the time. DESUS NICE: Yeah, they're cranky. SANDERS: ...Stacey Abrams...(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DESUS & MERO")DESUS NICE: "Buffy" versus "Battlestar Galactica." STACEY ABRAMS: "Buffy." (SOUNDBITE OF BELL)DESUS NICE: "Buffy." ABRAMS: Look, love "Battlestar" - I do have to explain this one because the hate mail will be real. THE KID MERO: Yeah, yeah. They don't play. ABRAMS: I love "Battlestar Galactica," but Buffy was there for me when I needed her. And...SANDERS: ...Barack Obama. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DESUS & MERO")THE KID MERO: They told - they said, we were going to hoop. I thought you were going to come in with some, like exclusive Jordans or something and just...BARACK OBAMA: Let me just say that I saw some of the footage of y'all with Booker. DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. OBAMA: And...DESUS NICE: Before you say anything, that was a deepfake and fake news. THE KID MERO: Yes, it was. DESUS NICE: So do not misrepresent us. If you post that video on Twitter, it will be disclaimed, and there'll be a little note on the bottom. OBAMA: Dude, I'm just saying. Here's the good news - looks like y'all could play for the Knicks. THE KID MERO: Wow, wow. SANDERS: Of course, like anyone trying to work during the pandemic, The Kid Mero and Desus Nice have had to make some adjustments. If you watch the show now, everything looks pretty seamless as they broadcast from their homes. But Desus Nice and The Kid Mero told me that it wasn't always that way, especially at the start of this whole thing. DESUS NICE: If you remember, there was like a little a little gap between our last studio show and our first show that we did in the pharmacy. And so, like, when we did our last show, we didn't have an actual audience. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DESUS & MERO")THE KID MERO: Damn, I was going to gas it and be like, yo, every other late night show is wild buns and doing [expletive] with no audience. DESUS NICE: No, we are also wild buns. We have no real - no, it's still real to us. We have our staff, crew and loved ones in here. (CHEERING)DESUS NICE: So it was already - we were kind of veering off. And so, you know, put it in a weird way, you know, like, we were kind - we were getting a little dope sick. We wasn't getting that straight-to-the-vein stuff that we were usually getting with the show. So then, you know, we have no show. I haven't seen Mero in a couple of weeks. To go into a Zoom and I see Mero, I see Julia, I see Tony. I see everyone from Jax Media. I see the production staff. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DESUS & MERO")DESUS NICE: No, in this time off, I've taught myself three new languages. I've been doing yoga. I've been making bread. I've raised pigeons. And I am writing... THE KID MERO: This nigga lying. (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: I'm lying. No, I'm lying. You know what I've done? This is the biggest achievement I've done - I adjusted the sensitivity on my controller for Call of Duty, and it's made a big difference. (LAUGHTER)THE KID MERO: Yo, huge difference. DESUS NICE: It felt like the first day of school. It was fantastic to be back in there. SANDERS: Really? DESUS NICE: It was like a relief. And to be able - like, the idea that we were able to make the show from our house - that's like some James Bond kind of high tech. Like, looking back, the idea that we transformed our - the homes we live in into Hollywood studios and we're able to not just make a show, but make a fire show that actually stepped up what we were making before is just mind-blowing. Every now and then, I just stop and think about it. And it's like, if we ever, you know, get out of this pragmism (ph), you know, we're going to sit back and look at this like, wow, we really this. (LAUGHTER)SANDERS: So how did y'all decide where to make the setup in the home studios? Because like - Desus, you're like recording from your shoe room, your shoe closet. Is it a shoe - I mean, like, what do you call it? How did you decide that space? DESUS NICE: Oh, you know what, this is the sneaker room. This is my pride and joy. This is what I've worked hard for. And now that we are now inside the press room, it doesn't make any sense 'cause I have all these sneakers, and I have nowhere to wear them to, especially 'cause there's 16 inches of snow outside. But no, I felt like this is - like me and Mero were like, yo, we got to make fire backgrounds. We can't let people think we're out here living like brokies. So you know, had to throw up some sneakers in the back. So I threw it up in what we call my foot locker. SANDERS: I love it. Now, so Mero, you don't record in the shoe room. But you have - like, I've seen your setup. Describe that for me, for our listeners. THE KID MERO: Yeah. I mean, like, it's changed, though, for Season 3 'cause, yo, the basement was becoming a fire hazard, bruh. Like, it's dope to do TV because, like, framing was crucial. DESUS NICE: Yep. THE KID MERO: There's so much stuff out off to the sides that's out of frame. It was out of control. DESUS NICE: Wardrobe, props... THE KID MERO: Wardrobe, racks...DESUS NICE: ...A green screen, everything. THE KID MERO: ...Tables, all types of stuff. Then I got my kids running down here talking about, I want to use the PlayStation, them throwing [expletive] all over the place. I was like, oh no, no, baby. Like, the final straw was, like, I'd come down here and there's like a power strip with like 80 wires coming out of it. And there's just, like, paper on top of it. And like, there's lights on. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, ain't waking up to no smoke in the middle of the night like, oh, no, I need to go put out the studio. (LAUGHTER)SANDERS: So you both seem to be, like, making the best of working from home and making your show from home. But like, what's the worst part? DESUS NICE: Um, the worst part - I think the worst part is the lack of human interaction because, you know, we've done field shoots. And like, we did - we shot the cold open. We actually went back to the studio. But you know, like, going back to the studio now costs - I'm going to age myself here - it cost an arm and a leg in the middle - 'cause, you know, you got to do all the COVID testing. You got to set up Zone A, Zone B, all of this in the middle. You know, it's just so much. It's just so much. But you get the chance to - I get the chance to see Mero. We get the chance to feed off our energy in person. THE KID MERO: Bruh, just the - something as simple as like, yo, if like I say, a fire joke and Desus says a fire joke and you just dap each other up 'cause it's so funny, like, in the midst of laughing - like, just that - just that, that physical - yo, that hit. SANDERS: Yeah. DESUS NICE: But a socially distanced dap. We used the elbows, OK? We're not - 'cause listen, we not - listen. We had Dr. Fauci on the show. He has our personal numbers. If we start wilding, he's going to call us. And He's going to G-check us. I don't want that problem. THE KID MERO: He's like, hey, it's Tony from Brooklyn. I told you to keep your hands to yourself. DESUS NICE: I'm sorry, Dr. Fauci. I'm sorry, Doctor. SANDERS: Do y'all just, like, call up Fauci to chat? Please say you do. DESUS NICE: Yeah, yeah. Hey. THE KID MERO: Yeah. I be like, yo, what's up? What kind of...DESUS NICE: What's up, Big Fauch (ph)? SANDERS: He seems like a homie. THE KID MERO: Yo, you got a D.R. mask I can rock? DESUS NICE: You know what? You know what? But in all honesty, when we had Dr. Fauci on, you know how - if you've seen our interviews, you know they're pretty rip-roaring. There's no - we don't tell - we don't come up with questions ahead of time. It's all on the spot. And when we were interviewing him, there were times he just kind of, like, laughed and was like, I can't - I'm not going to answer that; I can't answer that. So to see him now in the press conferences and to see him smiling and being able to answer - 'cause we - he wanted to...SANDERS: He's free now. DESUS NICE: He wanted to rip in our interview. You could see it. You could see he wanted to say Trump was an idiot. He wanted to be like, what the hell is this guy doing? But he had to keep his job. Like, that was painful to go through - just seeing someone - like, seeing someone who's an expert in a field not being able to do their thing. It was like telling Steph Curry... THE KID MERO: With a muzzle...DESUS NICE: ...You can only take shots from the other side of the half-court line. Like, no, that's not - but you know what? If you tell Steph Curry that, he's like, yo... THE KID MERO: Layups only, Steph - only layups. DESUS NICE: You tell Steph Curry that, he's still dropping 54. So I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. SANDERS: Yeah, yeah. So - I mean, just hearing you talk about your interview with Dr. Fauci, that was a big deal. That was serious stuff. He's an important person. You know, you had Stacey Abrams on for your season premiere. You interviewed Barack Obama. You've talked to AOC a few times. You've talked to Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg. When you started the podcast years ago, did y'all want to interview politicians and world leaders like this? How did the show move into that space? DESUS NICE: I mean... THE KID MERO: We just wanted to interview anybody, really. Like, we'll just talk to - like, that's really where we were at. Like, in the early incarnations of the show, it literally was like, yo, who's in your phonebook? DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: Like, who's the most poppin' person in your phonebook? You know what I'm saying? So like, we'll talk to anybody. You know? And then in the case of Fauci, that was, like, a real smart move on his part 'cause he came on and spoke to a community that really needed to be spoken to about what's going on and is super underserved in terms of, like, media 'cause, like, you know...SANDERS: Oh, totally. THE KID MERO: ...Julio that drives Bx12, he's not watching you, like, CNN at, like, 10 p.m. He's on the job. So...SANDERS: Yeah. THE KID MERO: ...When he gets home at 11 o'clock and he wants to have a little cognac and relax with his boys, he gets to - you know, he gets the info. SANDERS: Desus, Mero, and Dr. Fauch. THE KID MERO: I mean, you know - Tony from Brooklyn. DESUS NICE: It's your boy, just a...SANDERS: Tony from Brooklyn. DESUS NICE: ...Couple of New York boys, yeah. But no, like, we'll interview anybody. And like, I think - the people we've interviewed are mind-blowing. Like, when we stop and think about - we've had Diddy on. We've had David Letterman. We've had - and then it's just - it's weird because, like, the people we've had on are huge outside looking in. But then if you know our relationship and, like, our relationships to, like, Bodega Hive and our podcast, like it's mind-blowing we interviewed Obama. It's more mind-blowing that we interviewed Mike Francesa. Like, it's little things like that...(LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: ...That are just - it's levels to it, bro. Like, every now and then, you look back, and you're like, yo - oh, wow - bro, we interviewed Ty Dolla Sign. Whoa, like... THE KID MERO: Whoa. SANDERS: So when you have interviews with politicians, how do you figure out, you know, what you think your responsibility is to the listeners? Y'all are, you know, podcast hosts. You're entertainers. But do you feel a pressure to hold those in power accountable in any way when you talk to them? THE KID MERO: Like, in a workaround kind of way. Like, you're going to talk - you can't talk in talking points on our show. That's it. SANDERS: OK. THE KID MERO: That's, like, the rule. SANDERS: OK. THE KID MERO: Like, you have to be a real person and talk like - you know, have a dialogue with us. And if Desus asks you a question, answer it straight up. If I ask you a question, answer it straight up. Don't hit the cliche. Like, whatever you just said on, you know, "Good Morning America" or whatever, don't come on our show and repeat it. DESUS NICE: Even on that level, there's only but so much you can ask a person when they come on the show 'cause they have a publicist. There's - you know, like, our show is not a gotcha show. We're not coming on there to, like - hey, you messed up; we have this clip of you saying this in March 2014, and now you flip-flopped. Like, that's not - we're not reporters like that. We don't have - we're not "Meet The Press." That's what that show is for. Our show is like - we can't - like, we're pretty much introducing these people to our audience sometimes. So it'd be weird to be like, hey, here's this guy you never heard about; now we're going to put his feet on the fire. Like, it's like, that's just weird. So our thing is more like a conversational quality. We're going to ask you real questions about a real life and just see what you are as a real person before you were a candidate. (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")SANDERS: Coming up, Desus and Mero for mayor - we talk politics. (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")SANDERS: I have read y'all mention in interviews a lot recently about what an interview between the two of y'all and Donald Trump might feel like, might be like. If y'all could book him in his post-presidency life... THE KID MERO: Oh, my God. SANDERS: ...What is the first question y'all ask Donald Trump? DESUS NICE: I would - very West Indian way, I'd be like, are you happy? You happy with the mess you made, hmm? Look around. Look around. (LAUGHTER)THE KID MERO: No, I'd be like - it's not a gotcha show, but we would definitely be like, yo, my man? Like, you know what I mean? We would be the voice of every New Yorker that had to, like, watch this bozo. DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: The wildest thing is like, this guy is from New York. And somehow he painted himself as, like, some champion of, like, the Rust Belt. DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: I'm like, fam, how did you do that? How did you do that? You're the grifter of all grifters. DESUS NICE: I think what we have to do is be like...SANDERS: Yeah. He's from Queens, right? DESUS NICE: He's from Queen, QU. You know, he used to hang in Queensbridge with Mobb Deep before he switched up. (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: But no, we're going to ask him - we'll just be like, yo, Trump, list off all the things you accomplished as president. And once he answers, I'll be like, nope, wrong. Nope, nope... THE KID MERO: Nah, (imitating buzzer). DESUS NICE: ...wrong, not valid, incorrect, (imitating buzzer). He's only putting up with maybe a minute of that 'cause he's very - that's the thing. He's also supersensitive. Remember, he couldn't stay for that interview on "60 Minutes" with Lesley Stahl. So there's no - he - bro...SANDERS: Oh, yeah, he walked out. DESUS NICE: ...He couldn't even handle getting on a train at rush hour with New York City junior high schoolers. There's no way... THE KID MERO: They're some kids. DESUS NICE: ...He'd be able to handle us. (LAUGHTER)THE KID MERO: For real - that's it. Put him in a junior high school assembly, and he's toast. DESUS NICE: They'll be like, yo, who's this orange old guy? Yo... THE KID MERO: Yo, get him out of here. DESUS NICE: Yo, my man look like orange... THE KID MERO: Yo, you bozo. DESUS NICE: Yo, you look like Tang. He'd be like, yo, wow. SANDERS: (Laughter). THE KID MERO: Yo, why your hair stay like that? Why your hair is like T.I. 's hat? It don't move. (LAUGHTER)SANDERS: Oh, man. How has the last few years of seen your show blown up and being able to talk to a lot of these politicians and talk about politics through a really big audience maybe change the way the two of you as people think about politics? DESUS NICE: Oh, definitely. Now it's - now I think you're more aware of the dangers of cults of personality in politics or just getting swept up in embracing just the charisma of a candidate versus the actual substance. And the biggest idea - the biggest example of that is Donald Trump. And you kind of see - it's kind of happening again. We have the mayoral race here in New York City. And you're seeing people, and they're like, I'm behind this candidate. And these candidates haven't even said anything. These candidates have not laid out any policy. They haven't said what they're going to do for nightlife coming back in New York City, how they're going to help restaurant workers, what they're even going to do about bike lanes - little things that really matter. It's going to be a huge - one of the biggest elections in New York City's history, and you have people that are just doing photo ops. You have people just - it's not serious to them. It seems like it's some sort of popularity contest. And then you think about that. And you're just like, OK, if this person isn't really helping New York City, should we have them on the show? Like, are we just helping inflate someone who's going to possibly harm New York if they get elected? It it changes the way you look at things 'cause now - you know, we joke and say we're kingmakers, but we are a platform for visibility for these people, and we have to use that power accordingly and be responsible with it. THE KID MERO: A hundred percent, that's been the thing is just like, OK, like you did a cool video, and it got, you know, 10 million views. SANDERS: (Laughter). THE KID MERO: But what are you going to do about the homelessness situation? What are you going to do about...SANDERS: There you go. THE KID MERO: ...Child hunger? What are you going to do about COVID responses in schools and, you know, all these, like, real-deal stuff that's coming up? But it's like, hello, regular person...SANDERS: Yeah, I'm doing a photo op. I will shake your hand. THE KID MERO: ...Let me help you tie your durag. (CROSSTALK)DESUS NICE: I mean, if you're read between the lines, low-key, what we're saying is me and Mero are going to run for mayor. Like, it's time. SANDERS: What? DESUS NICE: We're going to be first...SANDERS: Campaign slogan, go. Campaign slogan - do it. Go. DESUS NICE: We're fixing it, dawg. That's our campaign slogan. All right? THE KID MERO: Yeah. DESUS NICE: You know how Ed Koch was like, how am I doing at every press conference? They're like, what are you doing about the vaccine rollout? It's been slow. We're like, we're fixing it, dawg. Next question. SANDERS: We're fixing it, dawg. DESUS NICE: OK. What's up? SANDERS: There you go. I'd wear that T-shirt. DESUS NICE: Exactly. THE KID MERO: Boom. NYC, we fixing it, dawg. SANDERS: What color is the hat, though, that has the slogan on it? It can't be a red hat. DESUS NICE: No, no red hat. It's orange and blue 'cause orange and blue is the flag of New York state. And it's also the color of the greatest basketball team in New York City. You know the vibes - ah, ah, ah, yerr, yerr (ph). THE KID MERO: That's right. SANDERS: Can I just - wow. OK. I'm from San Antonio, Texas. DESUS NICE: OK.SANDERS: So I have strong feelings about the Spurs. DESUS NICE: OK.SANDERS: But I'm going to let y'all go off. DESUS NICE: OK. You're allowed. You're allowed. (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")SANDERS: Coming up, Desus and Mero on being famous while living in the Bronx. (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")SANDERS: Can we get into some backstory? DESUS NICE: Yeah. SANDERS: Can you tell our listeners who might not know how this dynamic duo began? THE KID MERO: Oh, man - summer school. SANDERS: What grade? THE KID MERO: A lot of people - for me, it was - I think it was freshman or sophomore year, going into sophomore year. And then fast-forward to the inception of Twitter. You know, there's a - Bronx Twitter was a thing, believe it or not. And we would go back-and-forth, like, just talking about similar stuff, similar backgrounds. We're both children of immigrants, same age bracket. So a lot of stuff that we talk about, you know, we go back-and-forth. SANDERS: How long was the gap between y'all connecting on Twitter and y'all first meeting in summer school? DESUS NICE: That had to be over a decade. That was quite some time. SANDERS: Really? THE KID MERO: Yeah, a long time. DESUS NICE: Yeah - 'cause, you know, we weren't - it wasn't like we were, like, best friends or anything. We just ran in circles. So he was like a friend of a boy - a homie I knew. So it was just like, oh, that's that kid from there. Then we reconnected on Twitter. And then - yo, shout-out to our guy Donnie Kwak at Complex, who I've been known forever. He was in charge of new products or whatever. And he was like, yo, do you and Mero want to do a podcast? And I was like, I don't know what the hell the podcast is. So sure, why not? SANDERS: (Laughter). DESUS NICE: I was working at a - I was working at a job I hated. And, you know, I had to sneak out of the job in a full suit to come to come to Complex. SANDERS: What was the job? DESUS NICE: It was for a mag - I don't want to give them any shine, so I'll be very cryptic in this. It's a magazine for Black people about money. SANDERS: I know what mag - can I say it? DESUS NICE: You know what magazine it is. SANDERS: Can I say it? DESUS NICE: Don't say their name. I don't want to give any props 'cause me and them still got beef. (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: But you know - every Black person knows 'cause it's on the table...SANDERS: Oh, we know. DESUS NICE: ...At your grandma's house. SANDERS: Well, 'cause our - exactly. DESUS NICE: Exactly. SANDERS: And you be like, who was reading this magazine? Ain't nobody reading this magazine. DESUS NICE: OK. THE KID MERO: It's five pages long. DESUS NICE: OK. Now you're like, ain't nobody reading this magazine. Imagine if every day you wake up and go into the office to write articles for that magazine, knowing no one's reading it. Imagine you writing yourself a nice 400-word article. You put it up. And at the end you check your traffic and it has 17 views. SANDERS: Oh, man. DESUS NICE: How do you keep yourself from jumping out that window, my brother? (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: You know how you do it? (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: You reach into your desk and you pull out that cold Lime-A-Rita you bought on Monday and you crack it open at 2:30 p.m.SANDERS: (Laughter) He said Lime-A-Rita. THE KID MERO: (Laughter). DESUS NICE: You crack open at 2:30 p.m. before that 3 o'clock meeting. You know what I'm saying? SANDERS: He said Lima-A-Rita - the specificity. DESUS NICE: OK.SANDERS: So Mero, what job were you doing before all this took off? THE KID MERO: I was working at a school, and I didn't not like my job. It was just hard. I was a paraprofessional on the accelerated teaching path. Shout-out to all my paraprofessionals out there, all my TAs. You are the most underappreciated people in the Department of Education, bar none. It's like you've got to be a teacher, a bouncer, a counselor....SANDERS: A bouncer. THE KID MERO: ...A big brother. SANDERS: Yeah. THE KID MERO: Yo - 'cause yeah, you got to break up fights and [expletive]. And it's wild because, like, you know, school safety is supposed to do that. By the time school safety gets up off the ass and gets up to the fourth floor, you know...SANDERS: You got to break the fight up. THE KID MERO: ...Rameek and Jose about to tear each other up. So I got to jump in there and make it happen. But, yeah, no, like, I - and it was funny 'cause, like, I would leave there, and I knew we were going on video. So I would, like, leave there, try to get a quick shape-up or whatever, hop on the D train and then head down to Complex to do the podcast and link up with Desus. And it was funny 'cause, like, the first time we met, he came in a suit. And I was just like...SANDERS: Oh, snap. THE KID MERO: I was like, what? I was like - bro, we're talking about, like, bagging up and all this wild and he's then he comes through in, like, the suit and tie. And he's just like, it's for my job, bro. DESUS NICE: Yeah, my job... THE KID MERO: I was, ah, ah, ah. DESUS NICE: We had to wear a suit every day. We had to wear a suit every day. THE KID MERO: (Laughter) Facts. SANDERS: Wow. DESUS NICE: I was like, why? We work in an office. Why are we wearing a suit? THE KID MERO: Nobody's seeing us. DESUS NICE: And I swear to God, HR said, because white people are watching us. And I was like, what? SANDERS: What? This Black magazine said that? DESUS NICE: Yes, yes. SANDERS: Oh, my God. Stop. So what I love about y'all's energy is that it still feels like that energy y'all had years ago when this was starting out. And it seems as if your sensibility hasn't changed. But I'm guessing that, like, the world has changed how it treats you and how it looks at you and how people interact with you. Like, what's it like now walking through the Bronx as the two of you...DESUS NICE: You know what? SANDERS: ...With, you know, the success? DESUS NICE: A lot of people, they're just like - they ask that question and they forget, we have to wear masks. People have no idea who I am. SANDERS: (Laughter). DESUS NICE: People have no idea who I - bro, I go to my supermarket, and I have to show ID to get certain - 'cause I live in the Bronx. And stuff - like, Red Bull is locked up. If you buy alcohol at my supermarket, you have to show ID. So every time I buy a beer, I have to show ID. I got the mask on. They don't know. Every now and then people - like, the other day, I was getting money out my money clip, and my SAG card fell out, and it was on the floor. SANDERS: Look at you. DESUS NICE: And I was like, oh - I was like, oh, whoops - my SAG card. No one in the Bronx knows what the hell that is. They're like, what is - they're like, what is that for Best Buy? I'm just like, you know - like, nobody knows. (LAUGHTER)SANDERS: It is yellow and black. THE KID MERO: Papi, that's like your new Social Security card? That's the new Social Security? What's that. DESUS NICE: Bro, what is that? What is that? Yeah. (LAUGHTER)DESUS NICE: So - and then every now and then, though, like, a DoorDash person. Like, if I don't have time to get the mask or like, say, they leave it on my door - like, outside my door and I'm opening the door and they're standing there waiting for the elevator, I'll reach out and I'll be like, yo, thank you. And they'll be like, oh, you're welcome - oh, [expletive], Desus. And like, you'll get that quick moment. But other than that, in the middle of the penguin, brother, like, it's humbled me. SANDERS: In the middle of the penguin - in the middle of the popcorn pickle. THE KID MERO: Yeah, bruh. SANDERS: So I ask this question because I read in one interview, either one or both of you reflected on the way that police treat you differently now. You know, y'all are both men of color who grew up in the Bronx and were harassed in their youth by police officers in New York. And one of you told the story about, like, police officers now, like, wanting to say hi and how much they love the show. DESUS NICE: Oh, yeah. SANDERS: What does that even - how - what is that like? THE KID MERO: It's wild. DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: It's like bizarro "Twilight Zone" level...SANDERS: Really? THE KID MERO: ...Because growing up, like, we don't stop-and-frisk was, like, normal 'cause, you know, cops just pull you over. All right, yo. Assume the position. You're going to frisk me. Like, it is what it is, fact of life. Like, we thought that was police procedure. DESUS NICE: Yeah. THE KID MERO: Come to find out, it's not. But when you're 14, 15, 16, growing up in the hood, you don't know that. So like now, you know, being men of a certain age - I'm not going to blow up our ages - Google it. SANDERS: I know y'all's ages. THE KID MERO: (Laughter). But yeah, now that we're grown-ass men, it's like, yo, that was not OK. You know what I mean? So it's like a weird - it's very weird. It's a very weird feeling. It's cool, but it's also not cool at the same time, if that makes sense. DESUS NICE: Yeah, it was... THE KID MERO: It's like, yo, you weren't on the force. It wasn't you that put your boot on my head, but maybe it was your uncle. DESUS NICE: Yeah. And it's weird, especially like a sports event, especially at Yankee games. A lot of - you get stopped by cops on duty and off duty. And they - you know, like a cop is like, hey, get over here. You - as a person of color, you automatically expect the worst. I'm like, OK, I'm going to Rikers. I did something wrong. And they're like, do that impression. Do the impression. Do the cop impression. SANDERS: Wait. Stop it. DESUS NICE: You do it. And they're...SANDERS: That would scare me to death. DESUS NICE: And then they hit their partner up. And they're like, he sounds exactly like Joey. I told you. He sounds exactly like Joey. And I'm just like - I'm laughing. I'm like ha, ha, ha. And inside, I'm like shook to death. I'm like, this is wild 'cause, you know, growing up, you never talked to the cops. You never - like, there's - I can only - I can't think of any reason... THE KID MERO: No eye contact. DESUS NICE: ...Why you'd talk to the - like, even if I dropped my phone down a sewer grate, I'm calling 311. I'm not calling 911. I'm not calling a cop. We were never taught that cops were our friends. That was never anything that was even brought into our attention as children. So now to just be interacting with them on any level is just so surreal to us. THE KID MERO: Yeah, it's very strange for a cop to be like, yo, can we get a selfie? Like, what? SANDERS: Yeah. That would creep me out. Do you think - I mean, we've all watched the protests for racial justice happen over the last year. And I find myself in this new year asking if it's gotten better at all. And I don't know. I can't tell yet. Do y'all think a lot of this stuff with race and policing has gotten better? DESUS NICE: I don't. I don't think - I feel like, if anything, a lot of the movement has lost its energy in that people who were, you know, saying - you know, people who were all for it, a lot of them online now, they're like, all right, we got Biden - job's done. We're good. Everything's fixed. THE KID MERO: Yeah, mission accomplished. DESUS NICE: And it's like, no, there's a lot more work to be done. You got to put pressure on them. You know, like, Kamala and Joe are going to be, like, very pro-cop, so we're going to have a lot of issues going forward that have not changed going forward. And a lot of people - they're still people saying, like, the best solution is more cops. And people are just like, no, that's not how - that's not going to fix the interactions with the community that's causing these problems. But, you know, I'm not completely Debbie-Downing, and I'm not completely negative because it did bring that attention to the eyes of people who probably didn't even think of it before. So at least they're aware of it. It's just on them what the next step they're going to take with that information. SANDERS: Yeah, yeah. THE KID MERO: Yeah. I mean, what I will say is that, like, what does give me hope is that, like, you know, people are getting engaged at an earlier age. Like, you know, there's kids that are like, you know, 10, 11, 12, even younger than that, that are aware. SANDERS: They know stuff. DESUS NICE: Yeah. SANDERS: They're researching. THE KID MERO: Yeah, they know stuff. They're researching. They're reading. They're looking into stuff. They're asking questions. And these are things that we didn't do as kids. We were just kind of like, you know, ha, ho-hum. SANDERS: We couldn't. We didn't - like, we didn't get the Internet. THE KID MERO: We didn't have the opportunity. Yeah, we didn't have the Internet. We didn't have the access to resources that they have. So that that gives me, you know, the not completely like, oh, we did all this for nothing...SANDERS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids know what's up. THE KID MERO: ...The youth movement that's swelling, that's growing is giving me hope as a washed old man. (LAUGHTER)SANDERS: I could do this all day. I am such a fan of y'all and the work you do and the way you just kind of bring joy in whatever you're doing. And I'm sure we'll talk soon. DESUS NICE: Thank you so much, man. This was a pleasure. THE KID MERO: Sam - make 'em say it. DESUS NICE: Sam the man. SANDERS: Thanks again to Desus Nice and The Kid Mero. The third season of their show, "Desus & Mero," is now airing on Showtime. You can also listen to their podcast, "Bodega Boys," wherever you get your podcasts. And let me tell you - that podcast, there was one episode recently where they're doing this hilarious, totally, totally bonkers Fauci impersonation which cracked me up. All right. This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by Andrea Gutierrez, and it was edited by Jordana Hochman. And listeners, we are back in your feeds on Friday. Till then, be good to yourselves. I'm Sam Sanders. We'll talk soon. (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")SANDERS: Can y'all do an aka for NPR? DESUS NICE: Aka for NPR, you know the vibes. Aka... THE KID MERO: Oh, yo, NPR, aka Sotto Voce FM aka we talking low, but we loud aka...DESUS NICE: Yo, aka, leave me on when you leave your house to go to work so your pets become very smart, and they know about conflicts in nations you didn't even know about. Like, yo, and come in and your dog looks at you like, yo, do you know what's going on in Botswana? Do you know about the cartels? How do feel about their rigged elections? And you're like, whoa. Yo, what happened to my animal? He's wild smart. Also, NPR, if you want to flex on your Uber driver, you come in there - he's like, yo, you want to hear hip-hop? And you go, no, that was kind of racist. Actually, I want to hear NPR. Why would you think... THE KID MERO: NPR, sir. DESUS NICE: Why do you think I want to hear hip-hop? And he's like, you requested I took you to a Bow Wow concert. And I was like, oh, that's true. Wow. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. THE KID MERO: Oh, yeah, yeah. You right. You right. You right. SANDERS: (Laughter). (SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")Copyright 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Desus And Mero On Politics, Fame And Life In The PandemicEnlarge this image toggle caption Greg Endries/Showtime Greg Endries/ShowtimeA special bonus episode from NPR's It's Been A Minute With Sam Sanders. Desus Nice and The Kid Mero went from calling up "anyone in their phone book" in the early days of their podcast Bodega Boys, to booking big names in politics like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Barack Obama on Desus & Mero, their late-night show airing on Showtime. Covering a mix of pop culture, politics, headlines and internet hijinks, Desus and Mero talk to Sam about keeping their show's vibe while working from home, how their view of politics has evolved as their platform has grown and the strange ways that life has changed now that these Bronx natives are famous. This episode of 'It's Been a Minute' was produced by Andrea Gutierrez. It was edited by Jordana Hochman. | 2 |
###CLAIM: a week from now you will find my final verdict on the initial review: reports have been growing of extreme battery drain from users upgrading to 14. 6.
###DOCS: Apple iOS 14.6 has been released and it not only brings new features but extensive security updates. Furthermore, coming off the back of iOS 14.5.1 which had severe performance issues on multiple iPhone models, the pressure is on for Apple to get this update right. So should you upgrade? Heres everything you need to know. Tip: bookmark this page because I will keep it up to date if/when new problems are found. I will deliver my final verdict in a week. 05/31 Update: there are growing reports of serious battery drain problems for iPhone users after upgrading to iOS 14.6. You can read the my full report here. 06/02 Final Verdict now in below. Apple iOS 14 AppleMORE FROM FORBES New iOS 14.5.1 Update Slashing iPhone 12, iPhone 11 PerformanceWho Is It For? Apple iOS 14.6 is available for all iOS 13-compatible devices. That means iPhone 6S and newer and the 7th generation iPod touch. You should be automatically notified to upgrade but, if not, you can trigger the update manually by navigating to Settings > General > Software Update. Beta testers, if you are running a later version of iOS 14 when you read this (see The Road Ahead section at the end), you must unenroll your iPhone before iOS 14.6 will show up. Note: this guide is not focused on older iOS updates or iPadOS, but I will touch upon pertinent issues in these guides. The Deal BreakersThere has been no change for Jailbreakers. Unc0vers jailbreak is limited to iOS 14.3 and checkra1ns iOS 14 jailbreak is restricted to Apple devices running A9(X) chipsets. The big news 24 hours after release is the performance issues seen in iOS 14.5.1 appear to have been solved in iOS 14.6. Apple never acknowledged this problem in the first place, so theres no fix listed in the official release notes but, if you are affected, upgrading looks a pretty good bet. Theres more good news too because very few bugs have been reported in iOS 14.6 so far. Those already suffering from CarPlay issues still are and bugs are also still being reported in Apple Podcasts app (it has suffered a lot of issues since its redesign in iOS 14.5). There are isolated reports of increased battery drain and heat build up but nothing to be concerned about at this stage. So What Do You Get? Both had been eagerly awaited and while Apple Card Family appears to be working well, the Podcasts app remains buggy. Apple Card Family has arrived with the launch of iOS 14.6 AppleDig a little deeper, however, and the primary reason to upgrade to iOS 14.6 is for security. Head to Apples official security page and you will find the listing for iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6 lists a massive 43 security patches. None of these are zero day breaches, meaning they are not being actively exploited in the wild, but nevertheless the unusually long list includes vulnerabilities in audio, Mail, WebKit (Safaris browser engine) and WiFi. Apple iOS 14.6 Verdict: UpgradeAs always, cautious users will want to wait for my Final Verdict, which I always deliver after one week. For everyone else, the combination of new features, minimal early bug reports and the long list of patches for security vulnerabilities means I would advise you upgrade as a matter of priority. Note: if you bookmark this guide, you will find my final verdict here in one week02/06 Final Verdict: Since my initial review, there have been growing reports of extreme battery drain from iOS 14.6 upgraders. The number of affected users is hard to gauge, but there are numerous reports across Reddit, Apple Communities and social media. This is a shame because iOS 14.6 contains a lot of important security fixes. Whether you priotize security or battery life puts users between a rock and a hard place, but I would be tempted to wait in this instance because Apple should be motivated to release an iOS 14.6.1 emergency update ASAP. I have written a dedicated article on the iOS 14.6 battery problems, which you can read here. The Road AheadApple iOS 14.7 is already in beta testing. The first release adds support for timers to HomePod alarm settings and air quality information to the Weather app for more European countries, but you can expect more features to arrive before its final release sometime in mid-late June. ___Follow Gordon on FacebookMore On ForbesiPad, iPhone Owners Warned About Factory Of App Store Scam AppsLeaked iPhone 13 Mini Prototype Shows Off Huge New Rear Cameras | 0 |
###CLAIM: it was terrifying to see a picture from the day before of about 100 trump supporters packed into an arizona ballroom, most unmasking.
###DOCS: **Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here. In a POLITICO Playbook interview, Jennifer OMalley Dillon pointed to indoor campaign rallies Trump held this week, in direct contradiction with the coronavirus guidelines of his own administration, as well as a packed event on the South Lawn of the White House where Trump is celebrating the normalization of relations between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. ... People will die because of these types of events and that's from the president of the United States, she asserted. Among likely voters in North Carolina, 49% support Biden, 46% Trump. In Wisconsin, likely voters break 52% for Biden to 42% for Trump. The results suggest North Carolina voters see some strength in each candidate. Likely voters there divide over which candidate would better handle the top issues in the campaign, with Trump holding an advantage on handling the economy (52% to 45% among likely voters) and Biden ahead on handling the coronavirus pandemic (52% to 46%) and racial inequality in the US (53% to 41%). ... In Wisconsin, on the other hand, Biden has an edge over Trump on all but two of those tested matchups, and on those where Biden does not have an edge, neither does Trump.Poor showing with veterans holds Trump back in Florida - Monmouth University: Joe Biden holds a 3 to 5 point lead over Donald Trump in Florida, depending on a range of likely voter models. The Monmouth University Poll finds Biden with a large lead among Latino voters, but also suggests there are some possible signs of strength for Trump among older voters in this group. However, Biden has a sizable advantage in solidly Democratic areas of the state as well as more competitive counties. Trump holds a smaller than usual lead for a Republican incumbent among the large veteran vote contingent. The poll also finds widespread voter support for ballot measures to raise the minimum wage and to change the state primary election process. Among all registered voters in Florida, the race for president stands at 50% for Biden and 45% for Trump. The ruling also bolsters hopes for Democrats, who feared presidential nominee Joe Biden could lose a small share of his votes to the liberal third party. Republicans had hoped the Green Party would shave just enough votes from Biden's total to give President Donald Trump a victory this fall in a state he narrowly won in 2016. Justice Brian Hagedorn broke with his fellow conservatives to form a majority with the court's liberals that kept Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins off the ballot. The majority found Hawkins and his running mate, Milwaukee native Angela Walker, waited too long to bring their legal challenge.Big three in the blue wall among the slowest to count - Politico: The most important states in the 2016 election are among the least likely states to count their votes and declare a winner on election night this year. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are expecting huge surges in ballots cast by mail in 2020, like most states preparing to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. But all three Midwestern battlegrounds, which President Donald Trump flipped in 2016 to win the White House after years of Democratic presidential victories there, are among the states where local election officials are not allowed to start processing mail ballots until Election Day, according to a POLITICO review of election rules in 13 key states. Mail ballot processing involves everything from opening envelopes to checking voter signatures to flattening ballots that have been crumpled or creased in transit. The procedures can be time consuming, and that will create a backlog of millions of votes set to draw out the counting process for days after the polls close. That means that the country may be waiting, along with voters in the three Midwestern states, to see whether Trump or Joe Biden carried their electoral votes and potentially the presidency.THE RULEBOOK: THE PRICE IS RIGHTA price would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. Alexander Hamilton, explaining the benefits of the Union concerning commercial relations, Federalist No. 11TIME OUT: GONE FISHINT. Edward Nickens takes readers on a journey to Georgias Satilla River - Garden&Gun: Youll find them haunting creek banks and dark river coves where blossoms of shadbush and wild blueberry swirl through old cypress trees. Thats where the fish flash like iridescent lightning. Redbreast sunfish live in places that call to childhood memory and sandbar naps. Until you hook one on a cricket or a curly-tailed grub. Then you dont think so much about how things used to be because you can feel the fight all the way down the rod and into the palms of your hands, and what you think about most is putting such a bellicose fish in the boat. These fish sport a blue-green back and rays of turquoise around each eye. ... Most prevalent in lower Piedmont and Coastal Plain rivers and creeks from Virginia to Mississippi, redbreast sunfish live in waters where the Souths natural fabric is largely intact.Flag on the play? - Email us at [email protected] with your tips, comments or questions. SCOREBOARDNATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGETrump: 43.6 percentBiden: 50.6 percentSize of lead: Biden by 7 pointsChange from one week ago: Biden 0.6, Trump 1 point[Average includes: Fox News: Trump 46% - Biden 51%; Kaiser Family Foundation: Trump 43% - Biden 48%; Monmouth University: Trump 44% - Biden 51%; CNN: Trump 43% - Biden 51%; Quinnipiac University: Trump 42% - Biden 52%.] GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL? Weve brought From the Bleachers to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to [email protected]. BIBI RETURNS THE FAVOR FOR TRUMPNYT: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has long owed a debt to President Trump, who has repeatedly bestowed diplomatic gifts at crucial moments as Mr. Netanyahu has battled for his political survival. Leaders of the Persian Gulf states are similarly grateful to Mr. Trump, who has embraced their governments, cracked down on their archnemesis, Iran, and defended them from intense political criticism in Washington. ... And at the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu and a select group of Gulf Arab officials will be returning the favor, doing their part to repay and support Mr. Trump by participating in a signing ceremony for a pair of new accords between Israel and two Gulf nations, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that Mr. Trump is promoting as a historic breakthrough.Whats exactly in the deal? - Fox News: President Trump on Tuesday declared the dawn of a new Middle East as he presided over the signing of two historic Middle East diplomatic deals between Israel and two Gulf nations. ... The deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and Israel and Bahrain, involve the exchanging of ambassadors, establishment of embassies and co-operation on a range of fronts -- including trade, security and tourism. The agreements, known as the Abraham Accords also allow Muslims to visit Islamic holy sites in Israel. Trump said the deals would form the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region. ... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of both the UAE and Bahrain were present to sign the deals at the ceremony. ... The leaders also signed a separate trilateral declaration of peace.Trump tangles with climate change amid wildfires - AP: With the smell of California wildfires in the air, President Donald Trump on Monday ignored the scientific consensus that climate change is playing a central role in historic West Coast infernos and renewed his unfounded claim that failure to rake forest floors and clear dead timber is mostly to blame. The fires are threatening to become another front in Trumps reelection bid, which is already facing hurdles because of the coronavirus pandemic, joblessness and social unrest. His Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in his own speech Monday said the destruction and mounting death toll across California, Oregon and Washington require stronger presidential leadership and labeled Trump a climate arsonist. Trump traveled to Northern California to be briefed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state and federal officials. The departure of Caputo, who has closely controlled the health agencies' dissemination of information about coronavirus, would be a blow to the Trump administration's efforts to promote a possible vaccine, if one is approved in the fall. Caputo told staffers that his series of false accusations on Facebook Live this weekend which included unfounded allegations that the Centers for Disease Control was harboring a resistance unit reflected poorly on HHS communications office. He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family.DOWN-BALLOT DEMS BREAK WITH BIDEN ON DOOR-TO-DOORPolitico: Democrat Sara Gideon's campaign is knocking on voters doors in her close Senate race in Maine. So is Steve Bullock in Montana, another one of the nations most competitive Senate contests. Democratic candidates in state legislative races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Louisiana are doing the same. For months, down-ballot Democrats followed Joe Bidens lead and stopped door-to-door campaigning in an effort to prevent people from catching Covid-19 and appear more socially responsible than Republicans. President Donald Trumps campaign and other GOP candidates, by contrast, have downplayed the pandemic and been knocking on voters doors for months. But with anxiety growing in the final sprint before Election Day, an increasing number of Democrats up and down the ballot are making the call to stop ceding voters doors to the GOP a decision that could increase pressure on Bidens campaign to restart the traditional election-year practice. Im going to ask a lot of questions, he said. I think thats incumbent on all of us right now with the way weve seen politics intervening in Washington. Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis called Cunninghams response irresponsible. That statement puts lives at risk and it makes it more difficult to manage a crisis that he presents to say hes up to the task to manage, Tillis said. We just heard a candidate for the U.S. Senate look into the camera and tell 10 million North Carolinians he would be hesitant to take a vaccine. I think that thats irresponsible. Cunningham and Tillis met Monday night in the first of three U.S. Senate debates.Coons faces left-wing challenge in final primary of 2020 - WaPo: Six months of partisan primaries come to an end Tuesday in Joe Bidens home state, where Democratic Sen. Christopher A. Coons is facing a left-wing challenger and Republicans will nominate their statewide ticket. Coons, first elected in a 2010 special election to fill Bidens expired Senate term after he became vice president, is defending his seat against Jessica Scarane, a digital strategist making her first run for office. Coons, who has derided President Trump and also challenged the Democratic Partys far left, has aired TV spots and distributed mail that emphasize his support from Biden. The Problem Solvers Caucus plan was developed over six weeks with the knowledge of the White House and leadership from both parties. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has referred to the discussions and at a House hearing this month hinted that the White House could accept a $1.5 trillion level of spending. Nonetheless, the track record of bipartisan groupings of moderates in either the House or Senate to broker major deals has been poor in recent years. And initial reactions Tuesday from leaders in both parties werent encouraging. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Tuesday criticized the plan after it came out, saying Democrats should not agree to less than $2 trillion. I think the Problem Solvers would be lower than a responsible deal, he said.PLAY-BY-PLAYSurvey finds Americas reputation abroad has declined - Pew Research CenterPergram: How a contested election brawl could unfold on Capitol Hill - Fox NewsTrump super PAC uses Russian jets in ad - PoliticoHost of indoor Trump rally hit with $3,000 in fines - The Nevada IndependentQuestions mount about South Dakota attorney generals fatal car accident - Rapid City [S.D.] JournalAUDIBLE: OOOOOOPSA Harris administration together with Joe Biden... Kamala Harris said during a virtual roundtable where she quickly clarified Joe Biden will be president. FROM THE BLEACHERSIn response to an excellent challenge from reader Ms. Chambless about pathetic soft questions from liberal reporters, you said, What I said in the podcast was that it was not the intent of those reporters to help Biden. I do not believe that when they crafted their questions they did so with malign intent to influence the election. That makes it better in the sense that they were being sincere but worse in the sense that they were oblivious. You are somehow making a distinction that I dont believe exists. Intent flows directly from bias. Whether conscious of unconscious, it is still an expression of bias and shows up in pathetic soft questions. Making that distinction allows you to express a kindness to reporters that Ms. Chambless and I believe they do not deserve. Whats needed now, given the overwhelmingly low trust ratings these reporters have earned, is less kindness and more hard feedback. They are consistently not being professional journalists and most of us know it. As always, you remain my favorite political pundit. Robert White, Wheat Ridge, Colo.[Ed. note: I would be careful when it came to underestimating Ms. Chambless kindness. Shes been a longtime subscriber and has always struck me with her sense of compassion and decency and yes, kindness even to those of us, like me, who fall short of the mark. I also wonder how you think all that hard feedback has been working out? Republicans have long complained about press coverage, often with good cause, sometimes as an excuse for their own mistakes. But the verdict of the ages has been, indeed, that there is a left-leaning bias in the press. It would make sense because there arent a lot of red-state media centers and conservatives who disdain a profession seem unlikely to try to join it. Add in the fact that the major media hubs are in New York and Washington and that women have long been drawn to the communications field and you get a group of individuals with a true-blue skew. So, lets imagine an archetype for a successful national reporter: A woman born and raised in Washington, D.C. who worked hard to get into elite schools and then fought her way up the ranks at a major media outlet starting as an intern. Shes just as likely to assume a left-leaning worldview as a man from Oklahoma in the energy business would be to assume a right-leaning worldview. Its what they have been formed from and raised in. When our hypothetical reporter sees the world, shes likely to have a hard time seeing things another way. So how is she going to receive your hard feedback when you tell her shes a crook? Motives do matter. If someone starts a conversation with a proponent of immigration restrictions by saying his intent is racist theres really no reason to continue. The critic wont waste time on a bigot and the proponent wont listen to a person who has so offensively misjudged him. The hard work of citizenship is to love each other enough to not automatically assume the worst about each other and to find those common points where we can try to rebuild consensus. Hard feedback in anything tends to be more about satisfying the teller than affecting a change in the listener. It feels good in the moment to tell people off and denigrate them. But change comes from the slow, patient work of speaking the truth in love.] Share your color commentary: Email us at [email protected] and please make sure to include your name and hometown. DONT TRY TO ROB BLUE THUNDERThe Daytona Beach News-Journal: After a Seminole County Sheriffs Office helicopter pilot in flight was alerted by his homes Ring camera about suspects breaking into cars in his neighborhood, he led Volusia County [Fla.] deputies to them, officials said. Three juveniles - 14, 15 and 16 - fled from deputies and ran after the tires of their escape vehicle were flattened but were caught shortly after, officials said. The juveniles are also suspects in a series of car break-ins in Deltona, said Volusia County sheriffs spokesman Andrew Gant. The Seminole County Sheriffs Office helicopter pilot was in the air around 2 a.m. on Sunday when he received an alert from his Ring camera. The video showed two suspects checking handles on vehicles while an SUV followed them through the neighborhood, Gant said. The pilot notified Volusia deputies and then located the suspect vehicle from the sky.AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES...And because we remain so imperfect a nation, we are in no position to dictate our professed values to others around the world. Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing about the conventional wisdom about America in decline in The Weekly Standard on Oct. 19, 2009. Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here. | 0 |
###CLAIM: vice president biden directed the intelligence community to assess the threat of domestic extremism, develop ways to combat it and identify domestic extremist networks.
###DOCS: WASHINGTONPresident Biden has directed the intelligence community to assess the threat of domestic extremism and develop ways to identify and counter networks that promote it, the White House said Friday. The Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and the tragic deaths and destruction that occurred underscored what we have long known: The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national threat, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. The Biden administration will confront this threat with the necessary resources and resolve. | 0 |
###CLAIM: at the beginning of the term, biden, who was president at the time, canceled some student loans on executive order.
###DOCS: IN JUST OVER three weeks Joe Biden will become Americas 46th president. Until then, however, it is his attention-seeking predecessor who is desperate to remain the centre of the national political conversation. Donald Trumps refusal, until late on Sunday, to sign a covid-relief bill passed by Congress was set to inflict economic hardship on millions who risked unemployment benefits. Because the legislation was combined with the $1.4trn public-funding bill, its failure might also have forced the closure of the federal government, beginning on Tuesday December 29th. Before his last minute change of heart, Mr Trumps stance on the relief bill surprised even members of his own administration. Steven Mnuchin, his Treasury Secretary, had appeared to represent Mr Trump in talks on it with Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He called the bill fabulous after it passed on December 21st with bipartisan support. At a cost of $900bn it will send one-off relief payments of $600 to most Americans and extend weekly unemployment top-up payments of $300 until mid-March (a reduced rate from the allowance set by the CARES act earlier this year). In addition, as with the CARES act, gig-workers and the self-employed, who are not traditionally covered by pay-outs, can claim some relief. Democrats had sought larger one-off payments but Republicans, insisting that costs be kept down, forced the limit of $600. Why Mr Trump relented is not currently clear. Perhaps even he balked at sowing such chaos. Just before he set off for Christmas at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida, the president called the 5,593-page bill a disgrace, saying he instead wanted relief payments of $2,000 not the ridiculously low $600 per person, and alleging that the joint bill is crammed with billions of dollars in pork such as supposedly unjustified aid payments to foreign countries, including Belize, Egypt and Pakistan. His delay in signing meant an estimated 10m recipients (perhaps as many as 14m) of special pandemic-era unemployment relief missed at least some payments. In addition, a moratorium on landlords evicting tenants who have not paid rent, that was due to expire on December 31st, was in danger. Mr Biden on December 26th, referring to his predecessors inaction, said the abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences.In a statement after signing the bill, Mr Trump said that Congress should look again at higher payouts. Though that might prove popular with his most ardent supportersand thus help him to retain influence over his party even after leaving officehis demand looks disingenuous. He had shown no interest in recent weeks in details of the relief bill, preferring to raise funds and fire up his supporters by making hundreds of false claims that the presidential election he lost was rigged, and to issue presidential pardons for various friends, supporters and donors who had broken the law. In reality his delay in signing the bill looked like a means of remaining in the public eye while inflicting discomfort on congressional Republicans who had negotiated the deal. These notably included moderate senators, such as Mitt Romney, who have shown some independence from him. Mr Trump was also unconcerned about crossing Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, because Mr McConnell has acknowledged Mr Bidens presidential-election victory. There may now, at least, be some cheer for the many hurt by the economic fall-out of the pandemic. Official estimates suggest Americans average personal income and consumer spending have been falling in recent months, just as many small businesses are struggling because of pandemic lockdowns and as applications for unemployment benefits remain high. The failure to roll out public funds for the covid bill would have meant consumer spending and economic activity falling further. A federal shutdown would also have added to uncertainty. For Mr Bidens incoming administration there are two concerns. One is a matter of running down the clock while Mr Trump finds more ways to stir up controversy in his remaining weeks. One date to watch is January 5th, when Georgia votes in two run-off elections, which will decide the majority in the Senate. Another is the next day, when Congress holds a joint session for its formal certification of Mr Biden as the incoming president. This process, to be overseen by Vice-President Mike Pence, is traditionally nothing but a formality. But Mr Trumps most ardent supporters, the bitter-enders of his party, see a chance to protest about the alleged illegitimacy of Mr Bidens victory. That will go nowhere, but Trumpists see a chance to signal their continued loyalty to the man who lost the presidency but remains popular with the partys voters. The other concern for Mr Biden is whether the difficulty in passing this covid-relief bill casts light on hopes for a subsequent, larger stimulus package in the new year. In some Democratic circles, the deal was accepted as a relatively modest, stop-gap measure in the expectation that incoming members of Congress would set to work on a much bigger stimulus plan for Mr Biden to sign in the next few months. That, however, would need at least acquiescence from congressional Republicans. Mr Trumps grandstanding may have made them warier than ever of doing anything that smacks of compromise. Editors note: this piece has been altered to reflect Donald Trumps belated signing of the bill on December 27th | 0 |
###CLAIM: peterson 's previous work propelled him to world renown during a cultural war over his famous and controversial views on mental health which led publishers to include him in their labeling of white supremacy and hate speech as icons.
###DOCS: The family of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson has accused the Sunday Times of falsely claiming that Peterson has schizophrenia, saying that the U.K. paper misrepresented his health condition in an in-depth interview published Sunday. Peterson, the best-selling author, clinical psychologist, and popular crusader against political correctness, has recently returned to public life after spending a year on hiatus while seeking treatment for multiple health issues. In his interview with the Times, titled "Jordan Peterson on his depression, drug dependency and Russian rehab hell," Peterson described his struggle with drug addiction, suicidal thoughts, and his ongoing journey to recovery. However, after the interview was published, Peterson's family accused the paper of misrepresenting what Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila told the interviewer about Peterson's mental health. The Times published that Peterson was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a claim that the Peterson family vigorously denies. Speaking to the Post Millennial, Mikhaila Peterson said "we were misrepresented in a very disturbing way and that's causing serious stress to our family." The interview covers Dr. Peterson's failing health, which began after he suffered a violent reaction to a strict meat and greens diet in 2016. The diet triggered a "sodium metabisulphite response" in Peterson, his daughter recounted to the Times. "He couldn't stand up without blacking out. He had this impending sense of doom. He wasn't sleeping," she said. To treat his illness, Peterson was prescribed the antidepressant benzodiazepine, but his health took a turn for the worse after his wife was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Falling into depression, Peterson increased the amount of benzodiazepine he was taking and eventually became addicted to the drug. He also suffered an adverse reaction to the antidepressants, manifesting in a condition called akathisia, in which a person is unable to stop moving. During this time Peterson saw several doctors who offered various diagnoses including bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. However, as the unedited interview published by Peterson and reported by the Post Millennial shows, the family believes he was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and that his symptoms were found to be a side effect of the medication he was taking. Twitter user Rob Henderson posted a transcript highlighting the relevant portion of the nearly three-hour interview in which Mikhaila Peterson described how the schizophrenia diagnosis was disputed. "It took until August this summer to actually diagnose him with akathisia, which is a side effect of a medication, but he was bounced from you know bipolar, depression, one person diagnosed him with schizophrenia. It was like, he's just not. He's in pain because of these medications," Mikhaila told the Times interviewer in the audio recording that was not quoted in the Times report. "One of the conversations we had with this psychiatrist he has, he goes, 'well, we think it's schizophrenia.' And I was like, these symptoms didn't even start until he started the medications," she said. "Okay, so you're telling me like a mid 50-year-old man with no previous symptoms of schizophrenia suddenly gets schizophrenia, which generally happens late teens for men. It's not like we're uneducated on these things. Right? I was like, what?" The Times appears to have left out that important context, leading other media outlets including the New York Post and the Daily Mail to report that Peterson has schizophrenia. Peterson's recovery began after he traveled to Russia to seek treatment. There he underwent an unusual therapy in which he was induced into a coma to allow the drugs to filter out of his body. He still faces numerous health challenges, including memory loss from the time he was ill, and has since returned to Canada to continue his recovery. Peterson is currently giving interviews to the media to promote his new book, "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life," a sequel to his 2018 bestseller, "12 Rules for Life." His previous work propelled Peterson to world renown in the culture wars, but he says the fame and ensuing controversy over his views, including being labeled an "icon of white supremacy and hate speech" by employees of his publisher, have negatively affected his mental health. "I was at the epicenter of this incredible controversy, and there were journalists around me constantly, and students demonstrating. It's really emotionally hard to be attacked publicly like that. And that happened to me continually for, like, three years," Peterson told the Times. "I was concerned for my family. I was concerned for my reputation. I was concerned for my occupation. And other things were happening. The Canadian equivalent of the Inland Revenue service was after me, making my life miserable, for something they admitted was a mistake three months later, but they were just torturing me to death." OPINION:Leftist hatred for the Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson is really something to behold. He stands as an example of what happens to someone who strays from the crazy line of thinking by modern campus bigots. Mr. Peterson is the canary in the toxic coal mine of political correctness and petty thought police. Lets start with the professors crime. Simply put, Mr. Peterson does not share the monolithic, prevailing liberal orthodoxy on university campuses dictating that Western White males are the worlds evil oppressors and anyone who does not belong to that evil race is a victim trapped in circumstances beyond his or her control. Consider for a moment the leftist premise to which the radical Mr. Peterson objects. On its face, it is blatantly racist. Divvying up, defining and punishing groups of people based on their race (or gender) was racist 200 years ago during slavery times. It was racist 75 years ago. It is still racist today. Yet, astonishingly, this reborn racism is widely embraced by the racists who dominate college campuses today. The second obvious flaw in this racist orthodoxy is the message it sends to non-White, non-males. Any challenges, failures or misery you face in life are not your fault. And, even worse, there is nothing you can do to change your circumstances. So, just stew in your bitterness and hatred for White males along with the rest of us, goes the leftist campus orthodoxy of the day. Is there any more destructive and devious lie that could be sold to young people? Is there anything more dystopian or hopeless? Mr. Peterson has become something of a rock star among beleaguered youth suffocating in the coal mine of modern academia with speeches, lectures, podcasts and a book titled, The Twelve Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His message has been particularly devoured among young men many of them White who have been vilified and emasculated by crazy university teachings. Find meaning in life. Take responsibility for yourself. Surround yourself with good people who want the best for you. Pretty nasty stuff, huh? The chapter titles of his book include radical instructions such as: Stand up straight with your shoulders back, Tell the truth or, at least, dont lie, and Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.These lessons have earned Mr. Peterson a level of blinding hatred that is normally reserved for former President Donald Trump. So it has been with considerable glee that the leftist media the Revolutionary Guard of modern academia hunted down Mr. Peterson as he suffered from a pestilence of personal maladies that no decent human would wish on his worst enemy. Over the past year, Mr. Peterson has suffered physical illness and serious mental disease including suicidal thoughts. His wife was diagnosed with cancer. As his life spiraled out of control, Mr. Peterson developed a near-fatal drug addiction. Actual humans read those lines and are struck with pangs of angst and sorrow for Mr. Peterson and his family. They mutter a prayer for them. But not the campus bigots and the jackals in the media. Every bleak detail is catnip to them. Their desperate war to destroy all who disagree never sleeps. When the story of Mr. Petersons troubles emerged about a year ago, a creature named Amir Attaran, a professor of both law and medicine, began his public hot take on Mr. Petersons travails: #KARMA.Jordan Peterson, oracle to gullible young men, preacher of macho toughness, and hectoring bully to snowflakes, is addicted to strong drugs and his brain is riddled with neurological damage. He deserves as much sympathy as he showed others.Says the law professor. A new interview with the Sunday Times of London about his tribulations sparked yet another avalanche of glee and gloating over the unimaginable pain Mr. Peterson has been through. Introducing her interview, reporter Decca Aitkenhead opines openly referring to herself no fewer than three times in the lead paragraph that she is unable to diagnose the root of Mr. Petersons problems. I dont know if this is a story about drug dependency, or doctors, or Peterson family dynamics or a parable about toxic masculinity, she sneers. If these are the purveyors of social justice, we are truly doomed. Charles Hurt is opinion editor of The Washington Times. He can be reached at [email protected]. Jordan Peterson was so hooked on benzodiazepines that he became suicidal before he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, needing to be flown to Russia by his daughter and placed into an induced coma for controversial treatment that left him delirious - according to the controversial clinical psychologist and his eccentric daughter. The pair sat for bizarre interviews with The Sunday Times, dishing on the spiraling decline of the conservative superstar while also promoting the long-awaited sequel to his lauded self-help book. Peterson's daughter - podcast host Mikhaila Peterson - described his fall from grace starting 18 months ago as 'like a horror movie,' highly protective over her father and his well being while he updated the world on his condition. 'I don't remember anything. From December 16 of 2019 to February 5, 2020,' the Canadian psychologist said of the time period when he was flown to Russia for treatment, 'I don't remember anything at all.' Jordan Peterson and his daughter, 28-year-old Mikhaila Peterson, both confirmed that the psychologist struggled with pressure of stardomPeterson is well-known for his 'grow up' approach to adulthood and his 2018 book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is an international bestseller, having sold more than 5million copies around the world. But according to Mikhaila, the problems for Peterson started before his book took off on the bestseller list - in October 2016. Mikhaila, her Russian husband and Peterson were only consuming meat and greens, a prequel to the lion diet she has championed to help combat symptoms she says are associated with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. While all three had violent 'sodium metabisulphite response. It was really awful - but it hit him hardest,' according to Mikhaila. 'He couldn't stand up without blacking out. He had this impending sense of doom. He wasn't sleeping.' The psychologist was administered benzodiazepines and the drug was upped after his wife Tammy was diagnosed with cancer. Peterson would suffer from withdrawal when repeatedly trying to get off the antidepressantPeterson claims that he didn't sleep for 25 days during this time - something that is widely disputed as the longest period of sleeplessness is recorded at 11 days. 'He was in really bad shape, right,' Mikhalia asserted. It was during this time that Peterson first was prescribed 'a really low dose of benzodiazepine.' The antidepressant is a part of the familial drug that includes Xanax and Valium. The family saw positive results from the drug and life moved on. Peterson was a household name by early 2019 but was left devastated after his wife of 30 years, Tammy, was diagnosed with kidney cancer. The clinical psychologist was terrified at the idea of his wife dying as she struggled battling the disease that she would eventually beat. His doses of benzodiazepine were raised during that summer, but instead of helping ease his qualms, things only seemed to get worse. Peterson's daughter flew him to Moscow after Toronto doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia'And things just fell apart insanely with Tammy. Every day was life and death and crisis for five months,' Peterson explained. 'The doctors said, "Well, she's contracted this cancer that's so rare there's virtually no literature on it, and the one-year fatality rate is 100 per cent." So endless nights sleeping on the floor in emergency, and continual surgical complications... So I took the benzodiazepines.' His loyal daughter added: 'Dad started to get super-weird. It manifested as extreme anxiety, and suicidality.' In Toronto, multiple doctor visits and an increase in the number of drugs he was prescribed only appeared to make things worse for Peterson. He was taken off benzodiazepine and prescribed ketamine but suffered severe withdrawals. Peterson wound up in rehab when attempting to get back on controlled intakes of benzodiazepine - along with other drugs - and soon he would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Mikhalia later told DailyMail.com that Peterson was actually misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and that he actually was diagnosed with akathisia, 'a severe side effect to psych meds.' 'Well, I went to the best treatment clinic in North America. And all they did was make it worse. So we were out of options,' Peterson explained about his reasoning for going to Moscow in January. 'The judgment of my family was that I was likely going to die in Toronto. 'I had put myself in the hands of the medical profession. And the consequence of that was that I was going to die. So it wasn't that [the evidence from Moscow] was compelling. It was that we were out of other options.' Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson's new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, is being published by Random House Canada to the dismay of staff there. It is a sequel to his 2018 best seller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to ChaosIn Moscow, Peterson was intubated for undiagnosed pneumonia and administered propofol - the drug responsible for killing Michael Jackson - so that he could be induced into a coma for eight days. While in the coma, medics did a plasmapheresis to clean the drug out of Peterson's system but when he regained consciousness, the psychologist still had a long road to recovery. 'He was catatonic. Really, really bad. And then he was delirious,' Mikhalia said. 'He thought my husband was his old roommate. Oh, it was horrible... I lost a whole bunch of hair. I've never been that stressed in my entire life. We'd brought Dad here and it was, like, what did the detox do? Was it too hard on his brain? I thought, I'm f***ed if this goes badly. The entire world is going to blame me, because who brings somebody to detox from these medications in Russia? It's, like, this is really bad.' Peterson was transferred to a local public hospital where he was given a new drug and became more alert. It was February, and he had no recollection of his memory. Peterson also didn't know how to walk, having to learn again. He was flown to Florida in late February and watched by nurses at a house in Palm Beach. But 10 days later, Peterson's old symptoms returned and he was back unable to stop moving. The psychologist was in so much pain and soon he was suicidal again. In 2020, Mikhaila flew her father to a 'top-of-the-world private hospital' in Belgrade, Serbia, where Peterson was diagnosed with akathisia - a restlessness condition linked with withdrawals of benzodiazepineMikhaila flew her father to a 'top-of-the-world private hospital' in Belgrade, Serbia, where Peterson was diagnosed with akathisia - a restlessness condition linked with withdrawals of benzodiazepine. Peterson was prescribed more sedatives, antidepressants and an opiate; appearing 'stoned' but starting to 'relax.' But with the coronavirus pandemic starting to impact the global world, Serbia was soon in lockdown and Mikhaila had to return to her father's clinic with her family - where they all contracted the virus. Peterson would wind up home in Canada late last year, with his akathisia improving significantly but still lingering. He isn't yet off the meds and is currently in talks with 'thousands' of akathisia sufferers. Around the same time, junior staff at the Penguin Random House Canada publishing house tried to block the publication of Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, calling him an 'icon of white supremacy and hate speech' for his series of controversial remarks. In 2017, he said in an interview: 'The idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible and it's not because white people aren't privileged. Most people have all sorts of privilege. Peterson would wind up home in Canada late last year, with his akathisia improving significantly but still lingering. He isn't yet off the meds and is currently in talks with 'thousands' of akathisia sufferersIn a 2018 exchange on the British TV network Channel 4, he told interviewer Cathy Newman that young men were crying out to be told to grow up and be more 'competent' and that women 'deeply' wanted them to. The pressure from those controversies and more only added to the mountainous pressure Peterson felt, he shared. 'I was at the epicentre of this incredible controversy, and there were journalists around me constantly, and students demonstrating. It's really emotionally hard to be attacked publicly like that. And that happened to me continually for, like, three years.' He continued: 'I was concerned for my family. I was concerned for my reputation. I was concerned for my occupation. And other things were happening. The Canadian equivalent of the Inland Revenue service was after me, making my life miserable, for something they admitted was a mistake three months later, but they were just torturing me to death. The college of psychologists that I belonged to was after me because one of my clients had put forth a whole sequence of specious allegations. So that was extraordinarily stressful.' Peterson's greatest 'fear (is) that the akathisia will come back. It's unbearable. And there's always this sense that you could stop it, if you just exercised enough willpower. So it's humiliating as well.' And through all this, Peterson still managed to find time to write, with his sequel - Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life - expected to be published in the spring. Of the book, Peterson said: 'I'm ambivalent about it because I can't judge the book properly. I didn't write it under optimal circumstances, to say the least, so I can't make an adequate judgment of its quality.' He continued: 'If I would have lost the book, I wouldn't have had anything left... When I recorded the audio book in November I was akathisic almost the entire time.' 'I would go to the studio virtually convulsing in the car. I was moving just frenetically, and then I'd get upstairs into the studio and force myself to not move for two hours. 'If you would have asked me to lay odds on the probability that I would live to finish the recording, I would have bet you ten to one that I wouldn't have. But I did the recording. And it was the same with the book. Because not to would have been worse. So, to the degree that I can explain how I was able to manage it, I'm not going to talk about willpower or courage, I'm going to talk about the lesser of two evils.' Peterson's controversial stance on politics are still as sharp, however, as he had plenty to say about the storming of the Capitol in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6. 'I thought that the continual pushing on the radical leftist front would wake up the sleeping right. I saw it coming five years ago. And you can put it at Trump's feet, but it's not helpful. I mean, obviously he was the immediate catalyst for the horrible events that enveloped Washington and perhaps it'll all die down when Trump disappears. But I doubt it.' Should Trump be impeached? 'I think he should be ignored.' | 3 |
###CLAIM: hopes of keeping the right to document, which allows full access to eu customers, evaporated early with the decision to quit the single market by british-based financiers.
###DOCS: T HE TRADE deal that Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, struck on December 24th is better than no deal. That is about the best that can be said for it. It does not cover all of Britains trade, nor does it provide stability. An eternity of negotiations lies ahead. Britains relationship with the EU will look rather like that of Switzerland, which has spent years battling over details. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android Your browser does not support the element. Listen to this story Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask OKLast-minute concessions on both sides got the deal done. Even a week earlier, many diplomats doubted it would happen. But Mr Johnson then gave ground on fisheries, and Mrs von der Leyen backed off a demand for instant retaliation if Britain diverged unfairly from the so-called level playing field for EU labour, environmental and state-aid standards. Businesses on both sides are relieved, although doing a deal barely a week before the standstill transition period ends on December 31st is likely to maximise short-term disruption. For goods trade, the deal means no tariffs and no quotas, a broader agreement than Canadas. Carmakers and the agrifood industry are reasonably happy, though the fishing lobby was disappointed with taking back only 25% of the EU s catch in British waters until June 30th 2026. But Mr Johnson is wrong to claim that there will be no new non-tariff barriers. Leaving the single market and customs union necessitates border, customs, rules-of-origin and veterinary checks that will raise the cost of trading, even if the rules are lightly enforced at first. And the level playing field, albeit now subject to independent arbitration, means that if Britain diverges much from EU standards, tariffs may be reimposed. The biggest gap is services, some 80% of Britains economy and nearly half its exports. The EU sees the free movement of people as integral to trade in services, so Britain was bound to lose unfettered access to that market. Brexiteers argue that since there is no EU single market in services, that is no great loss. It is certainly incomplete; but being cut out of it will still hurt. Professionals may find it harder to work in Europe, for their qualifications will no longer automatically be recognised. Audio-visual services, a business in which Britain leads Europe, are excluded from the deal. Digital and e-commerce providers will face new barriers. It has yet to be decided whether rulings in Britains civil courts will be valid in the EU ; if not, lawyers may lose lucrative business. Nowhere is the deal thinner than in financial services, the source of Britains greatest comparative advantage. Early hopes of keeping passporting rights that allow British-based financiers full access to EU customers evaporated with the decision to quit the single market. The Bank of England also insisted on keeping regulatory autonomy over financial services. The EU has granted equivalence for British regulatory standards only temporarily and in specific areas, such as derivatives clearing, that it sees as crucial to its own financial stability. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, promises to negotiate a broader deal, but the EU is clear that equivalence is a unilateral decision that can be revoked at 30 days notice. Many EU countries hope to pinch financial business from London; there is no reason to expect them to be seized by a sudden fit of generosity to a rival. There is a similar concern over the handling of data. It had been hoped that the EU would take an early decision to approve the adequacy of British data protection, but it has not yet done so. Purists on the continent are anyway dubious about Anglo-Saxon commitment to data privacy. The EU has in the past criticised British and American protection of personal data. British access to EU security and police databases will also be somewhat curtailed in future, making a nonsense of claims by Priti Patel, the home secretary, that the new deal somehow makes Britons safer. On financial services, data and much else the Brexit negotiations are by no means over. It is not just that there are loose ends in the deal to tie up. The agreement also sets up a raft of over 25 specialist committees, ministerial councils and working groups in areas ranging from organic products to sanitary and phytosanitary measures, from aviation safety to public procurement. And it provides for both sides to review the deals implementation every five years, which may be interesting after the next British election. Further liberalisation of trade in services will equally be a matter of apparently endless negotiation. As David Henig, a trade expert, notes this week in a paper for Best for Britain, a lobby group, new restrictions on visas for EU citizens will make life harder for many services businesses that are heavily dependent on the ability of individuals to move around freely. He adds that, if it is to make further progress with global liberalisation of trade in services, which has largely stalled, Britain will first have to work more closely with the EU , by far its biggest market. This is the lesson from Switzerland, which rejected EU membership in the early 1990s largely because of concerns about sovereignty that echo those of most Brexiteers. The Swiss have since spent years negotiating two complex packages of measures to give them broad access to the EU s single market for goods, but not for many services, including most financial services (although Switzerland accepts free movement of people and is even a member of the Schengen passport-free zone). Over the past decade the EU and Switzerland have engaged in often grumpy negotiations to create a single governance structure for these measures rather like the one that will now be in place for Britain. Cross-retaliation has been common: 18 months ago, in a dispute over judicial oversight, the EU peremptorily withdrew its equivalence ruling for the Swiss stock exchange. A ROMAN TRAVELLING anywhere in the empire from modern-day Carlisle to Damascus was said to have his safety guaranteed by declaring: Civis Romanus sum. The Maastricht treaty of 1992 created a similar notion of European citizenship, affording the bearer rights superior to domestic law throughout the bloc, which compel officials, bosses and judges to treat all Europeans as the equals of their compatriots. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android Your browser does not support the element. Listen to this story Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask OKFrom this grand idea spring a thousand small perks, making going on holiday or serving a client abroad effortless. Britons will have plenty of time to consider them as they finger their new dark-blue passports in the non- EU queues at European airports. Britons who settled on the continent before Brexit will have the rights of citizenship preserved under the Brexit withdrawal agreement. For everyone else, they will drop away as Big Ben strikes 11pm on December 31st. How Britons are treated thereafter will depend on the rules agreed in Mr Johnsons new deal, the long-standing provisions of European law which apply to all third-country nationals from Americans to Zimbabweans, and the migration laws of individual EU states, which change with the political weather. Those holidaying on the continent for a fortnight a year may notice a little more hassle. Those who wish to go for longerto study, or spend the summer in a second homewill find their rights and options curtailed dramatically. EU citizens face almost no restrictions on moving to another state for work or leisure, and can cross borders more or less as they please. After Brexit, Britons will be limited to up to 90 days travel at a time without a visa within a six-month period. Border guards may demand proof of their plans, a return ticket, and that they have enough money for their stay. (Eurostar has urged all travellers to the continent after Brexit to arrive earlier than they used to.) Britons will lose the right to use automatic passport gates, and will receive rubber stamps in their passports. Doing business will be much trickier: no longer will Britain be able to treat the EU as its home market. Business travellers will be able to visit for up to 90 days for meet-and-greet activities, such as attending sales meetings, trade fairs or conferences. But generally speaking, delivering a servicesuch as auditing accounts, playing in a concert or working as a chefwill require a work visa, and in many regulated sectors getting registered as a local professional too. Visa policy is largely a matter for national governments, which have their own criteria of skills, language requirements and fees that vary depending on the needs of the labour market. British students, no longer entitled to equal treatment, are likely to pay much higher fees for places at European universities. Motorists will need to carry a green card, showing their insurance is valid. EU laws that prohibit customers from being hit with roaming charges when they use their mobile telephones abroad will drop away. Whether fees return depends on the deals that operators strike with their European counterparts; big operators, such as Vodafone, will have more clout than smaller ones. Britain will drop out of the EU s pet-passport regime, which documents animals vaccinations and allows holidaymakers to take dogs and cats abroad; owners will instead need to obtain an animal health certificate from their vet each time they travel. Not all is lost, however. Under Mr Johnsons plan, Britain hopes to retain a variant of the European Health Insurance Card, which grants holidaymakers emergency health care when on the continent. Retiring to a place in the sun will be a trickier affair, particularly for those on tight budgets. Each country has its own rules for foreign pensioners who want to stay. They typically need a minimum income and medical insurance. British owners of property abroad will be more vulnerable to tax raids too: in 2015, the European Court of Justice struck down a French tax on properties owned by other European nationals as incompatible with European Union law. Such protection against official whim is the difference between being a guest in a foreign land, and being someone who can declare: Civis Europaeus sum. | 2 |
###CLAIM: she said in the video that it would be a better time to have gay rights and human rights gone upside down and backwards.
###DOCS: Actress Anne Heche, who previously dated Ellen DeGeneres in the late-1990s, has claimed that the famed television personality did not want her to dress sexy.In a TikTok video, Heche discussed several of her past outfits at various red carpet events. One particular photo featured Heche and Ellen at the 1998 Golden Globe awards in which Heche wore a navy blue dress and a frumpy duster. Heche apparently hated the outfit and blamed Ellen for having worn it. Why do I look like a hippie? Heche says in the video. Its because Ellen didnt want me to dress sexy.Heche rated the dress 0 out of 10. She did not elaborate further on her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. Another dress (rainbow-colored) she rated in honor of gay rights. What better time to have you go inside out, upside down and backwards for gay rights and human rights, she said. I am the flag.Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche broke off their relationship in 2000. Just 3 1/2 years after Heche announced her love for DeGeneres on Oprah, it all came apart, like so many other show business love affairs, reported ABC News at the time. On Saturday came a report in the New York Daily News of their relationship ending, and only hours later, a shaken and incoherent Heche parked her SUV along a central California highway and wandered up to a strangers home.2020 was a difficult year for Ellen DeGeneres after multiple reports alleged she fostered a toxic work environment. In late July, a BuzzFeed News article claimed that several former employees witnessed head writer and executive producer Kevin Leman sexually propositioning or groping lower-level employees. Kevin Leman denied the accusations outright. A total of 47 former employees also accused executive producer Ed Glavin of fostering a culture of fear and intimidation on a daily basis. Some even said he would use his private shower in his office bathroom with the door wide open. Another former employee also accused co-executive producer Jonathan Norman of grooming him over a period of time by taking him to concerts and other work-related perks, and then one night attempted to perform oral sex on him.Upon her return from the summer hiatus, Ellen apologized and took full responsibility for what allegedly happened. As you may have heard, this summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show and then there was an investigation. I learned that things happened here that never should have happened, she began. I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected. I know that Im in a position of privilege and power and I realized that with that comes responsibility, and I take responsibility for what happens at my show.This is The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I am Ellen DeGeneres. My name is there, my name is there, my name is on underwear, she continued. We have had a lot of conversations over the last few weeks about the show, our workplace, and what we want for the future. We have made the necessary changes and today we are starting a new chapter. | 1 |
###CLAIM: development has been produced of vaccine candidates close to the possibility of having a mass-manufacturing company.
###DOCS: This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: The emergency Summit for Vaccine Internationalism was held virtually around the world this weekend. Were joined by the summits co-chair, Carina Vance Mafla. She is the former health minister of Ecuador, joining us from New Orleans. Also with us, from Bangalore, India, is Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa. He took part in the summit and has a new article in The Atlantic, co-authored with Chelsea Clinton, headlined The Vaccine Donations Arent Enough.We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Its great to have you with us. Carina Vance, lets start with you. Talk about the significance of this meeting, globally, virtually, and what youre demanding. Your first speaker in one of the promos for this started by saying, Gasping for air.CARINA VANCE MAFLA: Well, thank you very much for having me. Its been a really amazing opportunity to hold this summit with the organization of Progressive International and have countries, like Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, having their Venezuela having their government, their national government, representative at the summit. And what were looking for is an alternative to a system that has basically allowed for COVID-19 vaccines to be absolutely concentrated in the higher-income countries. You mentioned, for instance, the G7 commitment to donating 600 million vaccines. Well, lets just think about the population in lower-income and lower-middle-income countries. Thats at roughly 3.5 billion people. So, if were talking about a vaccine that requires two doses, were talking about 7 billion doses. We are far obviously, the commitment by the G7 is far from what we need in lower-income and lower-middle-income countries. So, what the summit was proposing, and is proposing, is the creation of this platform, where we have the potential, great potential already, in Global South countries, like Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, that are producing or are developing vaccine candidates that are close to the possibility of having a mass manufacturer. So, we saw yesterday Cuba shared to the world data in terms of the efficacy of their vaccine, Soberana 02, which is 62%. This is above WHO standards, so this is really positive, good news, because what the commitments were that occurred in this summit included having being open to mass production in other countries, from countries that have developed vaccine candidates, but also having pricing that is based on solidarity. We have seen not only the concentration, the hoarding of vaccines in the Global North, many times against WTO rules we saw it at the beginning of the pandemic, as well, with other types of equipment, like masks but we have seen, you know, in this example, in other examples in the region and in the world, that the profit margin that is being seeked by Big Pharma is huge. So, this commitment to have pricing that is based on solidarity, pricing that is based on the possibility of expanding access to the vaccine in the Global South, is a very positive thing, as well as supporting initiatives that are historically important, as well as the TRIPS waiver that is being considered in the WTO, although we all know there are countries that are dragging their feet. We have the example, for instance, of Canada, where Bolivia has an agreement with a Canadian-based pharmaceutical company to produce vaccines, and Canada has not given the compulsory licensing required to be able to do this. So we see countries that are dragging their feet, when we have in front of us practical solutions that could resolve this horrible inequity that were seeing globally. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to also go to Achal Prabhala, speaking to us from India, also so tragically hard hit during this pandemic, some might say criminally hard hit. You begin your piece in The Atlantic, that you co-authored with Chelsea Clinton, by pointing out developing countries now account for the vast majority of daily global COVID deaths. Eighty-five percent of the vaccines are going to the richest countries, 0.3% to the poor countries. Scores of countries, almost a hundred, have not seen a vaccine. That death toll, do you attribute it entirely to vaccinations and the lack of them? ACHAL PRABHALA: Whats happening right now, whats been happening since May, is that the pandemic has mutated. What was once a global calamity is now largely a developing country problem. So, there are many ways of measuring the effect of the pandemic. And the starkest way to measure it is through mortality, the number of people who die. And since last month, the number of people who die on a daily basis from COVID, from the pandemic, are in developing countries. Theyre in low- and middle-income countries. In the poorest countries in the world, they now form a share of 43% of all deaths worldwide. In middle-income countries, its 42%. In the richest countries, its only 15%. The reason that the richest countries in the world can open their economies, can think of things like making holiday plans across each other, as long as people are vaccinated, is because theyre vaccinated. Vaccinations are a protection against things that we saw occur in India over the last two months, which is deaths that were caused as a result of a failing public health system. Our public health system simply isnt capable of treating people in this country. Its never been. And vaccinations prevent people from dying, you could say, unnecessarily, but through the symptoms of COVID that could be treated but are not, things like access to oxygen, a basic course of steroids or basic hospital care, which is what the majority of the deaths in India occurred as a result of. Now, the problem with the rate of deployment of vaccines is now well known. We are in a state of vaccine apartheid. And there couldnt be a greater contrast between the inaction from the G7 and lets be clear: Donations are great. Donations are especially great to organizations like the African Union, which represent among the largest number of poor countries in this world, and especially great if they can be sent right now and deployed immediately, because there is an immediate crisis, and immediate donations respond to that. The G7 announcement fell short on a couple of counts. One, the number of vaccines was inflated. And, two, many of those vaccines that have been promised by G7 countries will only come to these poor countries at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year. Now, keep in mind that on a daily basis last month, on average, we had over 4,000 deaths in India alone, 15,000 deaths a day globally. When you consider numbers like that, you know, a days delay, a weeks delay, a months delay, a years delay is almost criminal. And there could not have been a greater contrast between what the G7 displayed last week and what some of the poorest countries in the world, as well as other countries who are by far outside the bloc of the richest countries on Earth, got together to decide. Im sure Carina feels this way, as well. She and I moderated and chaired a session with a few leaders of states who were all in solidarity. They were in empathy. It was like going out and speaking a language that suddenly everybody understood. They understood that they were going to do everything they could to help crises in their own countries and to help anyone else in any other country that needed their help. So we had commitments of making vaccines from Cuba available to absolutely anybody who wanted to produce them anywhere in the world, including something called Mambisa, which is a nasal spray vaccine which has great promise. We had commitments from Mexico and Argentina to share the regulatory authority that they have to assess drugs and vaccines. This is something theyve already been doing in the region, and they extended this service to absolutely any country in the world who wish to take it up. We had countries like Bolivia and Venezuela who are talking about their own acts of civil disobedience that they encouraged others to follow them on to create collective action around this global regime of pharmaceutical monopolies. There was an almost spiritual spirit at this conference, which, I must say, was a breath of fresh air to have a bunch of countries with power, with real assets to commit in this pandemic, be willing to do that, be willing to do that in a way that we could all share in what each other has to survive this pandemic individually and collectively. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask, Carina Vance, if you could talk about one of the major themes of this emergency international vaccine summit, being health sovereignty in the Global South. What exactly does that look like? And you, really, a person of two countries you were educated here in the United States. You were the health minister under President Correa in Ecuador and, course, lived there, as well. What you see people in the United States not understanding about this pandemic, when it comes to if one person is sick anywhere in the world, we are all susceptible? CARINA VANCE MAFLA: Well, its exactly that, no? I think that a lot of people in the United States, for instance, consider themselves lucky to have been able to access the vaccine, given what is going on in the Global South. Its not a matter of luck. And that is were very clear on that. And thats why its so important to strengthen health sovereignty in the region. What does that mean? That means increasing our capacity to develop vaccine candidates and medications. We have a lot of neglected diseases in the Global South, in the Latin American region, that dont have the interest of Big Pharma because they dont represent enough of a profit margin of profit. So we need to strengthen our own capacity. And we have such great examples of that Cuba, with five vaccine candidates, despite the criminal, unilateral sanctions by the United States, so difficulty in terms of accessing, for instance, raw materials, difficulty in terms of establishing commercial contracts with other countries around the world because of these sanctions. Just a few days ago, we learned about the fact that Venezuela had paid the last payment for the COVAX mechanism to access vaccine, and this last payment was frozen, so they are not yet able to access a mechanism that was created supposedly to assist countries in developing countries to access the vaccine. So, health sovereignty means strengthening our capacity to develop, to innovate, to investigate, to research and to produce vaccines and the other types of health technologies that we need. And this must be coupled with health system strengthening. We have a great history of this and recent history of strengthening health systems in Latin America and the Global South. Much more needs to happen, because we have a counterpower you know, for instance, IMF has agreements with the countries, like Ecuador, where Im from, where its imposing neoliberal policies. For instance, in Ecuador in 2020, we saw a 10% budget cut in the health sector. You would think that this is ridiculous in the middle of a pandemic, but thats the type of policies that were seeing in some of the countries. So, to have progressive governments coupled with progressive leaderships around the world to say, We are we can, and we will, strengthen our health sovereignty, our capacity to attend to our own needs, because health, we have seen it being used as a weapon. This is not only a matter of money. You know, a lot of countries have had contracts signed, payments to pharmaceutical companies, and pharmaceutical companies [inaudible] AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but I want to thank you so much for being with us, Carina Vance and Achal Prabhala. Im Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us. | 0 |
###CLAIM: fold into the singapore unit of the indian unit of dbs ( dbsm. si ) under a rescue plan put forward by the reserve ( bank ) of india, which took over tuesday because of its serious deterioration in finances.
###DOCS: MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Lakshmi Vilas Bank LVLS.NS is set to be folded into the Indian unit of Singapore's DBS DBSM.SI under a plan proposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which took over LVB on Tuesday due to a "serious deterioration" in its finances. A labourer works on the sign of a bank building in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 26, 2010. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File PhotoIndias government said it had also temporarily capped withdrawals from LVB, which has been scouting for a partner since last year amid mounting bad loan and governance issues. The RBIs proposed plan would give the Singaporean banks expansion ambitions a fillip as it would vastly increase the footprint of DBS in India, where it only has around 30 branches. Chennai-headquartered LVB, by contrast, has a vast network of more than 550 branches and 900-plus ATMs across India. Its positive for DBS as it will get a ready customer base, branch network with this merger, and this works in their favour as theyve been looking to expand in India, Asutosh Mishra, a research analyst at Ashika Stock Broking, said. Analysts also noted that despite the crippling size of LVBs non-performing assets, a merger would give DBS a valuable client base. DBS will gain a ready customer and deposit base worth 210 billion rupees which otherwise would be challenge to build for a foreign bank, said Mona Khetan, an analyst at Dolat Capital. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, DBS said it will pump 25 billion rupees ($336 million) into its India unit, if the RBIs plan is approved. This will be funded from DBS existing resources, it added. LVB did not respond to an email seeking comment. The proposal took many by surprise as LVB had been locked in talks with Clix Capital around a potential deal. Clix, part of a company owned by Mumbai-based private equity firm AION Capital, a partnership between New York-based Apollo Global Management APO.N and a unit of India's ICICI Bank ICBK.NS, had submitted a non-binding offer for LVB in June. However, RBI said on Tuesday that LVB had failed to submit any concrete proposal and it had therefore appointed an administrator and superseded the banks board. | 1 |
###CLAIM: we are encouraged to see the government respond and take the initial steps to review the rape culture in all schools.
###DOCS: Theres an old-fashioned piece of hypocrisy that has parents wanting their sons to go to mixed-sex schools to benefit from the civilising influence of girls, and for their daughters to go to single-sex schools, to protect them from the corrupting influence of boys. But after the public focus on the often harrowing testimonies of sexually abused schoolgirls on the Everyones Invited website, many parents have been left wondering about what kind of school will best safeguard their daughters. As one mother of a daughter reaching secondary school age told the Observer: Ive always been opposed to the idea of single sex as I worry about bullying from girls and I generally think mixed is more like real life. However, this whole huge issue with sexual abuse has really thrown me and now I am leaning strongly towards a single-sex school.Its a sentiment that was echoed last week by the feminist writer and human rights activist Natasha Walter, who wrote on Twitter that, although she felt ashamed of her reaction, she was relieved, having read some of the accounts of harassment, that she and her daughter had gone to single-sex secondary schools. I remember when I went to the first parents evening, she says, the headteacher, who was female, talked about our girls, and I had this strong feeling that it was a safe place.For Walter the choice was about more than protection from boys. She believes that single-sex schools can liberate girls and boys from the boxes of feminine and masculine behaviour. As she notes, there are plenty of testaments on Everyones Invited from girls who attended single-sex schools. Nonetheless she thinks if she were sending a daughter to a secondary school this year, she would certainly factor the threat of sexual harassment into her decision. Everyones Invited, set up in 2020 by 22-year-old Soma Sara, has published more than 11,000 testimonies, mostly from young women, documenting their experience of misogyny, harassment, abuse and rape. The exact extent of the problem is unclear, but last week the Department for Education announced that Ofsted was to launch an investigation into how schools in England deal with sexual harassment and assault among their pupils, and the NSPCC set up a helpline to support victims. Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The GuardianFor Lucy Emmerson, director of the Sex Education Forum, the issue is not about the type of school, whether single sex or co-educational, private or state, but the general ethos, and how proactive the school is in addressing gender and power. Last year relationships and sex education was made compulsory in English secondary schools, though for many its implementation has been delayed by the pandemic. Emmerson says that all the research points to the fact that relationships and sex education should start early. We shouldnt be thinking well look at gender and how we deal with harassment when we get to the teenagers. The moulding around gender norms and expectations of behaviour happens quite a lot earlier. So it needs to be continuous in the curriculum from primary school, she said. The highlighting of coercive sexual behaviour in schools is a sensitive subject, not least because no school wants to be identified as a hotbed of abuse. But the nature of the Everyones Invited format, in which accusers and alleged culprits are anonymous, has placed the attention on specific schools, which are named. Many of the accounts speak of a culture among particular schools that fosters an atmosphere of entitlement including sexual among male students. And the majority of these appear to be single-sex boys schools. Our boys would never treat our girls like that. It just wouldnt happen Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacherAll but one of the headteachers the Observer approached to discuss the subject declined to speak or would do so only off the record. One head of an all-boys comprehensive school in Kent was concerned that the Everyones Invited testimonies have highlighted specific cases but left no means to address them. We absolutely want people to come forward if theyve had that sort of experience, he said. But when its anonymous on a social media site, it doesnt really help schools to deal with it because if they dont know who and when, or if it happened a week ago or five years ago, then how can you follow up the complaints?He said he had never encountered a sexual harassment issue in his own school and, having worked in single-sex and co-ed schools, he didnt believe either was more likely to suffer from the problem. Nor, he said, had parents ever questioned him on safeguarding policies in this regard. Emmerson understands the urge to follow up documented accusations but feels the main work to be done is in creating an environment that will prevent cases from arising in the first place. She acknowledges that it will be a long-term project that needs to extend far beyond school boundaries. Its part of a society-wide culture, she says, but schools are important institutions within that.One difficulty for schools is that much of the abusive behaviour takes place outside school hours and far beyond their premises. Yet it is the school that remains the identifiable authority, the place that has produced the culprits and their attitudes towards girls. Nearly all schools will have a mission statement in which the principle of respect occupies a prominent position. Many expect that hard-working word to cover all areas of student interaction. For us its the same issue whether its sexism, racism or bullying, said the Kent head. We dont have a separate policy on how you treat women. Its about respecting everybody.Emmerson believes this is a blunt approach that can overlook deep-lying prejudices. You cant just think we teach respect to everybody and job done, she says. You need to pay attention to how power and gender interact.She argues that teachers must be models for the behaviour they teach, calling out sexist comments and robustly dealing with misogynistic behaviour, even that which seems low level and casual. Of course robustness is a subjective concept. Michaela school in Brent, London, where discipline is super-strict. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The GuardianKatharine Birbalsingh is the headteacher of the Michaela community school, a free (or charter) school in Wembley Park, north-west London, and the only head prepared to speak openly. She prides herself on Michaelas stringent discipline. Were super-strict, she says, so this nonsense doesnt happen with us. Our boys would never treat our girls like that. It just wouldnt happen.She views sexual harassment as essentially a behavioural issue, much like any other form of bullying, and one that has little to do with whether the school is co-ed or single sex. Having worked in a number of schools over the years, she maintains that pupil behaviour in large parts of the school system is appalling yet so commonplace as to have become normalised. Ive been pointing to the tsunami for decades and no one was listening, she says. In fact I have been criticised, told that Im exaggerating and its not really a problem. Well here you go.Birbalsingh, who came to prominence when she spoke about the chaos of our classrooms at the Conservative party conference in 2010, says that to uphold strict rules in school is not generally viewed as a politically or socially acceptable position by many schools in 2021. So that means the most vulnerable children are the ones who suffer. That might be girls, in some instances, because of course girls are [physically] weaker than boys.The flaw in that analysis is that in the days when schools often featured stern discipline, including corporal punishment, sexual harassment and misogyny were far from unknown. Emmerson says all schools need to make sure that they have at least one teacher with specialist training in relationships and sex education. The absence of that baseline level of expertise may soon become a warning flag for concerned parents. | 0 |
###CLAIM: he said the meeting was prompted by local mps caroline and nokes suggesting the home secretary come down and look at suitable sites and understand what is suitable.
###DOCS: But Barton Stacey parish residents criticised plan as 'akin to an open prison'Locals have reacted with 'horror' to a proposal to house 500 asylum seekers in portable cabins near a picturesque village near one of the south's busiest trunk roads. The plan is for the asylum applicants to be stay in the makeshift housing on Ministry of Defence land by the A303 at Barton Stacey, Hants, while their applications are processed. It is believed the green-belt village, which dates back to the Norman Conquest, is one of several sites under consideration by the Home Office. But furious local council members have voiced their opposition to the idea, with one saying it would be 'akin to an open prison'. Locals have reacted with 'horror' to a proposal to house 500 asylum seekers in portable cabins near the picturesque village of Barton Stacey by one of the south's busiest trunk roadsParish council leader Brigadier Nicholas Prideaux complained: 'My reaction is one of horror frankly. They are going put all these young people in cabins in open ground near the A303. 'I have absolutely no idea what they will do... 500 young men with nothing to do.' Brig Prideaux complained that he had 'not been consulted at all' on the proposal. 'That is my whole reason for objecting to it. People will be concerned (about them being here) I am sure local people will be as concerned as I am.' Similar asylum seeker accommodation at Penally and Napier Army barracks have been recently criticised for 'prison-like' conditions, and allegations that lawyers have been refused access to their clients. The plan is for the asylum applicants to be stay in the makeshift housing on Ministry of Defence land by the A303 at Barton Stacey, Hants, while their applications are processedBrig Prideaux has now demanded Home Secretary Priti Patel travels to the village to see 'how unsuitable it is' to host the temporary accommodation. In a meeting with local MP Caroline Nokes, he said: 'I have suggested (to her) that the Home Secretary comes down and look at the site herself then she will understand how suitable it is. 'Caroline was very supportive.' Other councillors have raised concerns that poor housing conditions could lead to 'anti-social behaviour and criminality'. Phil North, the leader of Test Valley Borough Council, and Caroline Nokes have set up petition to try and get the Home Office to change their mind. Brig Nicholas Prideaux has demanded Home Secretary Priti Patel travels to the village to see 'how unsuitable it is' to host the temporary accommodation'I completely understand the argument about disincentivising dangerous channel crossings facilitated by criminal gangs of people smugglers. 'But whether you think this country should house more asylum seekers or not, putting these individuals up in temporary buildings akin to an open prison is the wrong accommodation in the wrong location.' He claimed the cabins would be used to accommodate 'young men' from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea who have 'come into the UK on boats'. 'I'd be grateful if you would consider adding your name to show the strength of feeling locally,' added Mr North. Caroline Nokes said the site would infringe rules on development. Similar asylum seeker accommodation at Penally (pictured) and Napier Army barracks have recently been criticised for 'prison-like' conditions, and allegations that lawyers have been refused access to their clientsMr North said he understood the Home Office would be making its final decision in the next few weeks. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We plan to fix our broken asylum system to make it firm and fair - compassionate to those fleeing oppression, persecution and tyranny but tough on those who abuse our system. 'Given pressure on the system during these unprecedented times, we have worked tirelessly with local authorities and other partners to provide asylum seekers, who would otherwise be destitute, with suitable accommodation as we are required to do by law. 'Following a review of available government property, the MOD offered temporary use of some of its sites. 'This includes Barton Stacey and we are engaging with leaders and officials at Test Valley and Hampshire councils, local MPs, the police and health services, among others, as we continue to explore this as an option.' | 0 |
###CLAIM: malcolm ruff, an attorney for one of the children, said the five-year-old boy was still trying to grasp where his dad was going : `` christ. ''
###DOCS: Gift Article ShareA Pentagon police officer accused of shooting at three men in a Maryland parking lot as they drove away was indicted on two counts of murder and a single count of attempted murder, according to Montgomery County Circuit Court records made public Friday. Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. ArrowRight The grand jury also indicted David Hall Dixon, 40, on assault counts for an unrelated incident last year when he allegedly pointed a shotgun and discharged pepper spray at a homeless woman who had come into the lobby of his condominium building. Taken together, all of the charges filed Thursday expose Dixon, who was off duty at the time of the incidents, to a possible sentence topping 200 years. An attorney for Dixon, Bill Brennan, said Dixon will plead not guilty to all the charges. Mr. Dixon has been honorably serving the public for over 20 years including eight years in the military with tours overseas, Brennan said. He will vigorously contest these charges.The grand jury indictments were not unexpected after Takoma Park police charged Dixon last month, but they move the matters from Montgomerys District Court to Circuit Court, where felony cases are handled. No trial dates were set for Dixon, who remains jailed since being arrested April 9. AdvertisementThe main case against Dixon stems from an encounter at about 5 a.m. on April 7. At the time, he was leaving his seventh-floor residence at the Takoma Overlook condominiums in his civilian clothes, heading for work at the Pentagon, according to police. In the dark parking lot, according to authorities, he noticed a car with no headlights on. He went to check it out. As he drove up, police said, he saw at least one man outside the car trying to break into another car and confronted them. Video surveillance, according to court documents, captured what happened next: With all three men now inside their car, they drove off and Dixon fired several rounds from behind. The fleeing car, according to the documents, no longer presented an immediate threat that would have justified the use of deadly force.One of his rounds entered the upper back of Dominique Williams, 32, who was in the back seat, according to police. Another round entered the upper back of James Lionel Johnson, 38, who was in the front passenger seat. The driver, Michael Thomas, 36, drove them to Prince Georges Hospital Center as they lost consciousness. AdvertisementThe two men were determined to be deceased by hospital medical staff upon arrival, investigators alleged in charging documents. Takoma Park police officials have said all three men had come to the parking lot to break into cars, but the survivor would not be charged. They were victims, said Chief Antonio DeVaul. All three were victims in this particular case.Montgomery County States Attorney John McCarthy picked up on those points Friday. I do not anticipate any action being taken against Mr. Thomas, the prosecutor said. Thats not going to happen. Were going to focus in on the lives that have been lost in handling this matter.Joseph Johnson, a cousin of James Johnson, said he recently went to his grave just to sit and be near him. Johnson said his mourning is mixed with constant images of Dixon. AdvertisementEvery time I think of my cousin, I see Dixons face and him holding a gun, shooting at my cousin and his friends in that car, Joseph Johnson said. Daniel Johnson, another cousin, said his days go up and down. I have some good days. Some days I just sit and cry.Tiffani Collins, an attorney for Thomas, said he and his family were relieved to learn of Dixons indictments. While Mr. Thomas continues to grieve the devastating loss of his childhood friends, he remains committed to seeking justice for himself, his family and the families of Mr. Johnson and Mr. Williams, Collins said. Malcolm Ruff, an attorney for one of Williamss surviving children, said the 5-year-old boy still is trying to grasp that his dad is gone. As he gets older, its going to hit him very hard how his father was taken away from him, Ruff said. AdvertisementAt the time of both incidents, Dixon was off duty from his job as a police officer with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. He began his career there in July 2019. He remains on administrative leave status while the agency conducts administrative investigations of both incidents, a Pentagon Force Protection Agency spokeswoman said last week. The incident last year in Dixons condo lobby at 3 a.m. on May 6 came and went relatively quietly until recently. Takoma Park police originally did not charge him. When the Pentagon Force Protection Agency investigated the matter, he was cleared of misconduct even though there was surveillance video of the incident captured by the condominiums security system. It showed Dixon clearly pointing the shotgun, according to WJLA television, which obtained the video in April and published it. After Takoma Park police saw the video last month, they charged Dixon in the incident. They said that in 2020, they spoke to Dixon and the woman about the incident, but neither mentioned the shotgun. Police also said they never saw the video and evidently never asked the condo association whether footage was available. AdvertisementIn documents released in April, the Takoma Overlook Condominium board of directors said that it did send a copy of the video to the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. The new charges filed in the lobby case prompted the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to reopen its administration investigation of that case, said the agency spokeswoman, Jacqueline Yost. She declined to say whether the agency had indeed received and reviewed video of the encounter in 2020. The first indictment Thursday charged Dixon with seven counts: two counts of murder in the deaths of Williams and Johnson; counts of attempted murder and first-degree assault in the shooting at Thomas; and three counts of use of a handgun during the commission of a felony crime. For counts related to Thomas, if Dixon were to be convicted of both attempted murder and first-degree assault, the charges likely would be merged and he could not be sentenced for both counts. AdvertisementIn the case of Mr. Thomas, who thankfully survived, he was the victim of two different crimes: attempted murder and first-degree assault, McCarthy said. I think the actions justified both charges.The second indictment, related to the 2020 lobby case, charged Dixon with one count of first-degree assault in the alleged shotgun pointing and one count of second-degree assault in the alleged pepper spray discharge. GiftOutline Gift Article | 0 |
###CLAIM: he slapped his hands together, rubbing with evangelical enthusiasm, his eyebrows wagging for the possibility of a wait, and said " unfortunate".
###DOCS: Andy Stanleys evangelical megachurch was empty on Election Night, with only a few cars in the Disney Worldstyle parking lot out front. North Point Community Church and its nine satellites in the Atlanta area have been mostly closed since the coronavirus pandemic began in March. When Stanley decided to cancel in-person worship until at least early 2021, dozens of families were so unhappy that they decided to quit his church. Never once did I hear, Were upset because we miss coming to church, he told me, leaning back in a heather-gray wingback chair. The vibe of his church offices is tasteful and inoffensive, as if his decorator was trying to channel that magic Fixer Upper quality of looking distinctive while appealing to almost everyone. What I heard was, Were upset because you bought into a political agenda. Were upset because you believe the Democrats narrative.Stanley has spent his career in ministry deliberately avoiding this kind of politicization in his church. The 62-year-old pastor is a child of the religious right: His father, Charles Stanley, is a televangelist and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention who wrote the devotional that President George W. Bush used to read each morning. I grew up in a family that was very, very right-leaning, Stanley said. I saw the hypocrisy there. He yearned to reach people beyond the conservative Christian world, to make the story of the resurrection irresistible to the unchurched. So he rejected his culture-war inheritance and struck out on his own, and now the son has arguably surpassed the father: Andy Stanley leads a congregation of more than 37,000 adults and children each Sunday, second in size in the U.S. only to Joel Osteens Houston empire, according to some estimates. Hes written roughly two dozen books, mostly Jesus-y self-help, including one that came out in October called Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets. North Point has a network of about 90 churches around the world, and young Christian leaders flock to the church for guidance on how to expand their influence. Sam Collier, a Black pastor and friend of Stanleys who is about to open Atlantas first branch of Hillsong, the Australian mega-ministry network, told me North Point is like the Christian Gap.The rise of Donald Trump, however, has made it harder than ever to separate evangelicalism from politics. Exit polls suggest that three-quarters of white, self-described evangelicals who voted chose Trump in 2020a slightly smaller share than in 2016, but still an overwhelming majority. To his credit, hes figured out how to leverage that group, Stanley said. I mean, hes not evangelical. But he owns them. And theyve loved him. The pastor likened the relationship to a lyric from Bob Segers Night Moves: I used her, she used me, but neither one cared. Soon, Trump will be gone, he said, but the conservative judges and justices he appointed will be in place for a long time. Its like: Got what we wanted!Stanley declined to join his friends in ministry on the Trump train, waving them off when they texted selfies from Trump Tower. But neither has he joined the evangelical resistance, remaining notably quiet at times when other prominent conservative Christian leaders have spoken out, including after the deadly 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville and on the issue of family separation. He maintains that he doesnt want to be a headline-news preacher and comments selectively on current eventsthis summer, he crafted a message focused on the killing of George Floyd. Its not that I dont have opinions. Its more that people dont come to church to hear my opinions.But while Stanley and similar giants inside the evangelical world have largely stayed out of politics during the Trump years, other evangelicals have been busy telling the outside world that their faith is completely aligned with Trumpism. This has created a dilemma: Stanley and his allies are now saddled with an image of evangelicalism they dont want and didnt create. Before they can reach anyone with a message of faith over politics, theyll have to contend with the political baggage their fellow Christian leaders created. Read: The tiny blond Bible teacher taking over the evangelical machineIn the Gospels, Jesus calls on his followers to go out, teach his message, and baptize people. Stanley has organized his life around this imperative, called the Great Commission. The question for evangelicals, now, is whether the undeniable association between Trump and their version of Christianity will make that work harder. Has this group of people who have somehow become evangelical leaders aligned with Trump hurt the Churchs ability to reach people outside the Church? Absolutely, Stanley said. But hes not overly worried: A year or two from now, he said, all that goes away. New leaders will rise up. The Trump era of evangelical history will fade. Stanley chuckled. And this will just be, for a lot of people, a bad dream.Not everyone believes that recovering from the Trump era will be so simple for the Church, however. We Christians have a lot of ground to make up now against those evangelical Trump followers whose devotion to him bordered on the idolatrous, Mark Galli, the former editor in chief of Christianity Today, told me. The word evangelical may have lost its usefulness. The medias political fascination with evangelicals began in the 1970s, as Jimmy Carter declared himself born again; it continued through the 80s, as the religious right consolidated its power under Ronald Reagan. The 90s continued with coverage of greedy televangelists felled by sex scandals, followed by an evangelical resurgence in the 2000s as faith voters helped carry George W. Bush to the White House. The Trump eras evangelical icons have made dramatic contributions to this pocketbook history: Jerry Falwell Jr., the former head of Liberty University and one of Trumps earliest supporters, was recently ousted after posting a picture of himself on a yacht with his pants partially unzipped, followed by evidence of a messy, years-long affair involving his wife and a 20-something Fontainebleau pool attendant. In the past week or so, videos have made the rounds on Twitter of Trumps spiritual adviser Paula White praying for angels from Africa to come to America and carry the president to reelection, along with that of another charismatic Trump adviser, Kenneth Copeland, laughing at the media for reporting that Joe Biden had won the presidency. At least on Fox News and at Trump rallies, these figures have been granted the authority to speak for the whole of the evangelical world. And yet their version of Christianity reflects only one corner of the wildly diverse expanse of evangelicalism, which includes roughly one-quarter of the American population. Trumps advisers are not evangelical leaders. Theyre evangelicals who have had their status elevated because they hang around and get invited to the White House, Stanley said. Those people were virtually in the marketplace, unknown, until all this happened. Its not that Stanley isnt the kind of evangelical Trump would want by his side. The pastor just didnt want any part of it. Hang around the White House for too long, and the next thing you know, you think youre somebody, he said. I just dont have any business getting sucked into that.Andy Stanley, front, with his father, Charles Stanley, who was the longtime pastor at First Baptist Church Atlanta (Raymond McCrea Jones / Redux)Many of Trumps most visible backers are Pentecostal Christians who promise their followers health and wealth in exchange for faithfulness and donations. Pastors like Stanley, a fast-talking skinny-jeans fan obsessed with defeating cerebral arguments against Christianity made by New Atheist types, have a vested interest in distinguishing their theology from that of charismatic pastors like White. They just make stuff up, Stanley said. This isnt the New Testament. This isnt Christianity. This is just positive thinking. He dismissed comparisons between Trump and Cyrus the Great, the sixth-century Persian king who liberated exiled Hebrews, as silly, along with claims such as the one Eric Trump made before the election, that Trump literally saved Christianity. Its so unfortunate that all evangelicals get lumped in with the evangelicals that have been mainstreamed or platformed around Donald Trump, Stanley said. But Stanley also didnt try to claim, as some have, that real evangelicals dont support Trump. He wouldnt say who he voted for in the past two elections, but he volunteered that hes a conservative guy with conservative values. His wife, Sandra, watches The Five on Fox News, and their family flips back and forth between the various cable networks. Hes never met the president, but after he told a friend that his foster daughter is a die-hard Trump fan, he received a personalized video from Trump telling her to do her homework. North Points original campus in Alpharetta largely leans Republican, he said. He understands Trumps appeal. What he seems to take issue with is the mindset that evangelicals should be all in for Trump because of their faith. Its disappointing, he said. It does not reflect anything in the New Testament. Zero. Christians should put their faith filter in front of their political filter, he told me, putting one hand in front of the other before his mouth to demonstrate. We dare not allow politics to define us as individuals if youre a Jesus follower, he said. But thats hard to keep straight for all of us, I guess.Read: The evangelical reckoning over Donald TrumpStanley has a theory about why evangelicals were so eager to back Trump, both in 2016 and 2020. Most evangelical traditions teach that Jesus is going to come back, judge people, and send everyone who doesnt follow him to hell. Unfortunately, he said, theres a group of evangelicals that are so excited about thathe slapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly, waggling his eyebrows for effectthey cant wait! As evangelicals get older and realize that Jesus is likely not going to return in their lifetimes, they get a little bit desperate, he said, wanting to use policy and legislation to bring the world closer to the time of Jesuss return. That kind of thinking makes you vulnerable when somebody comes along and says, By golly, all of your dreams are going to come true.This armchair psychologizing may or may not hold up. Whats notable is that a guy as cautious as Stanley is willing to talk about it. Perhaps he believes that a little rewriting of history will help with the headwinds the Trump era has created for those who care about spreading Jesuss message beyond the Church. Pastors willingness to publicly align with the Republican Party pulls the curtain down [on] the group that youre convinced is the furthest from God, Stanley said. Its anti everything they got into ministry for. If youre going to pull down the curtain, you should be on the dark side, right? You should be living among them, if youre trying to reach these people.In Stanleys view, the biggest way in which Trump has damaged the reputation of the Church is in his penchant for name-calling and belittling people: mocking a reporter who has a disability during a campaign rally, for example, or calling people from Mexico criminals and rapists. He believes that the presidents attacks on journalists were a terrible move: The first thing totalitarian leaders or governments do is they silence the media, he said. When high-profile evangelical leaders publicly align themselves with Trump, the perception is unavoidable that they believe that kind of rhetoric is okay, especially among the young people Stanley cares most about reaching. Trumps language should undermine his credibility with Christians. It certainly undermined his credibility with the generation that, again, has low to no tolerance for any of that, he said. And yet, Stanley is still unwilling to assign blame to Trump for all of Americas problems. If youre asking me, Did Donald Trump inflame, or make worse, or stir up racial tension?I dont know the answer to that, he said. I dont know that I would place that on the shoulders of Donald Trump. Many Black Christians have expressed pain over Trumps racism. But Stanley wants to tread carefully: Im always hesitant to assign or accept simple, broad-brush explanations for anything. Especially events I have no personal involvement in or firsthand knowledge of. He firmly supports the sentiment Black lives matter, but like a number of other prominent pastors, he says hes uncomfortable with the organization behind the slogan. In a time of such intense political anger, putting faith before politics seems to involve grasping uncertainly at the line between speaking prophetically and making everybody mad. Read: The unofficial racism consultants to the white-evangelical worldWhile some pastors around the country spent the days leading up to the election praying for Trump to win, Stanley scored his biggest victory of the election season before the returns had even started coming in, joining Oprah for a prime-time special on faith and politics. I assure you: I am the most conservative person on that list of people who she had, he said. But I got invited. So they werent afraid of me. Meanwhile, others in the evangelical world have been leaning into political division. A couple hours north of Atlanta on I-75, a black billboard near Dalton, Georgia, declares that every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord, even the Democrats, a red pitchfork at the end serving as an exclamation point. The secular world may believe evangelicals are nothing more than people who love Trump. Stanley happily uses the term Jesus follower instead. People within the Church, especially those who are Black or part of other minority groups, may be grieved over the way their brothers and sisters embraced Trumpism. Stanley has faith that theyll stay in the fold. This isnt going to have long-term adverse effects on the Church, Ill say that, he told me. When I asked him why he was so confident, he pulled the ultimate pastor move, eschewing the earthly concerns of today for a heavenly long view. Once upon a time, a handful of disenfranchised Jews crushed between an empire and a temple maintained their faith in a resurrected savior and changed the world, he said, leaning back in his chair again. So were good to go. | 0 |
###CLAIM: assistance technology is needed because the correct position can be seen by the eye and benefits updraught needs to be maintained to ensure smooth flight.
###DOCS: (CNN) Birds are the undisputed masters of aerodynamics. No matter how many supercomputers and wind tunnels scientists throw at solving flight's thorny calculations, they'll never match the perfection of airborne avians. A focused peregrine falcon diving on its prey, a pair of feisty hummingbirds in a territorial dogfight, or a huge albatross soaring effortlessly for days over the ocean are the envy of aerodynamicists and pilots. The airborne cacophony of a huge flock of geese, honking away while flying in a perfect "V" formation, is a wonder to see and hear. AirbusThose formations have also provided the inspiration for researchers at Airbus UpNext, the aircraft manufacturer's future-flight demonstration and technology incubator. As far back as a century ago, avian scientists began to understand that birds were increasing aerodynamic efficiencies by flying in close formation, taking advantage of the changed airflow in each bird's wake. With that in mind, the Airbus fello'fly flight demonstration project will fly two large commercial aircraft in formation, looking to mimic the energy savings of our feathered friends. Building on test flights in 2016 with an Airbus A380 megajet and A350-900 wide-body jetliner, fello'fly hopes to demonstrate and quantify the aerodynamic efficiencies while developing in-flight operational procedures. Initial flight testing with two A350s began in March 2020. The program will be expanded next year to include the involvement of Frenchbee and SAS airlines, along with air traffic control and air navigation service providers from France, the UK, and Europe. "It's very, very different from what the military would call formation flight. It's really nothing to do with close formation," explained Dr. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext, in an interview with CNN Travel. Free LiftBirds fly in a "V" formation to increase aerodynamic efficencies. PATRICK PLEUL/DPA/DPA/AFP via Getty ImagesAn aircraft in flight sheds a core of rotating air from the end of its wings, known as a "wingtip vortex." Extremely powerful vortices -- especially those generated by a large aircraft -- have been known to flip smaller planes that have encountered the horizontal tornado of air streaming behind. Avoiding wake turbulence is part of a student pilot's curriculum, as it will be in the fello'fly demonstration. "Pilots are trained to not fly into the vortex of a preceding aircraft," said Bour Schaeffer, an experienced flight-test engineer. Related content Painting an airplane: Why every layer counts"They will be 1 1/2 to 2 nautical miles away from the leading aircraft, and slightly offset, which means they are on the side of the vortex. It's no longer the vortex, it's the smooth current of rotating air which is next to the vortex, and we use the updraft of this air." Taking advantage of the free lift in this updraft of air is called "wake-energy retrieval." Bour Schaeffer says that upcoming flight trials using two A350s could prove that on long-haul flights, fuel savings of between 5% and 10% may be achieved, "which is an enormous number. This is the reason why we want to accelerate it. It is not a product today, but it is something we strongly believe in." Millions of yearsWhile it may seem simple to just watch a flock of birds to figure out the aerodynamics of their energy-saving flight, it really isn't. "Birds have been doing this for millions of years, but the disadvantage we have is that we can't do controlled experiments very easily," said Dr. Charles Bishop, of the School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, in Gwynedd, Wales. Airbus's fello'fly project tries to mimic the energy savings of birds' "V" formation. AirbusHowever, Bishop cited a landmark 2001 paper in weekly international journal Nature by Henri Weimerskirch, where the researcher and his team had access to tame pelicans -- known in the birding community as the best at formation flight, even better than geese or swans. "Their study is technically the only one that shows direct evidence of energetic advantage rather than theoretical calculations in aerodynamics." Weimerskirch was able to put heart rate monitors on the birds, and according to Bishop, the trailing pelicans in the formation clearly saved energy. "They had a 14% drop in heart rate, and they also glided more. They were finding it easy [to fly] with this aerodynamic advantage." Practical challengesAnd just like the pelicans, the pilots of the trailing A350 in the fello'fly test will position the aircraft to optimize the effect of the upwash -- but that points to one of the challenges facing the research team. "You can't see the wake, so you just can't say 'Ah, I'm in the right spot,'" said Bour Schaeffer. "We need to provide assistance to the pilot to position the aircraft properly." Once in the upwash, autoflight systems will be required to maintain the correct position, reducing the workload on the pilots and ensuring a smooth ride for passengers by avoiding the more turbulent components of the wake. Procedures to enable the two aircraft to coordinate their position will be tested -- much like during an aerial refueling mission. "We need to make sure we can do the joining safely. We will have no compromise on safety, whatsoever," said Bour Schaeffer. Once the wake energy retrieval concept is proven out, operational and financial considerations will still have to be solved. According to Bour Schaeffer, air traffic service providers and government aviation agencies will need to be convinced to change regulations to allow for much closer aircraft separation standards than what are currently in place. Flight planning procedures will have to be developed for planes to match routes with other aircraft, along with positions and altitudes to begin a formation flight. And a process to share the savings in fuel costs amongst airlines will be a priority. The Chaise Longue concept for economy seating by Alejandro Nunez Vicente from Delft University of ... [+] Technology Crystal Cabin AwardsImagine traveling in a plane which uses the cabin more efficiently, gives passengers more legroom and spaces them physically further apart. Think double-decker cabins where people sleep in bunks above seated passengers. Or two-tier rows of seating, some high and some low. This is the future of air travel, as judged by the Crystal Cabin Awards, an industry prize for cabin innovation, which this year, unsurprisingly, focused on how to improve confidence in boarding an aircraft and how to redesign airplanes for improved social distancing and hygiene. Whilst one aspect of new designs focused on keeping planes more sanitary using state-of-the-art cleaning wands and covering surfaces in antimicrobial coatings, the other aspect focused on new ways to use an aircrafts space. The Chaise Longue Economy concept was created by Alejandro Nunez Vicente, a student from Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. His idea creates more space for people traveling in economy class by using the full height of the airplane with two tiers of seats, one high and one low. There would be more legroom for passengers on the lower levels and the upper level feels more like an SUV. Alejandro Nunez Vicente, a 21-year-old Spanish student designed the concept after traveling across Europe. Vicente told CNN that he was fed up with a lack of legroom in planes and realised that elevating every other row to make a dual-level cabin would solve the issue. It means getting rid of the overhead lockers but luggage could be stored under seats instead and he believes the idea would work in medium to large aircraft, such as the Airbus 330 or the Boeing 747. Vicente added that "as it gives more space between passengers, and positions them at different heights, it is more suitable for flights in pandemic times.Double decker sleeping arrangements from Toyota for the Crystal Cabin Awards Crystal Cabin AwardsThe Cloud Capsule Concept designed by Toyota Boshoku also makes more use of an aircrafts height. It allows for a two-tier traveler system where passengers can relax in individual capsules, large enough to lie down and sleep in, once the plane has reached altitude. These Cloud Capsules are located above the rows of economy seats, and according to Toyota makes economy class travel safer, more enjoyable and more comfortable, while creating more revenue opportunities for the airlines." The idea would be for some economy passengers to buy the Cloud Capsule option above their seat as an add-on when they purchase their tickets. The capsule would allow for more privacy in crowded economy cabins and could also regulate its own heating. The Economy Sky Dream competing in the Crystal Cabin Awards Crystal Cabin AwardsAnother entry, the Economy Sky Dream from ADSE reminded judges of inter-rail travel on long-distance trains, providing space for people to sleep in loft bunks, with luggage stored under the seats. The competition honoring innovation in aircraft cabins has been running since 2007 by Hamburg Aviation, and the jury is made up of 27 experts including renowned academics, engineers, specialist journalists and airline and aircraft manufacturer representatives. The prizes will be announced at the virtual Aircraft Interiors Expo taking place between 14 and 16 September 2021. | 2 |
###CLAIM: because of massive monetary stimulus, massive growth in money supply and the weakening of the us dollar, the currency is crying uncle to its countries around the world.
###DOCS: Global stock markets have hit record highs amid rising optimism that Covid-19 vaccines and stimulus measures can turbocharge economic recovery from the second wave of the pandemic. The MSCI World Index, which tracks stocks across the developed world, reached a new high of 639.33 on Thursday. The index has climbed 16% since the start of November when multiple vaccine breakthroughs were first announced. Wall Street rallied further to yet again set new records for the US stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average trading above the symbolic 30,000 mark reached last month. European share prices closed at the highest levels since February while the value of bitcoin broke through $23,000 (16,900) barrier for the first time in a second day of steep gains for the cryptocurrency. Brent crude oil also hit a nine-month high of $51.90 a barrel. The dollar which is typically bought by investors in times of economic turmoil sank to the lowest levels since 2018 after the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, pledged to keep pumping money into the system through its asset purchase stimulus programme until it saw substantial further progress towards full employment and its inflation target. The latest rally comes as hopes increase for a stronger economic recovery in 2021 despite the second wave of the Covid pandemic in several countries having raised the prospect of continued disruption to business and social life well into the new year. However, investors are betting the vaccine and further economic support measures from the US government, as well as ultra-low borrowing costs, will help to propel the economy forwards next year, with US congressional negotiators close to agreement on a $900bn Covid-19 aid bill. Apparent progress in 11th-hour Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU has also lifted the pound, and pushed Britains domestically focused FTSE 250 share index to its highest level since late February. Sterling rallied by 0.7% to trade above $1.36, a 31-month high. With time running out to avoid potentially severe disruption at major ports, the optimism comes as the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, warned MEPs that striking a deal by Friday would be difficult but possible. The European parliament has said it needs an agreement by end of Sunday to hold a consent vote this year. Dean Turner, an economist at the Swiss bank UBS, said hopes for a breakthrough in the Brexit talks had driven the pound higher, while the US dollar had come under selling pressure. All attention remains firmly on Brexit with the markets anxiously anticipating the news of an imminent breakthrough in the deal, he said. Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at the financial trading firm IG, said the UK was at a Brexit crossroads. For most, 2021 is expected to be a year of recovery, with the progression on the vaccination front ensuring a return to economic normality, he said. However, the road ahead seems somewhat less clear for the UK, with the potential for a no-deal Brexit ensuring plenty of uncertainty over the months ahead.Analysts said increasing interest from institutional investors was fuelling bitcoins rise. The cryptocurrency has surged by more than 20% in the last two days, doubling in value since the start of October. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskScott Minerd, the chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday that rampant money printing by the Federal Reserve was driving interest in bitcoin. Our fundamental work shows that bitcoin should be worth about $400,000, said Minerd, whose fund has plans to invest in a bitcoin trust. He cited the cryptocurrencys scarcity and the relative valuation of other assets such as gold. Bitcoin was also boosted by the US Treasurys labelling of Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators on Wednesday, according to Brad Bechtel, the head of global currency trading at the investment firm Jefferies. He predicted that bitcoin should continue to perform well, given massive monetary stimulus, massive growth in money supply, a weakening US dollar and countries around the world crying uncle on their currencies. | 0 |
###CLAIM: they hope the sweeping legislative action that included passage last month of a 1. 9 trillion dollar stimulus package will help buy some goodwill with voters ahead of the elections in 2012.
###DOCS: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raked in $34.1 million in the first three months of 2021, posting its best first-quarter fundraising total for an off-year to date. The group said it will post $30.3 million in cash reserves when it files its first-quarter report with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) later this week, more than twice as much as it had in the bank at this point two years ago. The DCCCs fundraising haul was driven by small-dollar online donations, with an average online contribution of $17. More than 99 percent of donations to the group were $100 or less, it said. The DCCCs last filing to the FEC, which covered the month of February, showed the committee carrying about $11 million in unpaid debts, and its unclear how much of the committees first-quarter haul was used to pay off those obligations. Still, the $34.1 million haul means that the Democrats House campaign arm narrowly outraised its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which announced last week that it had pulled in $33.7 million in the first quarter of the year. The amounts raised by both committees are remarkable for a year without any regularly scheduled federal elections. But the aggressive fundraising efforts show how eager both Democrats and Republicans are to stockpile money ahead of the 2022 midterms. House Republicans are coming off a successful 2020 election cycle that saw them gain 12 seats in the lower chamber, even as the GOP lost control of the White House and Senate. Those down-ballot gains have put them in a position to recapture the House majority next year. The GOP needs to flip five seats to gain control of the chamber a goal that appears well within reach given that the presidents party typically loses seats in the first midterms following his inauguration. Democrats, however, believe that they have a solid chance of maintaining control of the House. Theyre hoping that sweeping legislative action, including the passage of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package last month, will help them buy some goodwill with voters ahead of 2022. | 1 |
###CLAIM: jo and grady, general secretary of theucu, said: "boris and johnson saying how disconnected they are from the facts on the ground is an abdication of responsibility and shows that when we see reports of outbreaks in covid and colleges throughout the uk they should stay open.
###DOCS: There are calls to halt lectures at Liverpool University after 80 students and and seven staff caught coronavirus - while 500 undergraduates are isolating at halls in Dundee after a single confirmed case. NHS Tayside in Scotland is contacting any close contacts of the student at Abertay University - with all residents of their halls being told to self-isolate until tracing has been completed. Dr Daniel Chandler, associate director of public health, said: 'We know from outbreaks in other university settings across Scotland that the virus can spread very quickly in student accommodation. All 500 students at Parker House halls in Dundee are self-isolating after one of their peers contracted coronavirus'Therefore, as a precautionary measure, we are contacting all residents of Parker House and advising them to self-isolate immediately.' 'Further investigation and contact tracing are continuing and we will review this advice in the coming days.' Meanwhile union members in Liverpool are seeking assurances they will not vulnerable staff will have to arrive in campus. At least 80 students at Liverpool University have contracted coronavirus, along with seven staffMartyn Moss, UCU regional official, said: 'Liverpool's universities have to immediately heed the call from staff and halt unnecessary in-person teaching. 'The safety of staff, students and the local community has to be the number one priority. 'More widely, the university sector and the government must address this public health crisis immediately. It is not enough to plan to manage Covid outbreaks when we could be working to prevent them.' He added: 'Without urgent action, it will be impossible for universities to avoid becoming incubators of Covid and university communities becoming transmission hotspots.' Boris Johnson last night assured the country that schools and universities would remain open, despite tighter coronavirus restrictions coming into force from Thursday. Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said: 'For Boris Johnson to say that universities should stay open whilst we are seeing reports of Covid outbreaks on campuses throughout the UK is an abdication of responsibility and it shows how disconnected he is from the facts on the ground. 'Our institutions never closed, even during the national lockdown. Staff moved teaching online and continued to deliver for their students and support them. Abertay University in Dundee said it is supporting students while they are self-isolating due to the outbreak'The Prime Minister should go back to that arrangement and instruct all staff to work from home.' Professor Louise Kenny, executive pro-vice-chancellor for the faculty of health and life sciences at the University of Liverpool, has said face-to-face teaching is 'an essential component' of many degree courses. She said: 'Like other members of Liverpool's population, university students and staff members are also experiencing more Covid-19 cases. 'Our investment in an on-campus testing facility for staff and students displaying symptoms means that we are in a position to report on the numbers in our community who test positive and, importantly, to act quickly to stop the spread.' Professor Nigel Seaton, principal of Abertay University, said, 'Our students in Parker House are being supported to self-isolate safely and we will remain in regular daily contact with them. 'The university already has enhanced cleaning and safety measures in place on campus, in line with national guidance, and the campus will remain open. 'We have contacted students and staff to remind them of their personal responsibilities in relation to Covid safety and to inform them of today's changes in Scottish Government guidance.' Four students at the University of St Andrews have contracted coronavirus after a freshers' week party in a hall of residence. More than 40 people are now self-isolating following the party, which broke national coronavirus restrictions limiting gatherings to no more than six people from two households. On Friday, St Andrews asked all its students to enter a voluntary weekend lockdown by staying in their rooms and not partying or going to bars. It comes as students at the University of Edinburgh said they are being forced to eat alone due to strict coronavirus measures. First-year students living in the university's catered accommodation claim they are being watched by staff as they eat alone at single desks. Students at the University of Edinburgh were left unable to access their lessons this morning after their new online learning system crashed just hours into the first day of term. The new cases bring the total at St Andrew's University to seven, after three were announced last week. More than 40 people are now self-isolating following the party during freshers' week at the University of St AndrewsIn a message to students, University of St Andrews principal Professor Sally Mapstone said: 'I am sorry to say that last night, four new positive cases were confirmed amongst our students. 'This is in addition to the three sporadic cases which I had notified to you all previously. 'All have comparatively mild illness and are being appropriately supported.' She added: 'These new cases of Covid were acquired in St Andrews and are all linked to one party in a hall of residence in freshers' week. 'Over 40 students are now in enforced isolation as a result. 'Quite apart from the fact that the party broke the law, and our own very clear guidelines on socialising and safe behaviour, the ripples from this single incident have consequences for all of us. 'Please do not arrange or attend parties unless they are only attended by your immediate household group'. Despite the new cases, the university will restart some activities cancelled over the weekend, including 'most sport, training activities and the gym'. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, whose North East Fife constituency includes St Andrews, said: 'This should act as a chilling reminder of the need to follow the advice of the scientists and the health professionals. 'If we give this deadly disease the opportunity to spread it will do so like wildfire. 'I appreciate that we are asking young people to sacrifice some of the best bits of university social life but the alternative is so much worse for everyone.' In the University of Edinburgh's catered accommodation, the on-site bar is closed and students must bring their own cutlery with them. Hot food is served by staff and cold food is individually packaged. There is a one-way system in place where students are guided by staff, and then sat alone at a desk typically used for examinations to eat. Liberty Phelan, a second-year student who lived in the Pollock Halls last year, said: 'Before the term began the university announced the changes and how things would be different. 'Students were told that they would have to sit at tables by themselves but were offered a takeaway option. 'Now they have taken the takeaway option away and I've been told that everyone is forced to eat alone and not allowed to get up from their allocated table for more food or water. 'There are huge queues to get into the dining hall and staff lead students to tables so you don't even choose who you sit next to. 'In the accommodation you're only allowed one other person in your room, but some people have had parties and the police have been called. University of St Andrews principal Professor Sally Mapstone confirmed there had been four new cases in a message to students'I think it is especially hard for freshers and the restrictions make the anxiety of being a first year so much harder for them.' Students living in university accommodation claim to have been sent an email which states that a number of illegal gatherings had been reported at Pollock Halls. It added that students who break the rules can be suspended from the university. A university spokesperson said: 'We are working hard to ensure all of our new and returning students are aware of the importance of following Scottish Government guidelines - both on and off campus - to reduce the spread of Covid-19. 'As well as our Student Code of Conduct, we have created a Good Citizen Guide, which sets out clear guidelines for our community during this time. 'Our on-site Residence Life team are regularly promoting Covid-19 safety messages and challenging any inappropriate behaviour. 'While the vast majority of our students are observing the rules, if a student is found to be intentionally or repeatedly failing to comply with safety measures, they will face appropriate action.' Students at the University of Edinburgh were unable to access their lessons this morning after the virtual learning platform malfunctioned. First-year students living in the University of Edinburgh's catered accommodation claim they are being watched by staff as they eat alone at single desks. Pictured: Pollock Halls accommodationThe university charges non-Scottish UK students 9,000 a year to study, with many international students paying up to 32,100 a year. Disgruntled users of the University's LEARN service took to Twitter today to slam the institution, who since have let students know they are aware of the situation and looking into the issue as a 'matter of urgency'. The platform is provided by a company called Blackboard, which specialises in online education technology and service for millions of consumers. One tweet said: 'Nice start of the semester @EdinburghUni - I am still trying to log in to LEARN. I keep receiving this 503 Temporarily Unavailable message. 'The system may have crashed, and I may have lost my first live-online-session lecture as a Ph.D. student.' Another Twitter user wrote: '@EdinburghUni students are paying up to 32,100 per year for an education, which is now delivered exclusively via Blackboard, a platform which has crashed on the first morning of the Autumn term.' The University of Edinburgh responded to the tweets saying: 'We are aware that there is a problem with the Learn Virtual Learning Environment and we are looking into this as a matter of urgency with our supplier. 'Thank you for your patience.' Manchester Metropolitan University confirmed a 'handful' of cases just days after around 100 students attended a party, Manchester Evening News reported. Several students are self-isolating after a handful of cases were confirmed in a block of flats at the Birley campus in Hulme. Meanwhile, eleven new cases have been linked to an outbreak at student accommodation at Edinburgh Napier University, BBC reported. | 2 |
###CLAIM: sources reached by abc news said the presence in the first dining room was a source who provided a photo of a friendly handshake between trump and stone.
###DOCS: The White House declined to comment to ABC News on the matter. Roger Stone saw President Donald Trump Sunday night and thanked the president in person for pardoning him last week. "Yes, I did see the president last night in passing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach," Stone told ABC News Monday. "My wife and I both had the opportunity to thank the president personally for righting the injustice of my conviction in a Soviet-style show trial, which featured the epic bias of the judge who withheld exculpatory evidence from my defense, misconduct by the jury forewoman and substantial misconduct by the prosecutors." In this Feb. 20, 2020, file photo, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone departs following his sentencing hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Mary F. Calvert/Reuters, FILEStone told ABC News he and his wife, Nydia Stone, were the guests of Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy for the club's buffet dinner, where they ran into Trump, who was dining with family. "The president decided to dine at the club with his son Donald Trump Jr., Kimberley Guilfoil, Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump. Because of his decision to sign the stimulus bill, it was unclear whether the president would dine at the club, which he normally does on Sunday nights when he is visiting Mar-A-Lago," Stone said. The White House declined to comment to ABC News on the matter. Because the club rules prohibit photographs of diners for privacy reasons, the Stones declined to provide a photo. However, ABC News reached a source who was present in a dining room of about 100 diners who provided a photo of Trump greeting Stone with a friendly pat on the shoulder. Roger Stone speaks with President Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., Dec. 27, 2020. Obtained by ABC NewsStone, a decades-long friend and former campaign adviser to Trump, who's often described as a political "dirty trickster," was charged and convicted on a seven-count indictment of obstructing justice, witness tampering and multiple counts of lying to Congress in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election in November of 2019. In July, days before the veteran GOP operative was scheduled to report to a federal penitentiary in Georgia, Trump commuted Stone's 40-month prison sentence. Trump's full presidential pardon, issued Dec. 23, nullifies Stone's conviction entirely. | 0 |
###CLAIM: the partnership was launched in january and september with demand outstripping even the frenzy of march amid stockpiling.
###DOCS: Marks and Spencer's Ocado deal has been hailed as a huge success with more people buying its goods than the Waitrose items it replaced. M&S signed a 750 million deal last year to own half of Ocado's retail business and launched its products on the delivery website at the start of the month. Now, Ocado has revealed that the switch from Waitrose to M&S led to a surge in its shares, as well as a significant rise in sales. The online grocer had its busiest-ever day for orders when the M&S partnership launched on September 1, with demand outstripping even the stockpiling frenzy in March. Average shopper baskets have also grown by about five items since the switch over. There has been particularly strong demand for M&S's famed ready meals, as well as staples such as milk and carrots. M&S has also sold high numbers of cucumbers and cans of chopped tomatoes, as it tries to position itself as the best choice for everyday grocery shopping online. Among the most requested items were the iconic Percy Pig sweets, with 20,000 packets pre-ordered before September 1. Ocado has been selling M&S goods on its website alongside its own the 20-year partnership with Waitrose came to an end. Allaying fears shoppers would desert Ocado once it made the switch, finance boss Duncan Tatton-Brown said there was 'practically no sign' that it had lost any customers. The online retailer reported a 52 per cent jump in retail sales to 587.3 million during the 13 weeks to the end of August. Ocado shares surged after it revealed the success of the partnership, rising 10.7 per cent. Stuart Machin, head of M&S food, said: 'Taking our full food range online for the first time is transformative for M&S food and brings to life our strategy to protect the magic, the delicious, quality food and trusted sourcing standards customers lovewhilst modernizing the rest. The most popular M&S items on sale on Ocado Ocado had its busiest-ever day for orders when the M&S partnership launched on September 1, with demand outstripping even the stockpiling frenzy in March. Ahead of the launch, it also received more pre-orders than for any other day in its history. The most popular M&S items with Ocado shoppers are: M&S Remarksable Select Farms British Semi Skimmed Milk 4 PintsM&S Remarksable Select Farms Whole CucumberM&S Remarksable Select Farms Salad OnionsM&S Remarksable Chopped Italian TomatoesM&S Remarksable Sweet & Crunchy Carrots 20,000 packets of Percy Pig sweets were also ordered on the opening day. Advertisement'This is a long-term partnership and in preparation for go-live we have listened intently to customers to deliver an even bigger, better rangewith more family pack sizes, more scratch cooking ingredients, household staples and organic options. 'As more families shop for M&S products online, they will see the breadth that M&S food has to offer and we're confident they will find we remain serious on quality whilst also being serious about value.' M&S is pinning its hopes on the tie-up after the pandemic caused havoc and led to plans to cut 7,000 jobs from its 66,000-strong shop-floor workforce. Analysts had been sceptical last year when it paid 750million to buy a 50 per cent stake in Ocado's retail business, which marks the first time its groceries have been put on sale online. So far the 4,000 Waitrose products that were available on Ocado's site have been replaced by 4,400 M&S items. Another 800 food options will be added to its range in the run-up to Christmas, capitalising on M&S's reputation for doing high-quality party treats. Ocado hailed the 'successful switchover' from Waitrose to M&S as it posted a huge rise in sales during the 13 weeks to September 1. Quarterly revenue surged by 52 per cent to 587million compared with the same period of last year. And the average number of orders it received per week rose by 10 per cent to 345,000, as it managed to keep hold of customers who signed up during lockdown. Ocado expects profits to reach around 40million in 2020. It booked a 43.3million profit in 2019. Its M&S partnership got off to a rocky start, with some customers complaining that orders had been cancelled at short notice. Ocado blamed this on a 'surge in demand'. It plans to increase its capacity by a further 40 per cent next year by building three more of its robotic warehouses in Andover, Bristol and Purfleet. Taste test: Ocado has been selling M&S goods on its website alongside its own since September 1 when a 20-year partnership with Waitrose came to an endOcado shares have risen 103 per cent this year and the company is now valued at 19.5bn, just 2bn less than TescoAnalysts said the results had not just been promising for Ocado, but also for M&S. Sophie Lund-Yates, an equity analyst at investment manager Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'This could bode well for Marks & Spencer, whose sales could do with a boost, and who staked a lot on this deal paying off. '98pc of customers are already shopping at M&S, though, so it will be interesting to see how many of these sales will have simply transferred from stores.' Peel Hunt analysts said Ocado had had a 'storming' third quarter. They said: 'The M&S transition is performing excellently: nearly every customer is already shopping for M&S products and the weighing in-basket of those products is greater than it was with Waitrose's products.' | 0 |
###CLAIM: president hassan rouhani this week ordered a ban on all currency mining over the summer in response to rolling electricity blackouts around the country.
###DOCS: An Iranian woman uses her smartphone amid a power blackout in northern Tehran on January 21, 2020 ... [+] (Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty ImagesAlmost two years after reports emerged about an unsustainable surge in electricity use by bitcoin miners in Iran, the authorities are promising to take tough action. This week President Hassan Rouhani ordered a ban on all mining of cryptocurrencies over the summer, in response to rolling electricity blackouts around the country. The ban is meant to apply to licensed as well as unlicensed operators. From today until the end of the summer, any activity to mine cryptocurrencies, even by those who have a license, is illegal so that there is no problem in supplying electricity to the people," Rouhani told a weekly cabinet meeting on May 26. Blackouts are not a new phenomenon in Iran, but the situation has been getting worse, amid surging power use by cryptocurrency miners and reduced rainfall which has hit the countrys hydropower plants. In January, the authorities launched a crackdown on bitcoin operators but it is now taking things a step further with the full ban. The Ministry of Industries has been issuing licences for cryptocurrency mining for several years and, to date, has issued 50 licences. Those legal operators consume around 209MW of power, but the illegal trade is far larger. Unlicensed operators have been using an estimated 2GW of what is often heavily-subsidized electricity, according to local business daily the Financial Tribune. The Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) has warned operators they face having their equipment seized if they continue, saying "non-compliance [with the ban] will translate into confiscation of their mining equipment and power cut." Tavanir has also been trying to persuade more unlicensed operators to officially register. Illegal miners who apply for a license from the Ministry of Industries in the next four months will be eligible for tariff discount, it said. Global playerIran is the sixth largest market for bitcoin mining in the world, according to data compiled by the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, with 3.4% of the global total (China is by far the leading market, with 69% of the total). Bitcoin mining consumes vast amounts of electricity everywhere it takes place. According to one estimate it now uses 122.6 terawatt hours a year, equivalent to the entire annual electricity consumption of countries such as the Netherlands or Pakistan. Each bitcoin accounts for the same amount of energy consumed by a US household over 48 days. There have been warnings about the heavy power demands of bitcoin mining in Iran in the past. In 2019, a spokesman at the Ministry of Energy said the countrys power grid had become unstable as a result of increased mining of cryptocurrencies. Since then the sector has continued to grow, putting further pressure on the network. Over the past year alone, peak electricity demand has grown by 20%. DUBAI, May 26 (Reuters) - Iran has banned the energy-intensive mining of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for nearly 4 months, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, as the country faces major power blackouts in many cities. "The ban on the mining of cryptocurrencies is effective immediately until September 22 ... Some 85% of the current mining in Iran is unlicensed," Rouhani said in a televised speech at a cabinet meeting. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created through a process known as mining, where powerful computers compete with each other to solve complex mathematical problems. The process is highly energy intensive, often relying on electricity generated by fossil fuels, which Iran is rich in. As next month's presidential election approaches, the blackouts have been widely criticised by Iranians. The government has blamed the power cuts on cryptocurrency mining, drought and surging electricity demand in summer. According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, around 4.5% of all Bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing it to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from cryptocurrencies that can be used to lessen the impact of U.S. sanctions. Iran's economy has been hit hard since 2018, when former President Donald Trump exited Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six powers and reimposed sanctions. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and other global powers have been in talks with Iran to revive the deal. Iran has accepted crypto mining in recent years, offering cheap power and requiring miners to sell their bitcoins to the central bank. Tehran allows cryptocurrencies mined in Iran to be used to pay for imports of authorised goods. The prospect of cheap power has attracted miners, particularly from China, to Iran. Generating the electricity they use requires the equivalent of around 10 million barrels of crude oil a year, or 4% of total Iranian oil exports in 2020, according to Elliptic. Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Giles ElgoodOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - Around 4.5% of all bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to buy imports and lessen the impact of sanctions, a new study has found. At its current level of mining, Iran's bitcoin production would amount to revenues close $1 billion a year, according to figures from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The United States imposes an almost total economic embargo on Iran, including a ban on all imports including those from the country's oil, banking and shipping sectors. While, exact figures are "very challenging to determine", Elliptic estimates are based on data collected from bitcoin miners by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance up to April 2020, and statements from Iran's state-controlled power generation company in January that up to 600 MW of electricity was being consumed by miners. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created through a process known as mining, where powerful computers compete with each other to solve complex mathematical problems. The process is energy intensive, often relying electricity generated by fossil fuels which Iran is rich in. The country's central bank prohibits the trading of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mined overseas, although the currencies are widely available on the black market, according to local media reports. Iran officially recognized crypto mining as an industry in recent years, offering it cheap power and requiring miners to sell their mined bitcoins to the central bank. The prospect of cheap power has attracted more miners, particularly from China, into the country. Teheran allows cryptocurrencies mined in Iran to pay for imports of authorised goods. "Iran has recognised that bitcoin mining represents an attractive opportunity for a sanctions-hit economy suffering from a shortage of hard cash, but with a surplus of oil and natural gas," the study finds. The electricity being used by miners in Iran would require the equivalent of around 10 million barrels of crude oil each year to generate, around 4% of total Iranian oil exports in 2020, according to the study. "The Iranian state is therefore effectively selling its energy reserves on the global markets, using the Bitcoin mining process to bypass trade embargoes," the study reads. "Iran-based miners are paid directly in Bitcoin, which can then be used to pay for imports - allowing sanctions on payments through Iranian financial institutions to be circumvented." Financial firms that have started offering cryptocurrency services, particularly in the United States, should consider potential sanctions they are exposed to due to Iranian bitcoin mining, Elliptic said. Reporting by Anna Irrera Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by Rachel Armstrong, William MacleanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 3 |
###CLAIM: john truscott, vice chairman of the state capitol and grounds management commission that pushed forward a meeting scheduled for january 25 to monday by a 6-0 vote to enact the measure, said :
###DOCS: FILE PHOTO: A member of Michigan Liberty Militia stands with a gun while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump rally outside the State Capitol building as votes continue to be counted following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, in Lansing, Michigan, U.S., November 7, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo(Reuters) - The Michigan State Capitol Commission voted unanimously on Monday to ban the open carry of firearms inside the state Capitol building in Lansing, a move prompted by last weeks deadly mob attack in Washington. The commission, which manages the state Capitol and its grounds, pushed forward to Monday a meeting scheduled for Jan. 25 and voted 6-0 to enact the measure, said John Truscott, vice chairman of the commission. Given whats going on across the country, we moved up our meeting to consider the issue, Truscott said in an email. Its now done and will be implemented by Michigan State Police.Thousands of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers who were certifying Democratic President-elect Joe Bidens election victory into hiding in a harrowing assault that left five dead. The first day of Michigans upcoming legislative session is scheduled for Wednesday. Like other states, officials are bracing for further protests by supporters of Trump and other demonstrators in the coming days. | 0 |
###CLAIM: as police officers held out, the conversations were similar to those placing people in london, essex, york, elmbridge, barrow and chesterfield on the second tier last night.
###DOCS: AdvertisementAround 200,000 people in central London could lose their jobs in hospitality this weekend as Tier 2 sees a 'maximum squeeze on revenue and no support', an industry spokesman warns. Last night revellers descended onto London's streets to enjoy their final night out before the capital is plunged into the tighter lockdown restrictions, announced yesterday by Health Secretary Matt Hancock. From midnight today individuals from different households in London, Essex, York and parts of Derbyshire, will be banned from mixing indoors, even in hospitality venues - with outdoor socially distanced mingling permitted for groups of up to six. Party-goers in central London opted to spend last night traipsing from pub to bar in Soho, ahead of tonight's Tier two ban, which will mean groups of friends (up to six) from different households will be required to meet in beer gardens or at restaurants with outdoor seating if they wish to support the already struggling industry. Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, has warned that the lack of sector-specific funding offered to the country's hospitality industry could be 'catastrophic'. Ms Nicholls said:'The pain of Tier 2 is that you have no government support and that's what we need the government to urgently address otherwise you are going to have about 200,000 people in central London losing their jobs this weekend. 'If you go into level three you are getting support if you're closed, so at least you would have something to pay the teams. (...) For businesses in this part of the capital it would probably be better to be paid to be closed.' Almost a third of restaurants and pubs in England will be affected by the tougher tier curbs introduced tonight - more than 8,500 venues and 5,000 pubs. Pubs which serve very little food are expected to have suffered the most through the pandemic so far, due to not having benefitted from the 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme which saw a cut on food VAT. Now pubs under tier 3 will also now be forced to stop serving alcohol if they're not serving a 'substantial meal' along with it. Ms Nicholls said: 'Being moved into tier 2 is a curse for businesses. They will be trapped in a no man's land of being open, but with severe restrictions that will significantly hit custom, all while unable to access the job support available in tier 3. It is the worst of both worlds for businesses. 'Venues in London have already taken a hit due to the dip in inbound tourism and with people increasingly working from home. A move into tier 2 will now be catastrophic for some of them and it is only going to be made worse by the end of the furlough scheme in under two weeks. Mr Martin said it was unfair that pubs have been treated harsher than supermarkets as he revealed sales fell from 1.82billion to 1.26billion in the year to July 26, 2020. Publishing the company's delayed results, he added that the UK should adopt the Swedish model for pandemics to allow his pubs to open again properly, a system which he said 'emphasises social distancing, hygiene and trust in the people'. The company also announced a further 108 job cuts at its head office, having already said it would cut up to 130 jobs at its HQ and up to 450 at airport concessions. Mr Martin, quoting businessman Warren Buffett from 1989, said governments across the world have based their lockdown decisions on 'deeply flawed analysis'. He claimed Swedish Professor Johan Giesecke is the epidemiologist equivalent and the UK should follow his lead, which would allow Wetherspoon to reopen pubs. Advertisement'The Government must remove employer contributions from the Job Support Scheme for hospitality or apply tier 3 job support to tier 2 businesses. If it does not, we are looking at catastrophic businesses closures and widespread job losses in the capital as early as 1 November.' Ms Nicholls has pushed for the 'job support scheme' , which requires employers to cough up 55 per cent of staff wages, to waive employer contributions and called for a tier-3 style funding for all hospitality in which venues hit by closures can get 3,000 cast grants. Industry bosses previously estimated 300,000 hospitality jobs would be lost in the absence of an industry bailout by government - but inline with Ms Nicholls prediction of 200,000 jobs to be lost in central London this weekend alone the total could be much higher. Robert Hayton of Altus, a property advising group, told The Guardian: 'Further restrictive measures that adversely impact trade, already at far lower levels than before the pandemic, without any discerning targeted support, could be the death knell.' Jasmine Whitbread, the chief executive of London First, said she believes that more transparency is needed over how these short-term measures are expected to reduce transmission of covid-19 and avoid 'worse to come'. Ms Whitbread told the publication: 'The government must not repeat the mistakes of the summer and must use this time to fix the track and trace system and put in further support for those businesses unable to trade.' Richard Corrigan, one of the West End's best known restaurateurs, said many establishments were already 'fighting' to stay afloat and would not survive a second hospitality shutdown. Guillaume Marly, Managing Director of London's Hotel Cafe Royal, said a second lockdown would be 'hugely detrimental to our industry' and the 'nail in the coffin for a vast amount of businesses'. Jonathan Raggett, Managing Director of Red Carnation Hotels, which operates several properties in London, also criticised Government moves to plunge the capital into lockdown. He told the newspaper: 'We are of course disappointed to hear that there may be limitations put in place that would affect the hospitality industry once again. The safety of our staff and guests is paramount.' Groups of friends enjoy their time together in the outdoor area of a restaurant and bar, which is still permitted under Tier 2Under Tier Two restrictions, pubs and restaurants can remain open but households cannot mix indoors and they must close at 10pm. Pictured: Pub-goers enjoy the final night out before tighter restrictions in Soho, LondonTwo police officers patrol the streets in Soho, London, last night as bars, pubs and restaurants must close at 10pm under the current Tier One restrictionsA group of police officers wearing face coverings patrol Soho's streets on bicycles on the night before the capital is plunged into Tier Two restrictions A small protest against new restrictions preventing people from different households meeting indoors took place in Soho, central London, on Friday night, with some revellers led away in handcuffs. Police dispersed groups of drinkers after they spilled out of bars after the 10pm curfew and many continued gathering on the streets, as the capital moved into tier 2 of the coronavirus lockdown at midnight. The new measures, aimed at reducing the rate of infection, mean that people from separate households in London will no longer be allowed to meet indoors in pubs, bars or restaurants. A placard saying: Shut up you fascist Tories, no one tells me what time to go to bed, was held aloft as a handful of protesters chanted: We are united. People angrily remonstrated with police officers. Waqas Sadiq, a bouncer at Ronnie Scotts jazz club on Frith Street, Soho, said the new rules had made many unhappy. A lot of people are talking about it. Theres going to be a very bad impact from next week on all the businesses, especially in the West End, he said. In our establishment, weve had to call all the people who have already booked, people who dont live at the same address, and tell them, and maybe theyll cancel their tickets ... lots of people are losing their jobs and people have no money right now.One reveller told a reporter: I think thats why its probably so busy tonight, because everyones enjoying this last opportunity of freedom.A member of a group of female speed-daters said: Im not worried about Covid. My mum had it, I didnt catch it. I got tested yesterday I was negative, so Im all good. Our university tests us every week.Another suggested that the increase in testing was driving the rising positive cases, adding: Voting for Boris Johnson was the worst decision of my life.One person was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, the Metropolitan police said. Another was issued with a dispersal order and directed to leave the area. Piers Corbyn, who has previously been arrested and fined 10,000 for breaching coronavirus regulations, later arrived to show his support and shake hands with people. Were here to drink against the curfew, said the brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. To oppose the lockdowns, to oppose job losses caused by lockdowns, to oppose all of it. The whole lot should be lifted now.Speaking to reporters, he falsely claimed there was no such thing as a coronavirus: There are other viruses around but theres not a magic, dangerous Covid virus.Share your story Share your stories If you have been affected or have any information, we'd like to hear from you. You can get in touch by filling in the form below, anonymously if you wish or contact us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding the contact +44(0)7766780300. Only the Guardian can see your contributions and one of our journalists may contact you to discuss further. Tell us Share your experiences here Name You do not need to use your full name Where do you live? Town or area is fine You can upload a photo here if you think it will add to your story Optional We accept images and pdfs. Maximum total file size: 6MB You can upload another photo or video here Optional We accept images and pdfs. Maximum total file size: 6MB Can we publish your response? Yes, entirely Yes, but please keep me anonymous Yes, but please contact me first No, this is information only Are you contacting us because you read a Guardian article? If so which one? Email address Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Phone number Optional Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. You can add any extra information here Optional Share with the Guardian Terms and conditionsThe Met said they were working alongside Londons local authorities to ensure compliance with the regulations around licensed premises and that more strident action would be taken against those who flout the regulations amid rising cases. Communities across London can therefore expect to see an increase in our efforts to deal with the most deliberate, harmful and flagrant breaches of regulations, said deputy assistant commissioner Matt Twist, the Mets lead for Covid-19. There were also bizarre scenes in Soho on the first night of the 10pm curfew last month, with revellers questioning the apparent focus on controlling the spread of coronavirus at the expense of addressing mental health issues and efforts to reduce deaths from other causes. | 2 |
###CLAIM: taylor and lorenz are authors of a new york times report on internet culture and people alarmed at the growing use of social media applications and the possibility of unfettered conversation.
###DOCS: A New York Times article co-authored by tech and internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz is being mocked for sounding the alarm about a growing social media app and the ability of its users to have "unfettered conversations." Clubhouse is an invite-only, audio-driven platform where users can attend chatrooms and listen to speakers. The format has attracted big names in tech and entertainment to Clubhouse over the past year, and the Times report described the platform as "becoming a town square for debates over free speech and politics." "In the process, Clubhouse has generated debate about whether audio is the next wave of social media, moving digital connections beyond text, photos and videos to old-fashioned voice," said the article, which was first published Monday. "In thousands of chatrooms every day, Clubhouses users have conducted unfettered conversations on subjects as varied as astrophysics, geopolitics, queer representation in Bollywood and even cosmic poetry." The report also claims Clubhouse is "contending with rising complaints about harassment, misinformation and privacy." NEW YORK TIMES' TAYLOR LORENZ BLASTED FOR FALSE CLAIM TECH ENTREPRENEUR USED 'R-SLUR' ON SOCIAL MEDIA APP"The growth has been accompanied by criticism that women and people of color are frequent targets of abuse and that discussions involving anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism and misogyny are on the rise," the Times warned. "Clubhouse has a 'blocking' feature to give users more control over their spaces. That has in turn sometimes created disputes about access, including with a New York Times journalist." The Times later promoted the article on Twitter, summarizing it thus: "Unfettered conversations are taking place on Clubhouse, an invitation-only app that lets people gather in audio chatrooms. The platform has exploded in popularity, despite grappling with concerns over harassment, misinformation and privacy." NEW YORK TIMES' TAYLOR LORENZ SAYS SHE REGRETS 'ERROR' OF CLAIMING ENTREPRENEUR USED 'R-SLUR'Critics mocked the Times for sounding the alarm on "unfettered conversations" and had some fun at the expense of Lorenz. "I knew the author before clicking," radio host Erick Erickson reacted to the tweet. "Same," Ricochet editor Bethany Mandel agreed. "Imagine being the New York Times. That history. The role you played justifying the First Amendment. Imagine your staff is now turbo woke and squeaks at the slightest 'microaggression.' Then imagine publishing these two words beside each other: Unfettered conversations," Daily Caller editor-in-chief Geoffrey Ingersoll wrote. NEW YORK MAG'S NUZZI SAYS MEDIA BECOMING AN 'INDUSTRY OF VIGILANTE BULLIES' OUT TO 'HUMILIATE OTHERS'"Unfettered conversations. Goodness me," political scientist Ian Bremmer mocked. "'Unfettered conversations...' -- Sounds sinister," "The Fifth Column" podcast co-host Kmele Foster similarly joked. "It's okay, Taylor Lorenz is here to bring the fetters," The Federalist publisher and Fox News contributor Ben Domenech quipped. "Did you know that *right now* people are having conversations that aren't monitored by journalists or governments? Occasionally feelings are hurt and human nature is on display. This terrifying menace must be stopped!" RealClearInvestigations senior writer Mark Hemingway exclaimed. Last week, Lorenz faced heavy backlash after she falsely accused business tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen of using the "r-slur" on Clubhouse. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPDays later, after she was fact-checked by critics, the reporter issued a formal mea culpa. "On Saturday, Ben Horowitz, a co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, used a term during a public event on Clubhouse," she wrote. "I mistakenly attributed the use of this term to Marc Andreessen, his partner and a co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. I regret the error and deleted the tweet." | 0 |
###CLAIM: at first it takes some trial and error to practice because it takes time to transform the feel of being able.
###DOCS: So, you've committed to new ways of eating and exercising but come the middle of the week you're wavering. Then there's the small matter of lockdown . . . It's a test for even the most driven among us. Don't throw in the towel! Remember, these new routines are going to make you healthier, happier and energised. They just take a little time to get used to and for you to feel the benefits. What you need right now are a few smart motivational strategies to keep your good intentions on track try some of the ones which follow and you'll be ready to face any difficult day. Goal-setting is such a powerful tool. Even smashing a small target can result in a big sense of achievement and increases your motivation. The key here is to aim for short-term gains you can really achieve and which are not based on body image or weight-loss alone. Don't throw in the towel! Remember, these new routines are going to make you healthier, happier and energisedSo it could be: 'Today I'm going to skip that glass of wine' or 'I'm going to stop looking at my phone two hours before going to bed.' As well as giving you a mental boost, these little wins make a massive difference to your mental and physical wellbeing. It's Mind(set) over MatterTo get yourself in shape, you need to understand what is driving you but also what is holding you back so you can put some strategies in place to help you. Struggling to get up early to exercise because you're not a morning person? Work out at lunchtime instead. Don't think you have time to cook healthy meals? Switch 'I can't do it', to 'I can, and I will'. Turn A Wobble Into A WinWe've all been there. Gone to bed with good intentions of getting up early for a run, only to stay buried under the duvet when the alarm goes off. Every time you feel a wobble coming on remember why you wanted to make changes in the first place. Then get up and try a workout or a walk. All those lovely endorphins released after exercise will soon lift your mood and give you a fantastic chance to turn your day around. Also remember that everyone has bad days. But what's important is to recognise each one for what it is: just a bad day and not the end of the world. Don't Just Go It AloneResearch has shown that we're more likely to exercise if we work out with others. So, grab the kids and do one of my daily workouts. Or, if you live by yourself, start a fitness WhatsApp group with friends set a time to begin a workout and check in with them at the beginning and at the end. Also, tell people about your commitment to change share your goals on social media or blog about it and update everyone on your progress. This will make you less likely to veer off track. How to Beat that Biscuit-Binge GuiltYou wouldn't be human if you didn't have the odd day when you lose all drive, skip the exercise and eat everything in sight. That happens to me when I feel stressed or emotional and when I fall hard, I fall hard! But one thing I never do is feel guilty about it. Just acknowledge it as a day when your emotions changed, and you chose to eat more food than normal. Get back in the kitchen to prep a healthy breakfast and lunch for the next day. Then, in the morning wake up and exercise, lift your energy, change your mood and move forward. Vietnamese sticky salmonSERVES ONE12 small cucumberSalt1 x 200g skinless boneless salmon fillet1 small clove garlic12 red chilli1 pak choi1 tbsp fish sauce1 tbsp soft brown sugar12 tbsp soy sauce1 tbsp sesame seeds250g pre-cooked coconut rice2 tsp rice wine vinegarPreheat the grill to maximum. Using a rolling pin, bash the cucumber until it starts to split, then cut into rough diagonal pieces. Put it into a sieve over a bowl and season with a pinch of salt. Leave for a few minutes to allow the water to drain off. Cut the salmon fillet in half then place the two pieces on a baking tray, and slide it under a hot grill for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the garlic and red chilli remove the seeds if too much heat isn't to your taste. Cut the pak choi in half lengthways. Now mix together the fish sauce, soft brown sugar and soy sauce in a small bowl, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Come back to the salmon. Lay the pak choi, cut side down, on the baking tray, then drizzle the sauce over the salmon. Scatter over the sesame seeds and slide back under the grill for 3 minutes. While the salmon and pak choi are grilling, ping the coconut rice in the microwave according to packet instructions. Drain away any water from the bowl underneath the cucumber, then tip the cucumber into the bowl. Stir in the finely chopped garlic, chilli and rice wine vinegar. By now the salmon should be cooked check this by slicing into the thickest part of one of the pieces to make sure the flesh has turned a matt pink. Pile the coconut rice into a bowl, lay the sticky salmon and pak choi on top. Drizzle over the cooking juices and serve with the smacked cucumber. Saag paneer with cauliflower 'rice'SERVES ONE12 small head cauliflower60g paneer (1/3 of average pack)1 tbsp coconut oil1 tsp ground turmeric2 tsp garlic-ginger paste12 tsp dried chilli flakes2 large handfuls baby spinach leaves2 tsp garam masalaSalt and pepperJuice of 12 lemonRoughly chop the cauliflower then blitz in a food processor until it resembles rice. Keep to one side. Cut the paneer into large cubes. Ping 1 teaspoon of coconut oil in a microwaveable bowl to melt. Stir in the ground turmeric, drop in the paneer cubes, toss to coat. Heat a saucepan over a medium to high heat. Spoon in 1 teaspoon of coconut oil. Once melted, add the garlic-ginger paste and chilli flakes. Cook for 1 minute then add the spinach to the pan. When wilted, keep the pan on a very low heat while you fry the paneer. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Lay the paneer in the pan, fry for 3-4 minutes, turning as each side becomes golden and crisp. Tip into the saucepan along with the spinach. Put the frying pan back on the heat (don't bother washing it it will add flavour). Melt the remaining coconut oil. Tip in the cauliflower rice, sprinkle in the garam masala and a generous pinch of salt and black pepper. Fry for 2 minutes until the cauliflower is tender. Dish up the cauliflower rice. Squeeze the lemon juice into the paneer and spinach, season to taste then pile on top of the 'rice'. Chimichurri steak with mixed grainsSERVES ONESmall handful parsleySmall handful coriander1 small clove garlic2 pickled jalapenos plus 1 tbsp pickling juice, plus a few extra to serve, optional1 tbsp olive oilSalt and pepper1 x 225g sirloin steak, trimmed of visible fat200g pre-cooked mixed grains12 medium courgette1 roasted red pepper from a jar, drainedLarge handful of rocketSqueeze of lemon juiceMake the chimichurri. Put the parsley and coriander (stalks and all) into a small food processor with the garlic, pickled jalapenos, 1 tablespoon of pickling juice and most of the olive oil. Blitz to a smooth green sauce. Add a little water if you need it. VEGGIE SWAP Replace the steak with 30g toasted, chopped hazelnuts and 30g feta, crumbled and stirred into the mixed grains along with the chimichurri. AdvertisementSeason to taste with salt and black pepper you want it to be nice and tangy. Heat a griddle pan over the highest heat. Drizzle the steak with the remaining oil, rubbing it into the flesh, and season all over with salt and pepper. When the pan is searingly hot, carefully lay the steak in it. Cook according to preference I like my steak medium rare, so 212 minutes on each side, turning regularly then leave to rest, covered, until you're ready to eat. While the steak is cooking, ping the mixed grains in the microwave, according to packet instructions. Peel the courgette into long ribbons. Slice the red pepper. Mix the warmed grains, courgette and pepper together in a serving bowl, along with the rocket. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice, to taste. Thinly slice the steak on a diagonal, then pile on top of the mixed grains. Drizzle over the chimichurri. If you like it spicy, scatter over a couple more pickled jalapenos. Chipotle turkey tacosSERVES ONE1 tbsp coconut oil200g turkey minceSalt and pepper2 tbsp tomato puree2 tsp chipotle paste1/8 small red cabbageJuice of 1 lime12 avocado3 small corn tortillasSmall handful of corianderMelt the coconut oil in a frying pan over a medium to high heat. VEGGIE SWAP Replace the turkey mince with 12 small head of cauliflower. Cut it into smallish florets and cook in the same way. AdvertisementTip the turkey mince into the pan. Break the mince into small pieces with the back of a wooden spoon. Season, and fry for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, stir together the tomato puree, chipotle paste and 50ml water in a small bowl. Pour into the pan with the turkey, mix well then leave the turkey to bubble away in its sauce for 5 minutes. While the turkey is cooking, finely slice the red cabbage, put it into a bowl, pour over half the lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Mix together. Scoop the avocado into another bowl, squeeze in the remaining lime juice, season, then use your fork to roughly mash. Heat the tortillas. Come back to the turkey, check it is cooked by making sure the meat is white all the way through, with no raw pink bits remainingOnce you're happy with the meat, assemble your tacos. Spoon the turkey mince between each tortilla along with the avocado and red cabbage. Tear over the coriander leaves, and serve. Blackened cod with pico de galla salsa and smashed avoSERVES ONE12 small red onionHandful coriander (stalks and all)1 large ripe tomato12 jalapenoJuice of 1 limeSalt and pepper1 tbsp coconut oil1 x 200g skinless cod fillet1 tbsp fajita seasoning1 ripe avocadoCOOK'S TIP Make the salsa and smashed avocado beforehand, but cook the cod just before serving. AdvertisementMake the salsa. Finely chop the red onion, most of the coriander, the tomato and the jalapeno remove the seeds if you don't like it hot. place in a bowl, squeeze in the juice of half the lime. Give everything a good mix and season with salt and pepper to taste. Melt the coconut oil in a nonstick frying pan over a medium to high heat. Coat the cod in the fajita seasoning, then place in the hot pan. Cook for about 4 minutes on each side, carefully flipping halfway. Meanwhile, make the smashed avocado. Scoop the avocado into a bowl, squeeze in the juice of the remaining lime half, season, then use your fork to roughly mash. Come back to the cod, check that it is cooked through by cutting into one of the thicker parts to make sure the flesh has turned from raw and pale to to cooked and bright white. Put the blackened cod on a plate, dish up the salsa and avocado then scatter over the remaining coriander leaves. Parma ham and sundried tomatoSERVES ONE12 large aubergine1 tbsp olive oilSalt and pepper6 slices Parma ham2 tbsp sundried tomatoes1 x 227g tin chopped tomatoes1 small clove garlicPinch dried chilli flakes12 small ball of mozzarella (about 63g)1 tbsp dried breadcrumbsHandful basil leavesPreheat the grill to maximum. Slice the aubergine into 2cm-thick rounds. Heat a frying pan over a high heat. Drizzle most of the olive oil over the aubergine rounds, rubbing the oil into the flesh. Season with salt and pepper. Lay the aubergine in the frying pan. Fry for 3 minutes on each side, until softened and golden brown. VEGGIE SWAP Change the Parma ham for 30g toasted pine nuts, layered into the dish in the same way you would the ham. AdvertisementTransfer the aubergine to a plate and put the pan back on the heat. Peel the Parma ham slices straight out of their packet into the hot frying pan. Fry for 1-2 minutes until the ham shrivels and crisps. Take the pan off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Roughly chop the sundried tomatoes then put them in a bowl. Tip in the chopped tomatoes, crush in the garlic clove, add a pinch of chilli flakes and some salt and pepper. Stir together. Dollop a third of the sundried tomato sauce into the bottom of a small ovenproof dish. Layer in half the fried aubergine along with half the crispy parma ham, spoon over a third more sauce, then tear over half the mozzarella. Repeat with the remaining ingredients, finishing with the mozzarella. Scatter the breadcrumbs over the top and drizzle with the remaining oil. Slide under the grill and cook for 8 minutes until bubbling and golden brown. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes and scatter over the basil leaves before tucking in. The benefits of meditation (and how to do it)Several people have told me over the years that meditation would help me deal with the thoughts and worries that race through my mind at a million miles an hour. I downloaded a few guided meditation apps but found it so difficult to sit and focus that I always gave up. It took a chat with comedian Russell Brand on his podcast to change that. I committed myself to doing 20 minutes of guided meditation every day for two weeks and no lie, it changed my life. THE WRITE STUFF Stay on track by jotting down what you achieved and how you felt each day and look back at it when you're feeling demotivated. Seeing how your wins make you feel will encourage you to exercise and eat healthily. AdvertisementFor the first time in years, I stopped looking at my phone, I slowed down, I breathed and let myself go to a place of calm and peace that I'd never been to before. It's one of those skills which you get better at over time just like learning to cook or taking exercise. The more you do it, the more experience you get and the more you get out of it. Now I do it about three or four days a week. I like to follow apps or YouTube tutorials, but if you're a complete beginner, a really simple thing is to spend time just focusing on your breathing. It can instantly calm and release any tension you're holding in your body. To give it a go, make yourself as comfortable as you can, whether you're sitting on a chair, on the floor or lying on your back. Relax your shoulders and let your hands hang loose at your sides, in your lap or on your knees. Close your eyes and start to deepen your breath, without forcing it. If you can, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, gently and regularly. Gradually start to lengthen your breath, counting to five on the inhale and five on the exhale. Try this for three to five minutes and see if you can focus your mind on the simple act of breathing. How do you feel afterwards? Did you manage to keep your mind free of distractions? It will take practice at first, but the more regularly you try it, the easier it will be and the more transformative it can feel. Extracted from 30 Day Kick Start Plan by Joe Wicks (Bluebird 18.99). 2020 Joe Wicks. To order a copy for 14.81 go to www.mailshop. co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Free UK delivery on orders over 15. Promotional price valid until 05/02/2021 Feel like you've made a million meals over the past few months? Me too. Having to cook three times a day, seven days a week is exhausting and relentless and often ends up with us ordering takeaways or heating up ready meals. They're loaded with fat, sugar and carbs and make us feel exhausted, bloated and lethargic the last thing we need right now. The key to keeping up a healthy eating regime is to prep batch-cook meals and freeze them. My recipes are easy and if you get ahead you won't be tempted to stray. Not only will you be eating food with mood-boosting benefits, you will feel more in control and have more free time (HIIT class anyone?!) Joe Wicks provides his tips on how to keep to a healthy eating regime along with a series of recipesHere are a few ideas to get you started:Block out time to meal-plan. This will give you a longer-term view of what you're eating, helping you to mix things up. Eating too much meat? Add a few veggie meals. Be inspired. Escape a recipe rut by flicking through cookery books. My new book, 30 Day Kick Start Plan, is packed with great ingredients like pak choi, quinoa and pomegranate molasses. If your local shop doesn't stock something, find it online. See this as a chance to broaden your horizons (and break the monotony of lockdown.) Get the whole family involved. Enlisting the kids not only takes the pressure off you to come up with ideas, it helps them develop a healthy relationship with food. Plan as far ahead as you can. There is a 30-day meal planner in my book, to help you to stop serving the same thing every seven days. Variety is key to any healthy eating regime. Cut corners. If you find cooking multiple entire meals too much, think about the basics of recipes that you can cook, freeze then add to later. A tomato sauce, for example, could be used for cacciatore chicken or turkey meatballs with harissa spaghetti. Try a family cook-a-long. Choose a time to cook, get the kids off their screens and in their aprons. Get one peeling veg, another in charge of chopping. Make it fun, stick some upbeat music on and dance around the kitchen! Organise your freezer. Once they're cooked and cooled, portion the meals up. Avoid freezer chaos by labelling things clearly invest in some coloured tubs using red for meat dishes, green for veggie and blue for fish. Grab and go. Now all you have to do is decide which meals are best for which day based on that day's exercise plan. Remember low-carb if you're not working out, higher-carb if you are. Pop them in the fridge to defrost overnight and enjoy a relaxed night's sleep. Curried cottage pieSERVES TWO60g butter1 leek, finely sliced2 medium carrots, finely chopped2 celery sticks, finely choppedSalt and pepper1 vegetable stock cube2 fat cloves garlic, finely choppedKnob fresh ginger, finely chopped1 tbsp medium curry powder2 tsp cumin seeds2 tbsp tomato puree1 x 400g tin green lentils, drained1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets2 handfuls frozen peas30g Cheddar, gratedMelt 20g of the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. Once melted, add the leek, carrots and celery plus a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring regularly, for 10 minutes until the veg is soft. Meanwhile, bring a kettle of water to the boil. Put the vegetable stock cube in a jug, pour in 150ml boiling water and whisk with a fork to dissolve. Return to the saucepan and add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute more, sprinkle in the curry powder and cumin seeds, and spoon in the tomato puree. Mix well and cook for 2 minutes more, then tip in the drained green lentils and the vegetable stock. Bring the pie mix to a simmer, turn down the heat to low and leave to gently bubble as you make the mash. Pour the remaining water from the kettle into a saucepan and re-boil. Salt the water and drop in the cauliflower florets. Cook for 10 minutes until completely tender. Drain in a sieve and leave to steam for a while this will prevent the mash from being watery. Preheat the grill to high. Tip the cauliflower into a food processor, add the remaining butter, season and blitz to a smooth mash. You can also use a stick blender. Come back to your pie mix. Add the frozen peas and season to taste. Once the peas have defrosted, spoon the filling into an ovenproof dish. Spread the mash on top, then grate over the cheese. Slide under the grill for 5 minutes or until bubbling and golden with a crispy top. Serve. Prawn, lemongrass and coconut curry with mangetoutSERVES ONEhandful coriander1 lemongrass stalk, tender white part only, roughly chopped1 clove garlic1 red chilli, halved remove the seeds if you dont like it hotSmall piece ginger, peeled50g creamed coconut1 tbsp coconut oil200g mangetout200g raw king prawnsJuice of 12 limeSplash of soy sauceBring a kettle of water to the boil. Cut the coriander stalks away from the leaves. Put the stalks into a small food processor along with the lemongrass, garlic, chilli, ginger and 1 tablespoon of water. Veggie swap Swap the prawns for firm tofu, cut into cubes, and dropped into curry with the mangetout. AdvertisementBlitz to a finely chopped curry paste. Add a little more water if you need it. Now, grab a jug, pour in 100ml boiling water then carefully drop in the creamed coconut. Use a fork to whisk the two together into a coconut milk. Dont worry if there are a few lumps remaining they will dissolve in the saucepan. Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan over a high heat. Add the curry paste. Cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes, then lower the heat and pour in the coconut milk. Bring to a simmer then drop in the mangetout and king prawns. Cook for 2-3 minutes. The raw grey colour of the prawns will turn pink, which shows you they are cooked. Take the pan off the heat. Squeeze in the lime juice and season with soy sauce to taste. Spoon the curry into a bowl and tear over the coriander leaves to serve. Swap the prawns for firm tofu, cut into cubes, and dropped into the curry with the mangetout. Black bean, quinoa and sweet potato chilliSERVES FOUR2 large red onions2 large sweet potatoes3 fat cloves garlic2 tbsp coconut oilSalt and pepper1 tbsp ground cumin2 tsp dried oregano1 tbsp chipotle paste, plus a little extra to serve2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes2 x 400g tins black beans, drained and rinsed150g quinoa112 limes4 spoonfuls low-fat natural yoghurtHandful of coriander leavesChop 112 red onions, finely slice the remaining half. Place the sliced half in a bowl for later. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into small chunks and finely chop the garlic. Melt the coconut oil in a large saucepan over a medium to high heat. Add the chopped onions along with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring regularly, for 5-6 minutes until soft. Add the garlic. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute more then sprinkle in the ground cumin and oregano. Give everything a good mix, then drop in the sweet potato chunks. Spoon in the chipotle paste and stir. Now tip in the chopped tomatoes, black beans and quinoa. Fill both of the cans from the chopped tomatoes with water and pour that in, too. Bring the chilli to a boil, season well with salt and pepper then lower the heat to medium. Leave to bubble away for 35 minutes, or until the sweet potato is soft, quinoa cooked and chilli thick. Meanwhile, squeeze half a lime over the sliced red onion, sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Use your hands to scrunch the onion with the lime juice this will encourage it to soften. Leave to lightly pickle. Once you are happy with the chilli, serve up into bowls. Top each with a dollop of yoghurt and, for some extra heat, if you like, swirl through a little more chipotle paste. Scatter over the quick-pickled red onions and tear over some coriander leaves. Serve with the remaining lime, cut into wedges, for squeezing. Cacciatore chicken with mixed olives and fetaSERVES ONE200g skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into large, bite-sized piecesSalt and pepper1 tbsp olive oil1 fat clove garlic8 mixed olives, pitted2 roasted red peppers from a jar, drained1 sprig rosemaryGlass red wine150g passataBig splash balsamic vinegar40g fetaPlace a frying pan over a high heat. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Pour the oil into the hot pan and add the chicken pieces. Fry for 4 minutes, turning occasionally until browned. Meanwhile, finely slice the garlic and roughly chop the olives and red peppers. Return to the pan, lower the heat, add the sliced garlic and rosemary sprig. Cook for 1 minute, then pour in the red wine. Bubble away for a couple of minutes, or until the wine has reduced by half, then pour in the passata and balsamic vinegar. Add the sliced olives and peppers, give everythingA good mix then place a lid on the pan. Cook for about 6 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly and the chicken is cooked through. Check by slicing into one of the larger pieces the knife should cut through easily and the meat will have turned from pink to a whitish brown. Pile the chicken cacciatore into a bowl and crumble over the feta to finish. Melt the coconut oil in a large shallow casserole dish or heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium to high heat. Season the meat all over with salt and pepper and fry in two batches until browned, then tip it all back into the pan. Add the shallots, carrots, celery, garlic and bay leaves. Sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of self-raising flour and give everything a good mix. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then tip in the ale, 400ml water and the tin of plum tomatoes. Use the back of your wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes. Season everything with a generous pinch of salt and pepper, bring the stew to a boil. Once boiling, place a lid on the pan and put in the oven. Cook for 2 hours, until the meat is pretty much falling apart. Check by trying to shred a piece with two forks. Meanwhile, make the dumplings. Tip the remaining 120g of self-raising flour into a bowl. Dump in the cold butter,then use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles sand. Using scissors, snip in the chives, spoon in the creamed horseradish and season with salt and pepper. Pour in 2-4 tablespoons of water and mix together with a wooden spoon to create a thick dough. Add a little more water if you need it. Keep the dough, covered, in the fridge to rest for a while. When the meat in the stew is nearly tender, flour your hands then roll the dumpling dough into 12 small balls. Crank up the oven heat to 200c/fan 180c/gas 6. Place the dumplings on top of the stew, and return to the oven for 20 minutes, uncovered, until the dumplings are puffed up and golden. I like to eat this with mash proper comfort food. Exercises to make you feel like a winnerDo each exercise for 40 seconds, rest for 20 then move on to the next. Do 3 rounds in total AdvertisementA good HIIT session will get the heart-pumping, the happy hormones flowing and make you feel like a winner, so thats what were doing today. This is a fantastic 15-minute workout on its own or add tomorrows exercises to really push yourself. Its a bit more advanced and, if its too much, just reduce the number of rounds you do. So kick the kids out of the lounge or get them involved, too. Remember exercise is more fun when you do it together fancy dress optional on dress-up Fridays. 1. Squat jumpsPlace your feet in a comfortable position that will allow you to squat down while keeping them firmly flat on the ground. Sit low and drive through the heels to jump up. Repeat. Place your feet in a comfortable position that will allow you to squat down and then jump2. Lunge jumpsStart with both feet together, then step forward with one foot and bend both knees into a lunge. Drive through your feet to jump straight into a lunge on the other side. Keep your back straight as you jump into each lunge. Keep your back straight as you step forward with one foot and bend both knees into a lunge3. BurpeesStart standing, then place your hands on the floor in front of you. Quickly kick back your legs into a high plank, then lower your chest to the ground. Push up, jump feet forward and leap into a standing position. Repeat as fast as you can. Place both your hands on the floor in front of you and quickly kick back your legs into a high plankLower your chest to the ground and then push up off the ground, leaping into a standing position4. Mountain climbersStart in a high plank position. Look down towards your hands and keep your back flat. Then drive your knees towards your chest as fast as possible one at a time. Start in a high plank position and then drive your knees towards your chest as fast as possible one at a time5. Up down plankStart by holding yourself up in the push-up position and lower your body, one elbow at a time. Then push yourself up to the start position with one hand at a time. Repeat as many times as you can. Start this exercise by holding yourself up in the push-up position and lower your bodyPush yourself up to the start position with one hand at a time and repeat the move as many times as you canPower up your zzzzs Poor-quality sleep or not enough sleep will affect your motivation to set goals, prepare healthy food and exercise. I know how that feels. When my wife Rosie had Marley, our second baby, I truly felt the negative effects of sleep deprivation on my physical health for the first time. In those early weeks I found it hard to train regularly and with the same intensity to remain lean, fit and emotionally strong. I always made the effort to do something, though, even if this was just a 20-minute power walk. It's no surprise that 90 per cent of people who suffer from depression also sleep badly. The link between sleep, exercise and depression is clear, which means it's important to work on sleeping well in addition to fitness. A good night's sleep means you wake up refreshed, energised, and able to exercise effectively. You will also have the energy to prepare your own food so you don't have to rely on processed meals. Your mood will improve, you will be more patient and understanding and more productive at work. Sleep really is the magic ingredient, after which all the other good stuff will follow. Get into a good night-time routine. Turning off devices and winding down earlier in the evening can make a huge difference. Explore apps which dim your phone or laptop screen at certain times in the evening to minimise blue light, give your eyes a rest and help you prepare for sleep. Think about your sleeping environment too. Is it peaceful, relaxing and clutter free? Listening to guided meditations can help you drop off, too. Sweet dreams! AdvertisementExtracted from 30 Day Kick Start Plan by Joe Wicks (Bluebird 18.99). 2020 Joe Wicks. To order a copy for 14.81 go to www.mailshop. co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Free UK delivery on orders over 15. Promotional price valid until 05/02/2021 | 2 |
###CLAIM: vitaly and ryabtsev, pointing to a massive yellow stain on the listvyanka river, right where the baikal flows into the direct go, said: "all this waste water is falling into the direct go, it's a cesspool. "
###DOCS: Lake Baikal, Russia CNN Lake Baikal, Russias Sacred Sea, has been a lifeline for inhabitants of southern Siberia for thousands of years, thanks to its pristine water and rich fauna. The gigantic ancient lake, bigger than all of the Great Lakes of North America combined, encompasses about 23% of the planets freshwater reserves and is home to over 2,000 species. It is also the site of a bitter battle between the state, residents, and environmentalists trying to strike a balance between a population dependent on tourism and mass development infringing on a fragile ecosystem. It cant hold more peopleOn seeing Baikal for the first time, its hard to believe its a lake. The crescent-shaped Baikal 400 miles long and a mile deep completely freezes in the winter, creating a mirror-like surface of clear ice with no horizon in sight. CNNThe stillness of nature and swathing silence, only disrupted by low-pitched groans of cracking ice, is overwhelming. But that serenity is getting harder to find these days, as swarms of tourists encroach ever further. From dusk till dawn, local drivers race on a makeshift ice highway to get their groups to the next scenic spot at the lakes biggest island, Olkhon, before others take over. A man in a neon-colored snowboarding suit spreads his arms to pose for a picture near a rock formation: an Instagram hit dubbed Dragons Tail. A group of women a few feet back yell at him to get out of the way, furious he cut the line and blocked the view. While visitors take selfies, guides gather to divide up areas of clear ice, the tourists most sought-after backdrop. In the last decade, Baikal has become Russias biggest tourism sensation, especially among travelers from Asia, with visitor numbers growing from hundreds of thousands to almost 2 million in 2019, according to official data. Even amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian government encouraged domestic travel to boost the economy, and this winter, the numbers flocking to Baikal doubled compared to previous seasons. The infrastructure, however, is unprepared for this influx. Most areas lack the basic necessities such as centralized sewage and treatment facilities necessary to cope with mass tourism. Despite that, illegal hotels have sprung up here aided by crippling corruption and lack of oversight bypassing environmental assessments, driving up real estate prices and forcing out locals. An investigation resulted in charges against a local official in 2020, and regional prosecutors periodically crack down on illegal construction, shutting down multi-room hotels registered as private houses. Few are being demolished, however. Construction ruins from an illegal hotel CNNPlaces like the village of Listvyanka on a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the lake and a mountain welcome visitors with half-constructed hotels and crooked storefronts nesting on top of each other. What we have as a result is pollution. All this waste water falls into the cesspool and from there goes directly into Baikal, said environmentalist Vitaly Ryabtsev, pointing to a massive yellowish stain on a frozen river in Listvyanka, right where it flows into the lake. Ryabtsev, who has spent the past 40 years trying to preserve Baikal, says he doesnt recognize the place anymore, largely because humans have driven out entire species of animals in a matter of a couple of decades. This is not the place for mass tourism, Ryabtsev said. Id say that the most important measure would be to impose a ban on the further construction of hotels and tourist centers, at least until the existing tourist facilities are put in order.Vitaly Ryabtsev CNNThe results of unregulated human activity are not just an eyesore theyve had a very real impact on the lakes dwellers. Around a decade ago, scientists with the local branch of the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences noticed some odd changes along the shoreline. Spirogyra, a kind of algae that is not typically found in Baikal, began to grow next to some of the most popular tourist spots and spread fast. The scientists quickly saw the algae suck out the life out of other living creatures, harming organisms responsible for cleansing Baikals water and covering its bed with green slime. In just a few years, spirogyra covered most of the lakes bed near places like Listvyanka, prompting the experts to conclude its appearance was a direct result of unfiltered sewage being dumped from new properties. This alga is like a parasite in a human body, and its massive growth is a clear sign of the disease in this great lakes ecosystem, Oleg Timoshkin, a hydrobiologist with the Limnological Institute, said in a lecture. He and his team worry that huge parts of Baikal will be affected if the process accelerates, jeopardizing the lakes purity. A heritage site under threatFor Russians, Baikal has long been a part of their national identity and a source of pride. In 1996, the lake was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its unique flora and fauna and outstanding value to humanity.Russian President Vladimir Putin called Baikals preservation a government priority after a 2017 visit to address pollution issues. But like many other heritage sites, Baikal is facing an array of environmental threats, and some locals question if Russia is prioritizing tourism revenues over conservation. Waste water in Listvyanka CNNLast New Years Eve, Russian environmentalists woke to an unwelcome gift as the authorities issued new legislation rolling back some key protections for the lake. The international coalition Rivers without Boundaries, which took part in a year-long discussion with the state about its proposals, said it was shocked by the eventual legislation. Among other concerns, it allows development in previously untouched areas within Baikals municipal zones. We see that our government, instead of restricting anthropogenic activity around Baikal, moves in a completely different direction, said the groups ecologist, Alexander Kolotov. All recent legislation aims to weaken its environmental protection status.The group, together with Greenpeace, sent a petition to UNESCO, arguing that Baikals protections have been significantly weakened due to consistent lobbying efforts from companies looking to expand their businesses around the lake. A large part of Baikal falls under the jurisdiction of the Irkutsk region. In a 2020 government report, the regional tourism body outlined measures to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the environment. But the same report also said the presence of special environmental restrictions was a systematic problem hindering the tourism industry. Russias largest bank, the state-owned Sberbank, is also spearheading an ambitious investment program aiming to build more hotels around Baikal and attract more than 3 million tourists a year by 2024. The new regulations have sent ripples through local communities divided over the benefits and dangers of the tourism boom. Gala Sibiryakova moved away from overcrowded Listvyanka over 15 years ago and settled in the remote village of Khuzhir on Olkhon Island, which has a current population of around 1,600. She remembers Khuzhir to be a quiet place, where locals lived at one with nature and enjoyed unobscured views of majestic Baikal from their small houses. That soon changed. All this development, construction on all the corners we used to go and loved taking pictures of once now all of these places are fenced off [by hotels], Sibiryakova says while walking a pack of white Samoyed dogs. And the saddest thing is that we used to drink the very tasty Baikal water, but now we cannot drink it; it is no longer clean.Olkhon Island CNNFor Sibiryakova, the changes tourism brought into her community are also personal. Her husband Fedor is a native Buryat, belonging to one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia. Their eldest daughter is one of the very few people on Olkhon who can still speak and write in the native language. The most sacred place on Olkhon is the Shaman Rock, where many come to make wishes and shamans perform rituals following spiritual practices linking the power of nature and spirits. For a long time no one was allowed close to the rock, but now tour guides have set up portable toilets around it to cater to tourists. Because of this tourist boom, the land became so expensive, and often locals could not compete with Moscow and foreign entrepreneurs, with Chinese entrepreneurs, she said. So we had this displacement of the indigenous people, the local culture disappeared along with local traditions and customs.At the same time, tourism has undeniably become a source of income for many on Olkhon, especially since the local fish factory was shut down and fishing outlawed. Anna, a street vendor in Khuzhir who refused to give her last name, said she disagreed with the green activists and welcomed the easing of restrictions. We had nothing here just 20 years ago, and now we have electricity, internet, and a steady stream of income. If thats all taken away, what are we going to do? Where will we work?In 2019, several hundred Khuzhir residents took to the streets to protest their villages incorporation into the lakes existing national reserve zone, worried theyd have to give up their land and businesses because of stricter regulations. Many of them have now welcomed the relaxation of restrictions, hoping it will ease the burden of bureaucratic hurdles. Ryabtsev said the conflict between locals shocked by the impacts of mass tourism and those relying on it to survive has gotten so bad that he now avoids the topic in conversations with Olkhon locals. Sibiryakova believes the anti-green sentiment stems from misinformation. People were afraid they would be evicted and left with nothing, so they came to protest without really understanding the laws, she said. For a long time you couldnt build a private house but gigantic hotels for some reason had been allowed to build, so they thought it would help, but locals are not better off now.I think there just should be some balance. Of course, you cant totally abolish tourism, Baikal is beautiful, and people need to see it; it would be wrong to deprive them of it, Sibiryakova added. But now, for such a huge number of people, there is just not enough space.Baikals ticking bombRussia has tapped into many of its natural reserves for profit, and its history with Baikal is no exception. In the 1960s, the Soviet government set up Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mill, which specialized in pulp chemical bleaching, a process known to cause significant environmental damage if its byproducts are released in waterways. Its construction is believed to have sparked the Soviet ecological movement, with activists working for decades to shut down the plant considered the lakes main polluter. The Russian government long conceded the mill was polluting the lake, but the fear of unrest in Baikalsk, a town born along with the factory and fully dependent on it, kept it alive for years. The outrage over the harmful industry carried over into modern Russia, and the plant was eventually shut down in 2013, but ecological reasons hardly drove the decision. The mill amassed debts, and the business was deemed unviable. The huge dilapidated buildings now stand silent and abandoned, but the danger to Baikal, however, remains. According to the Russian state news agency TASS, the factorys reservoirs have over half a century accumulated at least 6.5 million tons of dangerous toxic waste contained to this day in rusty tanks and man-made ponds. Waste containers at the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill CNNScientists worry that since its abandonment, the mill has become even more dangerous to Baikal, with polluted waste water stretching two kilometers into the lake, compared to about 200 meters seven years ago. As soon as the storage ponds overflow, streams run into Baikal, Alexander Suturin, a head scientist with the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, told TASS. Secondly, there is a large amount of accumulated waste water sitting under the site. When the plant was operating, the water was pumped out and discharged to treatment facilities, now there are no treatment facilities, but the contamination remains and is leaking into Baikal.Local authorities have made efforts to contain tanks or even remove waste water altogether, swapping several contractors, but have so far struggled to find a long-term solution. The latest subcontractor has been tasked with eliminating the waste by 2024, state media reported. Environmentalists like Ryabtsev and Kolotov worry that Russias inconsistent environmental policy wont get to grips with what the past few decades of human activity have already done to unique places like Baikal, which after more than 25 million years of existence could be on a path of irrevocable decline. We are extremely concerned about this invasion into untouched lands and the UNESCO heritage sites, Kolotov said. Russia signed up to protect these sites, but in reality ... it turns out these sites sometimes need protection even from those who were supposed to protect them. LAKE BAIKAL, Russia Along the shores of a lake considered deeper and older than any other, there is a place some locals regard as sacred. It is here, in Lake Baikals Olkhon Island settlement, that the cremated remains of shamans were placed inside the trees, many townspeople say. Four years ago, a Russian family moved to the village and bought a plot of land within the shaman forest, now considered part of a national park. The garish pink house they built has come to represent the growing divisions over Lake Baikal about 2,700 miles east of Moscow as it becomes an increasingly popular destination for East Asian tourists and, with the pandemic restricting international travel, Russians, too. For some, the land should never have been sold to start with. The pink house embodies the rapid development encroaching on a precious ecosystem, home to more than 2,500 species and subspecies of animals, half of which exist only here. For others, the outrage over the pink house is seen as backward thinking. They point to environmental restrictions that many locals say hold back the potential of tourism in a region that has grown dependent on the industry. Its become like a symbol, said tour guide Yulia Fedeeva. Everyone here knows about the pink house.A pink house built in a controversial place, a shaman grove on Olkhon Island in Russia. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) Yulia Fadeeva, Baikal guide and environmental activist, stands against the background of ice painted with colored smoke. A group of activists made sure such toxic smoke was no longer used in grottoes and did not stain natural objects. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)LEFT: A pink house built in a controversial place, a shaman grove on Olkhon Island in Russia. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) RIGHT: Yulia Fadeeva, Baikal guide and environmental activist, stands against the background of ice painted with colored smoke. A group of activists made sure such toxic smoke was no longer used in grottoes and did not stain natural objects. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)The Russian government has already moved to develop other environmentally sensitive areas in Siberia and the Arctic to tap energy resources and secure potential shipping corridors as climate change opens new routes. Baikal, however, is a particularly delicate battle for the Kremlin. The lake has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and for many Russians, its unspoiled grandeur is part of the nations identity. Moscow this year significantly weakened the legislation that protects Baikal and was part of the UNESCO conditions. Activities now allowed include restricted logging, construction of large food-processing facilities and waste incineration. Most worrying for activists and scientists is that there will be more pink houses land-grabbing that will lead to the construction of residential and tourism facilities in previously untouched areas. It destroys the most vulnerable coastal landscape, said Eugene Simonov, a coordinator of the Rivers without Boundaries international coalition. Meanwhile, Russia has declared 2021 the Year of Baikal, inviting even more people to visit. Home of the nerpaLake Baikal, cutting into Siberias Taiga forest north of the Mongolian border, is a mile deep in some places and believed to be 25 million years old. It contains 20 percent of the worlds surface fresh water and is home to the Baikal seal, or nerpa, the only freshwater seal species. During the winter freeze, the ice is both remarkably clear and sturdy enough for cars to drive across. The temperature dropped to as low as minus-38 degrees Celsius (minus-32.8 Fahrenheit) on Feb. 1, according to weather experts. For those who live near the lake, it has an aura of mysticism tied to the areas strong belief in shamanism, a spiritual practice linking energy forces and nature. Many make wishes while standing beside it. Some refer to it as if it were a person, or even a close friend. But its waters are no longer clean enough to drink after years of sewage discharge. The new list of permitted but regulated activities is loaded with potential exceptions, activists say. For example, logging is allowed only for sanitary clear-cutting of trees affected by pests. Mikhail Kreyndlin, a Greenpeace lawyer and expert on protected areas, said that measure could invite more-extensive timber harvesting under rules that are difficult to enforce. Clear-cutting risks exacerbating the forest fires that have devastated Siberia in recent years. During a five-hour drive from the city of Irkutsk to the Olkhon Island territory, trucks headed in the opposite direction with logs were a frequent sight. Environmentalists have raised alarms that legislation regulating the lakes minimum and maximum water levels, controlled by a dam, could similarly be sidestepped. This has been a recurring point of contention between business executives and activists. Entire industries in the area especially companies profiting off hydroelectricity depend on manipulating the levels. But raising the water level is a danger to Baikals unique fish species, some of which live or have their nurseries in warmer, shallow depths. A crack in the ice of Lake Baikal with open water. Cars and people go under the ice every year. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)You basically kill whatever is being grown in these nurseries with the influx of cold water, said Simonov, of Rivers without Boundaries. The population of omul, a Baikal white fish, was one of the species that suffered from water-level manipulation. Omul stocks declined so severely that all commercial fishing was banned in 2017. Though Baikal is not currently listed as a site in danger, UNESCO plans to review the lakes state of conservation in July. The director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, Mechtild Rossler, said in a statement that the U.N. agency has not been receiving the necessary environmental assessments from the Russian government. We are indeed very concerned about reports on the weakening of this protection status and have contacted the authorities of the Russian Federation in this regard, but so far have not received any further information, Rossler said. The Irkutsk regions governor, Igor Kobzev, told The Washington Post he will not sign a single document if there are objections from ecological organizations.We will be looking for compromises and will openly discuss all the issues, Kobzev said. But local scientists said their objections have so far been ignored. For several months, we were fighting to at least have some explanation at every meeting and every roundtable, said Marina Rikhanova, an Irkutsk-based environmentalist and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, considered the Green Nobel.We can only conclude, she added, that all of these [environmental rule] changes are needed for some private or financial interests." Tourisms tollGala Sibiryakova grew up in Listvyanka, a small town near the point where the Angara River meets Baikal. Deer used to come to her doorstep. Now the waterfront is a row of hotels and restaurants to accommodate the rising number of tourists. The changes disgusted Sibiryakova. Fifteen years ago, she moved to a different spot along the lake the remote Khuzhir village on Olkhon Island, which has a population of roughly 1,500. Electricity was a novelty there at the time. Then tourism came here, too, Sibiryakova said. Now my friends laugh at me and ask where will I go next.Olkhon Island has become the go-to spot for visitors to Baikal. In the summer, it is accessible by ferry. In the winter, scores of wagons, called bukhankas, carry up to eight passengers across a makeshift ice road on the lake. Some vehicles tow inflatable banana boats across the ice. Illegal bathhouse on Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) Ice sculptures near Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) A typical Baikal transport, or "bukhanka," for tourists on Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)TOP: Illegal bathhouse on Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) BOTTOM LEFT: Ice sculptures near Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) BOTTOM RIGHT: A typical Baikal transport, or "bukhanka," for tourists on Olkhon Island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)Cigarette butts and candy wrappers litter the ice. Depressions are made for a French kiss sucking a shot of alcohol from the divot and then chasing it with berries. Some tourists wrap colorful ribbons on the trees, copying a shamanistic prayer practice. Activists later cut them off because the ribbons weigh down the trees and cause branches to break. Fedeeva, the local tour guide, said clients often want to light colorful smoke flares near the openings of ice caves to create a unique Instagram photo. (She refuses, believing it to be harmful to the caves.) Anyone entering those caves or enclosed grottoes also must be mindful of where they step they are popular for bathroom breaks. My grandmother used to tell me that if youre angry or in a bad mood, you shouldnt even look at Baikal because you dont want your bad thoughts to taint it, Sibiryakova said. Now people pee on it.Gala Sibiryakova with her husband, Fedor, and daughter, Radana. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)She worked locally for the national park service for three years. Among the most frustrating parts of the job was the ineffectiveness of the existing rules, she said. The fine for placing a portable sauna near the shore, a clear hazard to the lake, is 3,000 rubles, or about $40, but the saunas will happily accept those fines when they charge 2,000 rubles ($27) for one hour. Tourists also build bonfires along the lake, Sibiryakova said, a threat to the many animals and plants. She resigned from her job with the park service recently because she disagreed with some of her colleagues who she said are considering approval for glamping luxury camping on Sarayskiy Plyazh, the beach beside the shaman forest. People need to learn that some places are off-limits, she said. Some areas have to be protected. But people dont want to be told that they cant do something.Rapid developmentNatalya Bencharova grew up in Moscow. In 1995, she visited Baikal and fell in love at first sight. She eventually left behind a well-paying job and moved to Khuzhir, where she and her husband, Nikita, have run the villages oldest guesthouse for more than 20 years. Their early days there were difficult as money was tight. But then the tourists started to come, and the residents of Khuzhir realized renting a few spare rooms could be a profitable business. It became clear the village needed new sources of income, and tourism became the answer, Bencharova said. When we got electricity, a huge tourist boom followed.Interior of Bencharov's house in Irkutsk. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)Interior of Bencharov's house in Irkutsk. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)Khuzhir now has cell towers, schools and art programs even more sophisticated than those in Irkutsk, a Siberian city of about 600,000. Yet residents of Khuzhir are still locked in conflict between those who say the area is suffering from over-tourism and those who depend on the steady flow of visitors to put food on the table. I dont think theres such a thing as over-tourism, said Semyon Mayor, who owns a local tour company. I have a dream that one day well have a cable car on Olkhon Island.Though quaint guesthouses remain in Khuzhir, several multilevel hotels have popped up some owned by Chinese investors. One hotel was built directly on the shore and is now an empty eyesore, deemed illegal for violating environmental regulations. Another one nearby, the upscale Port Olkhon, was ordered to be demolished by regional authorities, but it continues to rent rooms to those who know the right number to call. Were all waitingOn the shore opposite Khuzhir across the Maloe More, or small sea in English a road was recently constructed leading along the coastline, alarming local activists who fear it signals the next spot for development. Were always told there needs to be some kind of balance between protecting the lake and development, said Vitaly Ryabtsev, a local environmental activist. But wheres the balance? We have a huge imbalance when development commands everything and defeats any conflicts of interests.Bencharova used to regularly attend the community meetings where debates on that question would devolve into shouting. She disagrees with Ryabtsev on most fronts, insisting that her livelihood comes first. However, she agreed that Khuzhirs development has now gone too far. Construction of a new high-speed highway along the coast of Lake Baikal, Maloye More region. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post)When you have 10 rubles today and then 20 rubles tomorrow and then 500 rubles and then suddenly 100,000 rubles, a person loses their sense of boundary, Bencharova said. And obviously, this became very bad, the endless construction. Six months pass, and theres another hotel.The infamous pink house remains part of the struggles over Lake Baikals future. In 2019, the owner of the pink house died of a heart attack. His wife told local news outlets that the couple had received constant harassment for building their home. She continues to live there as questions about the structures future and whether it might have to be demolished are being decided in court. If she wins, the other plots here will be developed, too, said Fedeeva, the local tour guide. Were all waiting to see what happens next.Ice grottoes on the Kharantsy island. (Elena Anosova for The Washington Post) | 2 |
###CLAIM: we are consulting with our fec campaign attorneys to ensure that our relationship may not be a legal issue.
###DOCS: Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has paid nearly $2.8 million to her husband's political consulting firm so far in the 2019-2020 election cycle, including nearly 70% of her third-quarter disbursements. Federal Election Commission data shows that Omar's campaign sent $1.6 million to E Street Group LLC, which is owned by her husband Tim Mynett, from the start of 2019 through Jul. 22, 2020. After that, she reported an additional $1.1 million in the third quarter and $27,000 in the following weeks. That $1.1 million constituted nearly 70% of the $1.6 million that Omar's campaign spent that quarter. The expenses covered a range of services, including cable advertising, "digital consulting," video production and editing. Omar handily won re-election last week amid criticism surrounding the way she financed her campaign. She married Mynett, a campaign consultant, in March after having funneled more than $500,000 to his firm by that point. ILHAN OMAR PAID $878G TO NEW HUSBAND'S CONSULTING FIRM, DATA SHOW: REPORTNeither Omar's office, her campaign, nor E Street immediately responded to Fox News' requests for comment. The Minnesota congresswoman previously tweeted a lengthy thread in which she defended her expenses. She claimed that her relationship with her husband began long after her campaign started working with his firm. "We consulted with a top FEC campaign attorney to ensure there were no possible legal issues with our relationship," she said. "We were told this is not uncommon and that no, there werent." The payments are possible because of a 1960s federal anti-nepotism statute that prohibits members of Congress from hiring relatives for government jobs but does not block family members from doing campaign work, a former chief ethics lawyer from the administration of former President George W. Bush told The New York Post. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"It should not be allowed," attorney Richard Painter said. "I think its a horrible idea to allow it, given the amount of money that goes into these campaigns from special interests." Painter ran as a Democrat for a Minnesota Senate seat in 2018, but lost to Sen. Tina Smith in the primary. Omar and Mynett wed after she divorced her then-husband in November of 2019. Although Omar denied having an affair, divorce papers from Mynett's ex-wife alleged the opposite. Fox News' Dom Callichio contributed to this report. | 0 |
###CLAIM: the left-wingers, robin and gosens, said it was inspirational to allow fans to return to the stadium and simply huge.
###DOCS: FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 18, 2020 file photo shows the 'Allianz Arena' stadium prior to the German Bundesliga soccer match between FC Bayern Munich and Schalke 04 in Munich, Germany. The Bavarian state government says the Allianz Arena in Munich will fill about 20% of its capacity for games during the European Championship. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, file)FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 18, 2020 file photo shows the 'Allianz Arena' stadium prior to the German Bundesliga soccer match between FC Bayern Munich and Schalke 04 in Munich, Germany. The Bavarian state government says the Allianz Arena in Munich will fill about 20% of its capacity for games during the European Championship. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, file)MUNICH (AP) The Allianz Arena in Munich will fill about 20% of its capacity for games during the European Championship, the state government for Bavaria said Friday. The 20% limit means about 14,000 fans will be able attend Euro 2020 matches in the 75,000-seat stadium. The European soccer championship is a special situation, Bavaria governor Markus Soder said, adding the games would be a pilot and test project for further professional sports in Germany.Soder said spectators would need masks, that there may be a need for coronavirus testing, and that the stadium would be organized to prevent crowds from forming when fans are entering and leaving. German officials had previously refused to guarantee that fans would be allowed in for the three group games and one quarterfinal game in Munich. That led to tension with UEFA. A falling coronavirus infection rate across Germany led to a limited return of fans at some Bundesliga games last month for the first time this year, though Bayern Munich was only allowed 250 spectators. Germany is at home for all three of the group games, hosting France on June 15, Portugal on June 19 and Hungary on June 23. Separately, the German soccer federation said it had clearance to play Mondays friendly against Latvia in Dusseldorf in front of 1,000 fans. The federation said it would hand out the tickets to people working in sectors affected by the pandemic, including people involved in vaccinations. Its inspiring and simply huge that fans are allowed back into the stadium, Germany left back Robin Gosens said. Im happy for us but in general too because the rates (of infection) are dropping.___More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports MUNICH, Germany, June 4 (Reuters) - Some 14,000 fans will be allowed to attend Euro 2020 matches in Munich's Allianz Arena this month if infection rates in Bavaria remain as low as at the moment, Bavarian State Premier Markus Soeder said on Friday. "We believe it is possible to have up to 20%, about 14,000 (in the stadium)," Soeder told a news conference. "The Euro is a special situation." "We looked at it carefully. This could be a pilot and test for other professional sports. It is an outstanding test." Germany had not provided guarantees for a minimum number of fans, as requested by European soccer's governing body UEFA, when the city was confirmed as a Euro host. The Allianz Arena is due to host Germany's three Group F matches against world champions France on June 15, holders Portugal four days later and Hungary on June 23. The stadium will also host one quarter-final match. Euro 2020 was postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will run from June 11-July 11, played out in 11 host cities across the continent. COVID-19 cases have been dropping in Germany in recent weeks. On Friday officials announced 3,165 confirmed cases nationwide. Reporting by Karolos Grohmann Editing by Toby DavisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 2 |
###CLAIM: stitt, who is seeking his first term as a republican, reiterated campaign promises monday that any anti-abortion measure signed by the legislature would be sent to the
###DOCS: FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2021 file photo, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks during a news conference in Oklahoma City. Gov. Stitt is signing three anti-abortion bills into law. Stitt announced on Twitter Monday, April 26, 2021, that he'd signed bills requiring physicians who perform abortions to be certified in obstetrics, adding performing abortions to the list of unprofessional conduct by doctors and prohibiting abortions of a fetal heartbeat is detected. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki File)FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2021 file photo, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks during a news conference in Oklahoma City. Gov. Stitt is signing three anti-abortion bills into law. Stitt announced on Twitter Monday, April 26, 2021, that he'd signed bills requiring physicians who perform abortions to be certified in obstetrics, adding performing abortions to the list of unprofessional conduct by doctors and prohibiting abortions of a fetal heartbeat is detected. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki File)OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed three anti-abortion bills into law on Monday, including ones to criminalize the procedure in certain cases and cost providers their medical licenses for performing them. The Republican-controlled Senate passed measures requiring physicians who perform abortions to be certified in obstetrics and gynecology, adding performing an abortion to the list of unprofessional conduct by doctors, and prohibiting abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected. In the case of the fetal-heartbeat bill, any doctor who performs an abortion after detecting a heartbeat would be guilty of homicide. ADVERTISEMENTEmbryonic cardiac activity can be detected using vaginal ultrasounds as early as 6 weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. Less-invasive abdominal ultrasounds can detect a heartbeat a few weeks later. The bills have been criticized by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which has successfully sued to overturn numerous anti-abortion laws in recent years. These extreme bills are designed to cut off abortion access for people in Oklahoma a state that already has more abortion restrictions than almost any other state, Elisabeth Smith, the centers chief counsel for state policy, said in a statement. We are currently considering all our legal options to ensure that these laws do not take effect and abortion remains accessible for Oklahomans.Several other anti-abortion bills are still awaiting the governors signature, including a trigger bill that would immediately outlaw abortion in Oklahoma if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion. At least 10 states have similar laws, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. Stitt, a Republican in his first term, reiterated Monday his campaign promise to sign any anti-abortion measure that the Legislature sends to him. We want to be the most pro-life state in the country, and I want to be the most pro-life governor, Stitt said. Oklahoma is one of several states where GOP gains are lending more momentum to prohibitions on the procedure. Stitt also said he signed a bill to make Oklahoma a so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary State. The bill declares any federal, state, county or municipal act, law or order to confiscate or buy back firearms to be unconstitutional. Stitt on Monday also signed a bill to overhaul the states employee human resources system. The bill would eliminate the classified and unclassified designation of state employees and make it easier for agency leaders to hire, fire and promote employees. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) on Monday signed three bills seeking to restrict abortion in the state, including one piece of legislation that bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. One of the bills bans the procedure at the 20-week mark, while the other two require health care providers give pregnant people the option of viewing an ultrasound before having an abortion and place restrictions on abortion pills. The latter bill, known as HB171, would require that abortion pills be administered in-person, rather than through a virtual visit or other options. Gianforte on Twitter lauded the legislation and shared that life if precious and ought to be protected.Life is precious and ought to be protected. Today, I proudly signed into law bills to protect the life of our most vulnerable, the unborn. pic.twitter.com/RDYnE71gmM Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) April 26, 2021Opponents of the bills argue that they interfere with the decision between people seeking abortions and their health care providers, The Associated Press reported. Critics of HB171 also say the law will disproportionately target low-income, rural and Native American people in the state seeking abortions. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Monday also signed three anti-abortion bills into law, including one that would mean doctors who perform the procedure would be charged with homicide under certain circumstances. | 2 |
###CLAIM: research has analyzed the cost of financing energy projects by tracking the spread of loans, determining how high return-earners expect their returns to cover investment risks.
###DOCS: Coal financing costs have surged over the last decade as investors demand returns four times as high as the payoff required from renewable energy projects to justify the risk of investing in fossil fuels, as the world moves towards cleaner energy sources. A University of Oxford study found that over the same period the cost of investing in renewable energy sources, such as windfarms and solar arrays, has tumbled as the clean energy technologies prove they can be cost-effective and lucrative investments. The research analysed the cost of financing energy projects by tracking the loan spreads offered by lenders which determine how high they expect their returns to be to cover the risk of investing. Investors typically require wind and solar energy projects to make returns of at least 10% to 11% to account for the low risk of the investment. But for investments in coal, returns need to rocket to 40% to justify the rising risk that a high-polluting project might be left stranded as governments ramp up their climate action ambitions. The report collated financing costs for renewable energy over a five-year period from 2010 to 2014 compared with loan costs between 2015 and 2020. It found that the cost of financing solar farms has fallen by 20%, while the cost of financing onshore and offshore windfarms has fallen by 15% and 33%, respectively. While Europe led the way in falling costs for offshore windfarms, Australia took the lead in driving down financing costs for onshore wind, and solar financing costs fell fastest in North America. But investors are demanding higher returns from coal projects, which has caused their financing costs to climb. Loan spreads for power stations and coalmines have increased sharply, at 38% and 54%, respectively. Caldecott added that the steep hike in costs for coalmines and coal-fired power plants proves that the risk of investing in fossil fuels during the transition to cleaner energy sources, which are sometimes viewed as distant, long-term risks, was already priced in today. The challenge is that this isnt happening evenly and certainly isnt occurring at the pace required to tackle climate change. In particular, financing costs will need to rise for oil and gas projects, he said. The financial constraints which have tightened around the coal industry since the shift towards cleaner energy began have not materialised to the same extent for the oil and gas industry, according to the research. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskThe report found that the cost of financing gas-fired power plants climbed 7% over the last decade, but for coal plants costs have surged by 38% over a similar period. While the financing costs linked to coal mining have climbed by 58%, the cost of financing oil and gas production has climbed by only 3% over the last decade. In the case of offshore oil production, costs have fallen by over 40%. Dr Xiaoyan Zhou, also from the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme and the lead author of the report, said that the trend toward climate-conscious investing could see the cost of capital for oil and gas go the way of coal, which could have very significant implications for the economics of oil and gas projects around the world. This could result in stranded assets and introduce substantial refinancing risks, she said. | 1 |
###CLAIM: these include the treatment of women in town as objects to gain privileges, and often becoming the mistress of the powerful male owners of resorts.
###DOCS: CNN Residents of a small town in central Japan have overwhelmingly voted to remove the local councils only female member after she accused the mayor of sexual assault. Shoko Arai, 51, was voted out on Sunday in Kusatsu, which is famous for its natural hot springs and resorts. The dismissal request claimed Arais allegations had degraded the women of the Gunma prefecture town. In total, 92% of votes lodged demanded her removal, according to Kusatsu officials. The controversy began in November last year, when Arai published an e-book claiming she had been forced into a sexual relationship with the towns mayor, Tadanobu Kuroiwa. A photo of Kusatsu town, in Japan's Gunma prefecture, on June 27, 2020. Soichiro Koriyama/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA motion to fire the mayor was voted down, and Arai was expelled from the assembly a month later. However, the expulsion was appealed, and ultimately reversed by the prefecture. After she was reinstated, a group of 19 residents led by council chairman Takashi Kuroiwa sent a dismissal request to the council, prompting the residential referendum that unseated Arai last weekend. The dismissal request also claimed that Arais statements to media about the assault allegations had hurt Kusatsus reputation. It pointed to several specific remarks Arai had made, including ones that town women were treated as objects, and that women often became mistresses to powerful male resort owners to gain privileges. The request pointed out that the mayor had denied the allegations, and Arais salary as a council member was a waste of taxpayer money. In an official response to the council, Arai said the mayor and other council members calling for her removal were the ones damaging the towns dignity and reputation. Her ousting on Sunday has pushed the resort town into the national spotlight. Since the weekend, the town hall has received dozens of calls criticizing Arais dismissal, mostly coming from outside the town, said Kusatsu official Kenji Hagiwara. Many callers called the decision unfair and sexist. This is an unprecedented situation, Hagiwara told CNN. We worry the image of this town is damaged.Sexism and power in JapanJapan ranked 121 out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forums latest global gender gap index. There are far fewer working women than men in the country and those who do work are often sidelined or blocked from senior management roles. At home, too, women take on the bulk of domestic work like childcare, cooking, and cleaning. The gap widens further in politics. As of October this year, 46 of 465 lower house lawmakers in Japan were women. Thats fewer than 10%, compared to a 25% global average. Participants march on Women's Day in Tokyo, Japan, on March 8, 2019. Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesFormer Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged in 2013 to close the gender employment gap, a policy dubbed Womenomics. The campaign has pushed a number of measures, like setting targets of at least one female executive per company and offering tax incentives to companies that encourage mothers to return to work. But seven years on, the campaign has had limited success, with gender discrimination and inequality still rife. The #MeToo movement led to concrete progress in other countries and a shift in cultural conversation but it was met with resistance in Japan. In a case that gained international attention in 2017, freelance journalist Shiori Ito alleged a high-profile journalist had invited her to dinner two years prior, and then raped her. The response was far from supportive she received threats, backlash on social media, and even fled Japan, fearing for her and her familys safety. Even authorities tried to discourage her from pursuing legal action, she said. She won a civil case in December 2019, with the judge ordering her attacker to pay 3.3 million yen ($31,000), in damages. Ito had sought 11 million yen ($105,000) to compensate for her physical and emotional suffering. The win was celebrated by her supporters as a step toward justice but a win doesnt wipe away everything that happened, she told reporters after the ruling. I need to face my emotional scars from now. This is not the end.Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Tadanobu Kuroiwa is the mayor of Kusatsu, and Takashi Kuroiwa is council chairman. | 1 |
###CLAIM: taiwan hailed the example of how the pandemic was handled last year as a `` shining example, '' after a straight 253 days gone with no reports infected.
###DOCS: Taiwan seeing rise in COVID-19 infections after being largely spared in 2020 Taiwan is seeing a steep rise in daily confirmed COVID-19 cases as the virus surges across the island. Taiwan was hailed as a shining example of how to handle the pandemic last year, after going 253 straight days with zero reported infections. CBS News Asia correspondent Ramy Inocencio joined CBSN AM with the latest. | 0 |
###CLAIM: villagers say tension has risen in recent months, including other reports of vandalism such as rope cutting, amid months of tension between outsiders and locals in the area around the vandalized sailing boats.
###DOCS: A Cornish fisherman's sailing boat was vandalised by a second home owner angry because its mast spoiled their view, he has claimed. Mike Bastian, 66, a lifelong oyster dredger, had to call the police after his 'pride and joy' was nearly sunk in a 'calculated' attack. Mr Bastian, who has been working and living in the village of Feock all his life, was left devastated when his boat was severely damaged. It was left on a council-owned beach once the oyster fishing season drew to a close at the end of March. But last Thursday evening Mike received a call to say the leg of the boat had been removed, the anchor had been chucked away and the battery had been smashed in. Mike Bastian, 66, with his boat which is docked in Penpol Creek in Cornwall. Mike's daughter Erin, 32, said she suspected the culprit was a second home owner living in the village. People in the area are in a battle with second home owners - and Erin said the vandalism was another example of locals being 'bullied out'. Mr Bastian has strong suspicions who the boat vandal is after hearing about other locals and their encounters with an 'abusive' man. The father-of-three said: 'I'm still fuming about it. I'm hoping the police are going to follow up on it. Mr Bastian's family had to rush to the beach to salvage the boat (pictured) in the early hours - before it flooded during a high tideMr Bastian, a lifelong oyster dredger, had to call the police after his 'pride and joy' was nearly sunk in a 'calculated' attack. Mr Bastian is pictured with his daughter Erin, 32'I'm moving my boat later today. I can't live eight miles from a boat worrying about it all the time. Every time you come round the corner you don't know whether it will be stood up or fallen over. 'A friend of mine has come up with a photograph of this guy. The suspicions in the village that it's him are because he's abused so many people. 'People like that who continually abuse people, people do the same things over and over again and he is one of them. I've heard there are families terrified of him.' Erin, who owns her own kayaking business, believes there are a number of residents who would take offence to seeing boats on the beach - since it would 'spoil' their view. She said: 'My dad saved this year for a new boat, his pride and joy, an old wooden working boat. 'This week someone has callously damaged my dad's boat by digging up his anchor and unbolting one of his support legs. 'To be honest through local contacts and a lot of local gossip there's an idea between local people who it might have been. 'That's obviously all speculation but you put two and two together. 'Effectively where the public beach is - where people have stored their boats for as long as my dad can remember - there are lots of big, big houses which look over across the creek. The boat has been repaired and is now docked at Penpol Creek with a sign warning others to stay awayMr Bastian (pictured) has strong suspicions who the boat vandal is after hearing about other locals and their encounters with a second home ownerErin thinks the vandalism was pre-meditated rather than a random attack because of the damage caused. Pictured, the boat before it was vandalised'I guess the boat's mast would have been in the view of one of those. 'This is all speculation, but I can imagine that's it - people are protective of their lands, views and beautiful massive second homes. Village where 'tensions have been bubbling for months' between 'outsiders' and locals Locals in the area around where a sailing boat was vandalised said there have been rising tensions in recent months - including other reports of vandalism such as a rope being cut. But neighbours say locals are reluctant to speak about it due to concerns about the behaviour of one 'incomer' family. This is a local phrase use to refer to an 'outsider' who has made money elsewhere and used it to buy up an expensive home in Cornwall. One resident, who did not want to be named, said: 'The person involved is an incomer who has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people in the local area so villagers are scared of challenging him. You'll struggle to find someone who will speak out openly against him, even though everyone knows what he is like.' Other locals reacted with fury at the incident by commenting on social media. Stef Tepper said: 'Sorry to hear this. It's about time second homes are stopped. If you are lucky enough to be able to live in Cornwall then you should respect the locals and local industries.' Jude Hall added: 'Boats in the area are a great draw for most people. This is disgusting and the vandals must be punished.' But others warned people not to jump to conclusions about the perpetrator and called for more understanding and acceptance of 'incomers' and 'second home owners.' David Owens added: 'I just cannot understand why people, whoever they are, would want to do this disgraceful act. These boats Falmouth Quay Punts or Falmouth Working have been a part of the Fal a lot longer than us. To me they are a beautiful sight to behold in full sail.' Rosemary Bennett added: 'In the past the Cornish were incomers all over the world and in the British Isles too and still today many choose to leave the county for better opportunities elsewhere. How do you think they were and are received by the locals?' Maurice Parry added: 'Get the police to investigate, take forensics and find out. Locals or not, the culprits can be found then blame can be pointed at the actual perpetrators rather than assumptions.' Sarah Hill said: 'I have never known such un welcoming people in such a beautiful place to non Cornish people. Always blaming outsiders first without evidence. Shame the people aren't as nice as Cornwall itself. 'They are always blaming others and it is very tiresome to keep hearing it.' Advertisement'They're not the people who think having working boats on the beach is a nice addition which adds character to their Cornish lifestyle.' Erin thinks the vandalism was pre-meditated rather than a random attack because of the damage caused. 'Either side of the boat you have a support leg - so when there is no water it sits upright,' she added. 'They are bolted on so someone had to physically remove them. It seemed strange - it was such calculated damage. 'They didn't directly damage the boat - but did enough to it that the next high tide would have pretty much wiped the whole boat out.' Erin says she was then brought to tears the following morning when she was sworn at and told to leave the village by a passer-by. She suspects the onslaught, which came as she went down to check on the boat's condition in daylight, was from a second homeowner not local to the area. 'The next morning I parked my van in the village to check the boat and this chap was extremely verbally abusive to me for no real reason,' she said. 'I wasn't welcome, even when I told him I wasn't a tourist. 'I told him I was local and I was just checking my dad's boat. He threatened to call the police on me for parking my van in a pubic council car park? 'I have to admit his aggressive and unnecessary confrontation reduced me to tears.' Erin said she and her father don't have any evidence to accuse anyone of vandalism, but police are looking into it and Mr Bastian has been given a case number. 'I am mortified to see my dad's livelihood vandalised,' she added. 'His boat without support legs has fallen over, leaving it vulnerable to being swamped by sea water, all because of someone's appalling intentions to intimidate and threaten a local fisherman from using a public foreshore. 'I find it shocking that a local person could do this to another - to actively damage another's livelihood so callously in such a calculated manner.' Erin and her father will now be moving their boat to another mooring to avoid the same thing happening again. She added: 'I find it upsetting that there's a friction between local people trying to make a living, who have grown up in the area, and people who buy nice houses and move In from somewhere else. 'They have different expectations of a place. 'Everybody's entitled to live wherever they want- but it upsets me how you can move to an area and try to change it - rather than embracing how it is, how it works and how the local people are.' 'I feel people need to know the problems that do occur between local fisherman trying to make a living and giant house owners.' A statement from Devon and Cornwall Police said: 'We received a report that a fishing boat was damaged at a beach at Penpol Creek, Feock, sometime between 6pm on Wednesday 21 April and noon on Thursday 22 April. 'The vessel's owner found it on its side after its leg had been removed. Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101, or email [email protected], quoting crime reference CR/032137/21.' Erin says she was then brought to tears the following morning when she was sworn at and told to leave the village by a passer-by. Pictured, the vandalised boat as Mr Bastian works on it | 0 |
###CLAIM: china has turned to indonesia, the world 's top thermal coal exporter, to plug some of the gap caused by the absence of australian cargos offering similar quality coal, and buy more from the two countries and russia and south africa.
###DOCS: LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) - China is paying a high price for its unofficial ban on coal imports from Australia, with the cost of domestic and alternative foreign supplies rising for both thermal and coking grades of the fuel. Smoke is seen from chimneys at a coal-fired heating station next to new apartment blocks in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee u000dChina, the worlds biggest importer, producer and consumer of coal, has effectively ended imports from Australia, the biggest shipper of coking coal used to make steel and number two in thermal coal used to produce electricity, as part of an ongoing political dispute between the two nations. The restrictions on imports from Australia came into effect in the second half of last year, resulting in Chinas imports dropping to virtually zero in the first two months of this year from a 2020 high of 9.46 million tonnes in June, according to Refinitiv vessel-tracking and port data. However, Chinas consumers of imported coal have been facing higher costs, with prices for alternatives to supplies from Australia, both local and foreign, rising as the market adjusts to the unofficial ban. In coking coal, the price of free-on-board Australian cargoes has been weakening since the ban was imposed, apart from the usual seasonal gain for the northern hemisphere winter. The Singapore Exchange contract for Australian coking coal ended at $113.71 a tonne on Thursday, down 18.8% from the $140 that it reached at the start of October, just as the Chinese ban was coming into effect. If a Chinese importer switched from Australian cargoes to those from the United States, the price difference has entirely reversed since the ban started to affect flows. Coking coal free-on-board at the U.S. east coast port of Hampton Roads, as assessed by commodity price reporting agency Argus, has surged to $152.75 on Thursday from $114 a tonne at the start of October last year, a gain of 34%. This means that U.S. coking coal is currently about $39 a tonne more expensive that supplies from Australia, and this doesnt account for the higher shipping costs given the longer distance from the U.S. east coast to China. Chinas domestic coking coal price has also been gaining since the restrictions on imports from Australia, with Dalian Commodity Exchange futures rising 16% from 1,353 yuan ($206.56) a tonne at the start of October to end at 1,573 yuan on Thursday. This price isnt directly comparable to the free-on-board prices in Australia and the United States, as it includes freight and other costs as well as import taxes and duties. However, it does show that Chinese domestic prices have been pushed higher, partially reflecting the higher cost of imports from sources other than Australia. Chinas neighbour Mongolia has become its biggest supplier of coking coal, meeting 61.7% of imports in the first two months of this year, up from just 17.7% in the same period in 2020, according to official data. Australias share of imports came down to zero from 68.4% in January-February 2020, according to the data, while the United States boosted its share to 9.1% from under 2%, and Canada went to 12.1% from 6.1%. While coking coal supplies from Mongolia are cheaper than those from seaborne alternatives, its believed that they tend to track Chinese domestic prices, meaning its likely that they have risen sharply as well, especially once transportation and washing costs are factored in. DOMESTIC THERMAL COAL PAINFor thermal coal, the main impact from the ban of Australian cargoes appears to have been strength in Chinese domestic prices, with benchmark coal at Qinhuangdao, as assessed by SteelHome, closing at 747 yuan a tonne on Thursday, equivalent to about $114. While this is down from the winter peak of 1,038 yuan a tonne, its still 22% higher than the 612 yuan that prevailed at the start of October. Its also believed that the Chinese authorities prefer a domestic thermal coal price in a range between 530 to 580 yuan a tonne, a level said to secure the profitability of mines while keeping electricity prices competitive. China has turned to Indonesia, the worlds top exporter of thermal coal, to plug some of the gap caused by the absence of Australian cargoes, as well as buying more from Russia and South Africa, two countries that can offer similar quality coal to Australia. But boosting supplies from these countries appears to have done little to lower domestic prices, meaning Chinese users are still paying substantially more for the fuel than what they were prior to the ban of Australian coal. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. BEIJING/CHENNAI, April 8 (Reuters) - India and Indonesia have emerged as key beneficiaries of a Chinese ban on Australias coal exports which is expected to further shift global trade in the fuel used for power generation and steelmaking this year. Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, will continue to benefit from growing Indian demand for its coal, made cheaper after it was shunned by China, analysts said. Coal traders and buyers expect India's buying spree of Australian coal to last into next year due to its price and quality. China has targeted various Australian products with unofficial import restrictions since March 2020 as relations between the two countries soured. The ban has also benefited coal exporters in Indonesia, Mongolia and Russia as Chinas buyers switched suppliers, according to the latest Chinese customs data. Indonesias coal miners signed a $1.5 billion supply deal with China in November. "Global trade flows will be self-adjusting with Australian coal flowing to Indian and European markets and South African and Colombian sources coming into China," said Winston Han, chief analyst from China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association at a Coaltrans seminar this week. As the largest consumer of most commodities apart from oil, China has long had a heavy influence on resources trade through its sheer size. But the ban has particularly benefited Indian buyers, while Chinese importers are complaining that they are having to pay more for lower quality coal from other countries. Indian cement companies last year started snapping up cargoes of Australian coal that were being offered at steep discounts after being turned away from China, said Kirit C Gandhi, joint president at Indian cement firm Shree Cement (SHCM.NS). India became the second-biggest buyer of Australian thermal coal in February, according to data from consultancy Lavi Coal Info, as it bought less coal from its traditional suppliers Indonesia and South Africa. Australia, already India's biggest supplier of metallurgical coal, accounted for around 20% of India's thermal coal imports in the first two months of 2021, up from a little over 4% on average in 2020, according to data from Lavi Coal Info. Graphic: Australian and American share in Indian thermal coal importsLavi Coal Director Vasudev Pamnani said he expects Australia to maintain a 15-20% market share in India's market for thermal coal for the rest of 2021, mainly at the expense of Indonesia and South Africa, both of which have ramped up supplies to China. "Australia has no (new) big market other than India," said Rajendra Singh Talan, managing director at Komin India Resources Pvt Ltd, an Indian commodities trading firm. Graphic: Indonesian and South African share in Indian thermal coal importsOnly in Japan, the world's third-biggest coal importer, has Australia's dominance remained steady around the 60% market share it had in 2020, according to official data. CHINESE FALLOUTChina is expected to relax import restrictions on coal this year, apart from on Australia, with its total coal imports expected to reach around 300 million tonnes in 2021, compared to 304 million tonnes in 2020, Han said. China has imposed import quotas on coal to protect domestic miners. Graphic: Chinas thermal coal imports by originsFor Australia, the ban has cut total coal exports by more than 7% to 198 million tonnes in 2020-21 from 213 million tonnes in 2019-20. "However, exports are projected to increase to 231 million tonnes by 2025-26 as supply chains adjust and global markets increasingly prioritise high-quality coal," the government resources bureau said. Analysts warned that the trade reshuffle will make it harder for China's buyers to source the high quality metallurgical coal that Australia specializes in. "If imports from Australia are absent long-term, it will force Chinese steel mills to adjust their coking coal recipe to replace the missing types," said Dongbin Feng, analyst from China-based Fenwei consultancy. Graphic: Chinas coking coal imports by origins"Theoretically, supply from Russia, Mongolia, Canada and the U.S. can be the alternative, but these countries have their own problems," Feng said. The ban has also hit Chinese utilities, which have complained to state planners about high prices and low inventories in the first quarter, said a Beijing-based coal trader. Record low temperatures during the winter that just ended sent demand for heating surging. Reporting by Muyu Xu in Beijing, Sudarshan Varadhan in Chennai and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Writing by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da CostaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 2 |
###CLAIM: now, the company is going one step further, adding a new exclusive dairy alternative option to the menu : starbuckstm (starbucks original, nut and blend).
###DOCS: Starbucks has exclusively revealed it's menu for January 2020 to Femail, including the first ever Beyond Meat patty to be sold in UK cafes from Tuesday. To mark the start of Veganuary, the chain will sell two plant-based dishes including the No Chickn & BBQ Bean Hot Wrap, a delicious flame grilled soya-based chicken alternative with BBQ beans, spinach, onion, coriander and a hint of lime juice. There is also a plant-based breakfast option is made with an irresistible Beyond Breakfast Sausage patty, Starbucks signature tomato relish, tofu turmeric egg alternative and a slice of melted plant-based cheese. The offerings are available from 5th January 3rd March in UK stores, and are also available via a Uber Eats and Just Eat. Starbucks has exclusively revealed it's menu for January 2020 to Femail, including the first ever Beyond Meat patty to be sold in UK cafes from Tuesday (left) while meateaters can enjoy the signature breakfast sandwich (right)To mark the start of Veganuary, the chain will sell two plant-based dishes including the No Chickn & BBQ Bean Hot WrapThis sandwich marks the debut of Beyond Breakfast Sausage in the UK and is an exclusive Starbucks UK recipe. For meat-eaters, there's also the new Signature Breakfast Sandwich and the new Chicken Fajita Hot Wrap. STARBUCKS JANUARY MENU IN FULL Honeycomb Macchiato, prices from 2.95. Handcrafted with velvety steamed milk, our smooth Starbucks Blonde Espresso Roast, a rich honeycomb flavour syrup and crunchy honeycomb topping. Can be served with a dairy alternative, including the new StarbucksTM Original Nut Blend. Double Chocolatey Macchiato, prices from 2.95. Handcrafted with a blend of velvety steamed milk, rich white chocolate & cocoa marked with smooth Starbucks Blonde espresso shots & finished with chocolate drizzle topping. Can be served with a dairy alternative, including the new StarbucksTM Original Nut Blend. Signature Breakfast Sandwich, prices from 3.60 RRP (new) Hickory smoked bacon, free-range scrambled egg, Cheddar cheese & our signature tomato relish in a pretzel roll Chicken Fajita Hot Wrap, prices from 3.99 RRP (new) A hot wrap with chicken breast, smoky fajita bean mix, mozzarella cheese finished with a touch of coriander. No Chickn & BBQ Bean Hot Wrap, prices from 3.99 RRP (new, plant-based) A hot wrap flame grilled soya-based chicken alternative, BBQ beans, spinach, onion, coriander and a squeeze of lime juice. Beyond Meat Breakfast Sandwich, prices from 4.49 A savoury Beyond Breakfast Sausage patty with our signature tomato relish, tofu turmeric egg alternative and a slice of melted plant-based cheese. This sandwich marks the debut of Beyond Breakfast Sausage in the UK and is an exclusive Starbucks UK recipe. AdvertisementAs well as four new food items, Starbucks is launching two hot drinks for January. Here for a limited time only, is the new Honeycomb Macchiato a try, a handcrafted with velvety steamed milk, smooth Starbucks Blonde Espresso Roast and a rich honeycomb flavour syrup and crunchy honeycomb-inspired topping. For all the chocolate fiends out there, the Double Chocolatey Macchiato could be the one for you, with white chocolate and cocoa, finished with a chocolate drizzle crosshatch. With over four million crafted combinations at your fingertips in-store and more dairy alternatives to choose from than ever before, Starbucks say they have endless opportunities to personalise your coffee experience. For meat-eaters, there's also the new Signature Breakfast Sandwich and the new Chicken Fajita Hot Wrap (pictured)As well as four new food items, Starbucks is launching two hot drinks for January. Here for a limited time only, is the new Honeycomb Macchiato (right) a try, a handcrafted with velvety steamed milk, smooth Starbucks Blonde Espresso Roast and a rich honeycomb flavour syrup and crunchy honeycomb-inspired topping. For all the chocolate fiends out there, the Double Chocolatey Macchiato (left) could be the one for you, with white chocolate and cocoa, finished with a chocolate drizzle crosshatch. The two new Starbucks Blonde Macchiatos can be customised with your choice of roast, dairy alternative and toppings handcrafted and made to order. Simply, however you like it, we make it. Starbucks has now gone one step further and added a new exclusive dairy alternative option to the menu the StarbucksTM Original Nut Blend. Making customers drinks unique to their taste, the silky-smooth dairy alternative is blended with hazelnut, cashew nuts and rice. Innovated to steam perfectly and provide a superior coffee experience, this dairy alternative is a great partner to both hot and cold drinks. | 0 |
###CLAIM: the decision was also appealed by an anti-sexual abuse group which supports the transparency and commitment of the company to protect survivors.
###DOCS: Uber on Wednesday appealed a $59 million fine by a California regulator in a dispute over whether the company should share detailed information on sexual assault and harassment claims reported on its ride-hailing platform. The California Public Utilities Commission fined Uber in December after the company refused to share the information, including full names and contact information, arguing that doing so would violate victims rights to privacy. On Monday, an anti-sexual abuse group also appealed the decision and supported Ubers transparency and commitment to protecting survivors.Ubers Chief Legal Officer Tony West said during a Tuesday interview that no regulator had previously asked Uber for personally identifiable information of sexual assault victims, and said the CPUC had not disclosed why it needed the data. While it may be well intentioned, (contacting those individuals) can lead to the retraumatization of survivors, West said, adding that Uber had repeatedly offered to resolve the dispute outside litigation. The CPUC did not respond to a request for comment. In the December order, a CPUC administrative judge said privacy concerns could be addressed by replacing victims names with a code to allow commission staff to conduct follow-up investigations, but upheld the $59 million fine against the company. The dispute stems from a safety report Uber released in December 2019, disclosing 6,000 reports of sexual assault related to 2.3 billion trips in the United States in 2017 and 2018. That report, aimed at ensuring drivers and the public that Uber was serious about safety, has put the company in the spotlight. Rival Lyft Inc has promised a similar report, but has yet to release it. On Monday, the advocacy group RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), appealed the CPUCs order. Companies should be commended, not penalized, for their transparency and commitment to protecting survivors, the non-profit wrote in a public filing. | 0 |
###CLAIM: the princess and diana 's new empowerment was seen towering over her former husband, who traded court shoes for jimmy choos and chanel shoes.
###DOCS: Written by Megan C. Hills, CNNEditor's Note Don't miss CNN's six-part documentary series "Diana" features rarely-seen footage and new interviews explores the person behind the princess. The late Princess Diana's wardrobe has been immortalized in books, exhibitions, Netflix series, tribute photo shoots in Vogue and even a musical. From her fairytale wedding gown to the so-called "revenge dress" she wore after Prince Charles admitted to infidelity, the world witnessed her style transformation into the "People's Princess." "Her style was so very much her own," said Jack L. Carlson, whose label Rowing Blazers recently launched a Diana-inspired clothing line. "She was not a follower. To the contrary, she did her own thing, and we all watched in wonder and tried to keep up." There is still plenty of nostalgia surrounding the Princess of Wales' style -- indeed, when Carlson's label re-released her iconic black sheep sweater last year, he sold "three months worth of sweaters in an hour and a half" after it went viral online, he said. But how might Diana have dressed were she alive in 2021? And how might she have employed her penchant for tactful, symbolic and communicative fashion in this divisive age? We're looking back at the influences that informed her style -- and how they might have shaped her look today. More soft diplomacyThe Princess of Wales was adept at using her wardrobe diplomatically. Whether choosing designers from countries she was visiting, or wearing colors and symbols associated with hosts' national identities, she used clothing as nods of support and respect. As Diana's former stylist Anna Harvey recalled in British Vogue in 1997, shortly after the princess' death: "From the start she used clothes to make gestures; on her first visit to Wales she wore the Welsh colors -- a green and red silk suit; for her arrival in Japan she wore (Japanese designer Yuki Torimaru) and for a trip to Paris, Chanel." During a visit to the Gulf region in 1986, she wore a dress embellished with gold falcons, one of Saudi Arabia's patriotic symbols, During her royal tour of Japan the same year, she wore a red and white polka-dot dress that appeared to reference the national flag. Princess Diana wearing an outfit by designer Yuki Torimaru for a royal tour to Japan. Credit: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty ImagesDiana also nodded to the royal institution she had married into -- like when milliner Stephen Jones sewed the Prince of Wales' feathers into the traditional tam-o'shanter hat she wore to Scotland's annual Braemar Gathering. Matthew Storey, curator of Kensington Palace's new exhibition " Royal Style in the Making ," said over email that royal family members typically "wear clothes that subtly pay tribute to the culture of the country they are visiting." But Princess Diana continued doing so in the years following her separation from Charles in the early 1990s (opting to wear a traditional shalwar kameez on a visit to Pakistan in 1996, for example), and it seems likely she would have continued the thoughtful approach to her working wardrobe. Beyond paying homage to host countries, Princess Diana also used fashion to spotlight the charities and institutions she admired by wearing their gear to polo matches or public events. She was "light years ahead of us, even then," said Carlson, pointing to the current trend of using merchandise to support the organizations people identify with. Princess Diana wearing a Virgin Atlantic sweater as she leaves the gym. Credit: Anwar Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images"If anything, she taught us all to appreciate merch: from universities you've never attended, sports teams from other people's hometowns, and even airlines you've never flown," he said, referencing the times Diana paired a Northwestern University or Virgin Atlantic sweater with cycle shorts. It's impossible to say which causes Diana would have attached herself to today. But given her lifelong advocacy of HIV/AIDS awareness, the various capsule collections released for World AIDS day, by brands from Maison Margiela to Victoria Beckham's eponymous label, may well have caught her attention. Princess Diana wearing a British Lung Foundation charity sweatshirt to a polo match. Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty ImagesBut Diana's style statements were not always so literal. Fashion researcher Eloise Moran, who founded the Instagram account Lady Di Revenge Looks , likened the princess' wardrobe to "armor." As well as defending her from attack, her clothes helped her take back control of her narrative -- from both the palace and British press -- following her 1996 divorce from Prince Charles. "She became, by the end, a really strong figure," Moran said in a video interview. "I think people were afraid of her -- and of what she would do next." Princess Diana wearing protective body armor, a white shirt and chinos as she walks through a landmine field in Angola. Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty ImagesHer defiant approach would certainly resonate in today's world. It may even have influenced how high-profile women often use their wardrobes to protect themselves and make covert political statements, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling her red lipstick " war paint " to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to wear a traditional feathered Maori cloak to Buckingham Palace. A more international wardrobeIn her early years, Diana gravitated towards British designers -- and she often transformed the fortunes of those whose pieces she was photographed wearing. "She wanted to wear British because she felt it was something positive she could do for the fashion industry," her stylist Harvey wrote in her 1997 Vogue tribute. Take the aforementioned sheep sweater, which went viral long before the internet age, its lone black sheep seeming to signal Diana's outsider status in the royal family. Carlson, who collaborated with the garment's original creator, Warm & Wonderful, on last year's re-release, said the publicity was "life changing" for designers Joanna Osborne and Sally Muir. The pair was able to open a storefront, he said, with their designs also stocked in department stores from New York to Japan. Princess Diana pictured in 1981 wearing her original Warm & Wonderful sweater, which was relaunched last year in collaboration with Rowing Blazers. Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images"Members of the royal family know that the clothes they wear are likely to make the headlines -- and immediately sell out," said Morgane Le Caer, content lead at the fashion search platform Lyst, in an email interview. It's a trend continued by Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton, said Le Caer, adding that the next generation of royal spouses have "become powerful influencers in their own right." Both Moran and Carlson speculated that, were Princess Diana were alive today, she might have revisited her statement knitwear days (a period epitomized by her Gyles & George sweater reading, "I'm a luxury no one can afford"). Moran said, "Maybe she'd pay tribute to her younger affinity towards tongue-in-cheek knits." "I think she would have loved the Magda Archer x Marc Jacobs (collaboration), particularly the 'Stay away from toxic people' sweater," she added, referencing an item worn by celebrities including Harry StylesPrincess Diana wearing a red Catherine Walker suit during a 1996 visit to a center for people affected by HIV and AIDS. Credit: Princess Diana Archive/Hulton Royals Collection/Getty ImagesDiana was loyal to the UK-based designers she worked with throughout her life. Although some her apparent favorites, like Catherine Walker, have since passed away, others like Bruce Oldfield remain active today, and the late princess may have continued to seek out their designs. But by the end of her life, Diana was experimenting more widely with international labels. As her star rose, she formed close relationships with designers like Gianni Versace, whose funeral she attended, and Christian Dior, who in 1996 renamed a handbag she adored -- and owned in every color -- the "Lady Dior." Versace, in particular, helped Diana develop a more daring wardrobe as she evolved into a global charity ambassador, designing mini dresses and First Lady-esque pink skirt suits that she paired with Phillip Sommerville pillbox hats. Princess Diana wearing a light blue suit and pillbox hat in 1995, accompanied by her son Prince Harry. Credit: Princess Diana Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty Images"She was a true chameleon, and liked to mix things up, from both high and low designers," Moran said. "I know that would still be the case if she were alive today." But, Carlson added, she would have cast a wide net. "I can't see her in the thrall of any one designer or another," he said. Revenge and joyThe latter years of Princess Diana's life were defined by joyful, fashionable experimentation as she stepped out from the palace's shadow. For Moran, who started the Lady Di Revenge Looks account in the wake of her own breakup, Princess Diana was an "everywoman figure" whose post-breakup transformation served as an inspiration. A newly empowered Princess Diana traded in court shoes for "super high Jimmy Choos and Chanel shoes," according to Moran, which would have seen her towering over her former husband who was around the same height. Designer Roland Klein once told British Vogue that, in one of his last appointments with Diana, she had asked for a "really short" dress. "I demurred," he recalled, "but she said, 'Whatever I do I'll be criticized, so let's just go for it.'" Princess Diana wearing a Catherine Walker mini dress to the launch of a 1997 Christie's auction, where she sold many of her most iconic outfits. Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty ImagesBy this point, Diana had found silhouettes and designers that worked for her, Moran said. "I think she really figured out her look by the time she hit age 35 (or) 36 -- so I can't see her dressing that differently," she explained, suggesting that Diana's wardrobe staples ("blazers, the crisp Giorgio Armani jeans, the Versace and Dior handbags") would likely still work for her today. "I could also just as easily see her (turning to) the sinuous, minimal silhouettes by The Row," Moran added. For Princess Diana, the single outfit that seemed to mark her liberation was her black Christina Stambolian "revenge dress," the asymmetric, figure-hugging mini dress she wore to a London event the day Prince Charles' publicly admitted to having an affair. Princess Diana wearing a Christina Stambolian dress nicknamed the 'revenge dress,' as it was worn the same day Prince Charles admitted to adultery. Credit: Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Hulton Royals Collection/Getty Images"She completely spun her narrative that night," Moran said. "From there, I think that was the line drawn where she was in control, and she was showing that to everybody. You can truly make people afraid of you -- or intimidated by you, or respect you, or whatever it is -- through clothing." Although Princess Diana was known to re-wear outfits, it is, perhaps, unlikely that she would have revisited her most iconic garments and accessories, were she alive today. She famously purged her wardrobe just months before her death, auctioning off many of her defining garments -- including the Stambolian dress and a blue velvet Victor Edelstein gown that she had worn when dancing with John Travolta at the White House -- to raise money for HIV/AIDS charities. The sale was symbolic in many ways. By making closet space for what would have been her next chapter, Diana seemed to leave palace life and marriage behind. And she may have further distanced herself from the royal family through fashion -- something that was already happening before her death, former stylist Harvey has noted, writing that the princess deliberately avoided labels worn by her ex-husband's family. "I don't think she would dress like the other royals," Carlson said. "And I think that, rather than following fashion or anyone's expectations, she would have dressed in a way that reflected her own life, her own experiences, her own feelings and her own comfort, too." | 0 |
###CLAIM: `` i think joe and bidens have done a really good job as president, '' she said of their record so far on adding, `` obviously there 's a lot left to do, particularly on gun violence. ''
###DOCS: Actress and activist Alyssa Milano said Tuesday that she is considering running for office in 2024. As reported by The Hills In The Know (ITK) site, Milano said that she is looking at Californias 4th District to potentially run against [Rep. Tom] McClintock (R).I split my time between Truckee, Calif., and Bell Canyon, Calif., and the Republicans have basically had a strong arm there in the 4th District, she said. I would love to maybe consider flipping that seat blue, Milano said. Its going to take someone with, I think, name recognition and deep pockets to be able to run against McClintock, and so Im considering it. Im basically gathering information right now, speaking to different consultants, speaking to the community, she added. She said she will decide whether or not to run for the seat after the 2022 elections. Before I run, obviously I cant do both at the same time, she said of her work in acting, So its just really going to be about timing.Last month, Milano trolled McClintock on Twitter, teasing a potential House run to her followers. She wrote, Congressman McClintock was one of the 63 republicans to oppose Asian Hate Crimes bill. This is my Congressman. Should I run against him?Congressman McClintock was one of the 63 republicans to oppose Asian Hate Crimes bill. This is my Congressman. Should I run against him? Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) May 20, 2021My career in the arts changed life for my family, breaking us out of cyclical hardship, said the performer. Milano said that her profession has a way of allowing people to break free from cycles of violence and poverty.When we talk about shifting our culture into a more secure, more equitable place, theres really nothing that can do that like the arts, she said. On President Joe Bidens record so far, she said that he has done a really good job.I think that theres a lot left to do, obviously, in particular gun violence prevention, she added. When she was asked about other notable actors and celebrities looking to get into politics such as Caitlyn Jenner and Matthew McConaughey Milano said, I would hope that they would put in the work before they attempt to hold office.Ive been an activist since I was 15 years old, she said. The first pictures of me in the White House are with Nancy Reagan. Ive been at this a really long time.Im very hands-on, boots on the ground, as far as the work that I do. And I would hope that anyone whos considering running for office would be doing so from a place of service, which is where my heart is, rather than a place of power or to change up the system, she said. My intentions are to make the world a better place.Milano has spoken out on womens issues, notably protesting the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and posing in a Handmaids Tale costume to decry abortion restrictions during a Rise Up for Roe pro-abortion tour. She has been a prominent #MeToo voice and a strong supporter of abortion, revealing on her podcast Sorry Not Sorry in 2019 that she had two abortions in 1993. Im Alyssa Milano and Ive had an abortion. I control my own body, she said at the start of the episode. Milano later said, I knew at that time I was not equipped to be a mother and so I chose to have an abortion. I chose. It was my choice and it was absolutely the right choice for me. It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted, but it was something that I needed, like most health care is.Milano reflected on what she would not have in her life if she had not gone through with the two abortions. I would not have my children my beautiful, perfect, loving, kind and inquisitive children who have a mother who was so very, very ready for them, she said. I would not have my career. I would not have the ability or platform I use to fight against oppression with all my heart, she continued. I would never have met my amazing husband, David, whose steadfast and immeasurable love for me sustains me through these terrifying times.... [M]y life would be completely lacking all its great joys, she said. I would never had been free to be myself and thats what this fight is all about: freedom. | 0 |
###CLAIM: halsey 's pregnancy has been documented since her and her boyfriend, screen writer alev and aydin, announced they were expecting their first child together earlier this year.
###DOCS: Halsey has been chronicling her pregnancy on social media since she announced she and boyfriend and screenwriter Alev Aydin were expecting their first child together earlier this year. And on Wednesday the pop star, 26, proudly showed off her growing baby bump by sharing a series of photos on her Instagram page. 'If u can see it from the front wait till u see it from the back!' she wrote in the caption. Proud mama to be: Halsey, 26, proudly showcased her blossoming baby bump in a series of photos she shared on her Instagram page on WednesdayIn one of the photos, Halsey (born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane) struck a pose at a side angle, giving her 24.8 million fans and followers a clear look at just how pregnant she is right now. The New Jersey native's bump was very prominent despite wearing a baggy white t-shirt over what appeared to be sheer black leggings and a matching leotard. She also had her dark brown tresses styled in tight braids that are separated in several profound rows, and accessorized with several pieces of jewelry, including noticeable rings and nose ring. Playful with her fans: The pop star teased her fans by saying they can get a better look at her baby bump from back viewsThe Now Or Never singer first announced her pregnancy in January, sharing a trio of maternity photographs on her Instagram alongside the caption: surprise!' Aydin promptly commented: 'Heart so full, I love you, sweetness,' to which she replied, 'I love you!!!!! And I love this mini human already!' She has since periodically shared images of herself cradling her growing baby bump on Instagram. Halsey's exact due date isn't known just yet, but since she went public with the pregnancy in January it's likely she could be due around June or July 2021. Accessorizing: The New Jersey Native showed off her array of jewelry pieces, including her prominent rings and nose ringThe songstress first gained attention by releasing music on her social media platforms, which led her to signing with Astralwerks in 2014, which released her debut EP later that year. Her debut studio album, Badlands, dropped later that year was certified Double Platinum by the RIAA on the strength of her hit songs Colors and Gasoline. After another hit album with 2017's Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, she most recently released Mani, in 2020, on the heels of the singles Without Me, Graveyard, and You Should Be Sad. | 0 |
###CLAIM: in the wake of ever 's death, similar measures are being seriously considered which could result in the government amending the same line when the bill returns to the commons.
###DOCS: Campaigners on violence against women who have been galvanised by the strength of feeling around the killing of Sarah Everard are highlighting a number of amendments to the domestic abuse bill that is passing through the House of Lords. What amendments are peers voting on in the Lords on Monday? Peers have made a number of amendments to the bill that tackle violence against women and misogyny. If they pass, the bill could return to the Commons to be considered by MPs. Two key measures that campaigners have backed included:Making misogyny a hate crime, which would give tougher sentencing where misogyny is a factor as well as allowing police to keep better data on what crimes have misogyny as an aggravating factor. A stalkers registry which would require serial domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators to be registered, monitored and supervised. There are a number of other proposals, including outlawing charges for letters in relation to domestic abuse, which the government is likely to accept. Amendments to allow a victim of domestic abuse to remove a perpetrator from a joint tenancy, as well as two on rights for migrants and refugees who are victims of domestic violence, also have some cross-party support. Why should misogyny be a hate crime? The amendment has been tabled by the Labour peer Alicia Kennedy, though its genesis is a campaign by the Labour MP Stella Creasy, who tried to pass the same measure in the House of Commons. It would require all police forces in England and Wales to record where existing crimes have been motivated by hatred of someones sex or gender. The measure has already been implemented or trialled by 11 police forces and feedback suggests the data collection improves outcomes in addressing the abuse and harassment of women and girls. The rule would also feed into Law Commission proposals being developed on how to include the characteristic of sex or gender in hate crime laws. Who is backing the move? The amendment has been co-signed by the Conservative peers Lady Altmann and Lord Young, and the cross-bench peer Lord Russell. The campaign itself has been backed by a wide range of political leaders across the country including mayors Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram and Sadiq Khan. Kennedy said there was already evidence that the change was having an effect. We know it works as seven police forces across the country are already taking this approach, with proven results in increasing confidence in the police and tackling violence against women.The campaign has also been backed by a number of major campaigning organisations on hate crime, womens rights and community safety including Citizens UK, the Fawcett Society, the Jo Cox Foundation, Hope Not Hate and Tell Mama. How would it work? Amendment 87B to the domestic abuse bill would require the secretary of state to issue guidance to all police forces about the evidence of the relationship between domestic abuse and offences involving hostility based on sex or gender and require the chief officer of any police force to provide information relating to these offences. The government has said that change must wait for the Law Commission review on hate crime which closed in December last year but campaigners say changes can still be made pending the outcome of that review. The review has already published proposals for including the characteristic of sex or gender in hate crime legislation. Currently 11 out of 43 police constabularies in England and Wales are either already recording gender-based hate crime, are trialling the policy or consulting on implementing it. In Nottinghamshire, which has been recording gender-based hate crime since April 2016, there has been a 25% increase in reporting. How would a stalkers register work? The amendment by the Labour peer Lady Royall would add stalkers to the violent offender and sex offender register in a move backed by the Lib Dems. Ministers are understood to be seriously considering a similar measure in the wake of Everards death, which could result in a government amendment along the same lines when the bill returns to the Commons. The Sunday Times said the move was seen by ministers as a key practical change that could help information sharing across the police. It would log the details of men who are convicted of offences such as harassment, stalking and coercive control though ministers are understood to prefer a separate database system. The register, if approved, could be accessed by police and social services, modelled on the sex offender register which holds information about those cautioned, convicted or released from prison for a sexual offence against children and adults. Parents and carers are entitled to request information from the register. | 1 |
###CLAIM: new us threat to impose up to 25 percent tariffs on some british exports under a two percent levy on revenues from digital services, which then chancellor philip hammond unveiled in october of last year, is threatening to apply it to the revenues of big tech firms.
###DOCS: The US is threatening to impose tariffs of up to 25 per cent on some UK exports as it retaliates over Britain's new 'unreasonable' and 'discriminatory' tax on big tech firms. The UK introduced a digital services tax last April in a bid to ensure search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces pay their fair share. But Washington believes the tax unfairly targets US firms and it is now pressing ahead with counter-measures as it applies the pressure to Number 10 to change course. The increased tariffs on UK exports could be imposed on items like make-up, coats, dresses, shirts, ceramics, gold necklaces, air conditioning machines, furniture and game consoles. The US is threatening to impose tariffs of up to 25 per cent on some UK exports as it retaliates over Britain's new 'unreasonable' and 'discriminatory' tax on big tech firmsThe UK's digital services tax, first unveiled back in October 2018 by then-chancellor Philip Hammond, applies a two per cent levy on the revenues of big tech firms. The tax applies to companies with worldwide digital services revenues of more than 500million and UK digital services revenues of more than 25million. Downing Street has promised the tax will be scrapped once a global solution has been hammered out to ensure tech firms pay proportionate amounts of tax where they operate. The US had urged the UK not to go ahead with the measure but Number 10 proceeded anyway. The Office of the US Trade Representative launched an investigation last June to establish whether the policy discriminated against US companies and to determine whether the tax was 'unreasonable'. In January this year it concluded that the digital services tax 'is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts US commerce, and therefore is actionable'. The US has vowed to take 'all appropriate and feasible action', with the US Trade Act allowing for the imposition of retaliatory tariffs. Setting out a potential course of action, the Office of the US Trade Representative said it 'proposes to impose additional tariffs of up to 25 percent ad valorem on an aggregate level of trade'. The US believes the digital services tax will see US-based companies paying the UK approximately $325million per year and the tariff measures are designed to generate a similar amount. The US has drawn up a long list of products which could be hit with the increased tariffs. The initial investigation into the tax was launched under Donald Trump's White House and Joe Biden's administration has decided to continue with it. The proposed way forward will now be subject to consultation in the US. A UK government spokesman told the BBC: 'Like many countries around the world, we want to make sure tech firms pay their fair share of tax. Our digital services tax (DST) is reasonable, proportionate and non-discriminatory. 'It's also temporary. We're working positively with the US and other international partners to find a global solution to this problem and will remove the DST when that is in place.' The Biden administration has warned it could slap 25% tariffs on British exports to the US after the UK levied a digital services tax on major technology companies. The price of clothing and footwear, ceramics, beauty products and furniture exports to the US could rise by a quarter, according to a list published by US officials. The duties are designed to raise $325m equal to estimates of how much Britain can expect to raise from taxing the UK sales of Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay and other tech companies, most of them based in the US. The US president, Joe Biden, has reversed objections to a global tax on cross-border digital sales adopted by his predecessor, and ended a surcharge on Scotch whisky that was imposed by Donald Trump after a dispute over subsidies to the aircraft manufacturer Airbus. But the retaliation was expected against France and Britain after they went ahead with digital services taxes before a wider agreement was in place. A UK trade department spokesperson said the country wanted to make sure tech firms pay their fair share of tax and said the new digital services tax was reasonable, proportionate and non-discriminatory. Its also temporary.They added that if the US went ahead, the UK would consider all options to defend UK interests and industry. Trade officials from the UK and US held talks about the digital services tax on 4 December, and UK government sources stressed the tax was a temporary solution to widely held concerns with international corporate tax rules. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskBrought in last April, the digital services tax levies a 2% charge on the revenues of search engines, social media services and online marketplaces. Tech companies will continue to pay corporation tax on their UK profits but with most profits depressed by royalty and management fees charged by parent companies abroad a mechanism known as transfer pricing the Treasury is expected to keep the tax in place. At the budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility calculated the new tax would raise 300m in the current financial year, before rising to 400m in 2021-22. | 3 |
###CLAIM: lingard 's impressive form has seen him win a place in gareth southgate 's 23-man squad for the uefa and euro 2020 tournaments, delaying kick-off in june.
###DOCS: Jesse Lingard was back in his native Manchester on Monday after inspiring West Ham United to another Premier League victory. The England international - currently on loan at the east London club from boyhood side Manchester United - enjoyed a night out with close friend and teammate Marcus Rashford at upmarket restaurant The Ivy. Sporting a smart bomber jacket over slim fitting jeans and trainers, Lingard, 28, looked relaxed as he exited the Spinningfields eatery some 90 minutes after Rashford. The old stomping ground: Jesse Lingard was back in his native Manchester on Monday after inspiring West Ham United to another Premier League victoryThe pair appeared to be making the most of England's newly relaxed lockdown by socialising in the restaurant's open-air rooftop bar and eating area. Lingard was back in Manchester after adding two more goals to his West Ham account during a 3-2 win against Leicester City on Sunday. The winger has breathed new life into West Ham's unlikely Champions League push - and the three points against fellow challengers Leicester saw them take back fourth. Good times: The England international enjoyed a night out with close friend and teammate Marcus Rashford (not pictured) at upmarket restaurant The IvyLingard's resurgence after more than a year in the wilderness at Manchester United has caught the eye of a number of heavyweights across Europe, according to recent reports. ESPN have claimed that Lingard is being monitored by several top clubs, including Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. Lingard has just one year left to run on his United deal and was frozen out by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after a series of uninspiring performances. On fire: Lingard's fine form at West Ham continued with two goals taking his tally to eight last weekendPals: The footballer has played with old friend Rashford for Manchester United and the England national sideBut, with Lingard running the show after his move away, the signs point towards West Ham pushing to secure a spot at the top table, just like United, for next season. They currently sit fourth in the standings, one point ahead of Chelsea and three clear of champions Liverpool, with seven games left. Lingard's impressive form is also expected to see him win a place in England manager Gareth Southgate's 23-man squad for the delayed UEFA Euro 2020 when the tournament kicks off in June. | 0 |
###CLAIM: rita katz, director of the monitoring group site ( intelligence ), referring to the fact that azerbaijan is a moslem country while most of its armenians are christian, said the two countries vying for control across the region continued to back proxy lines on contentious secular lines.
###DOCS: AdvertisementRussia has accused Turkey of sending 'terrorists' from Syria and Libya into the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where fierce fighting has raged for the past four days between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces. Russia's foreign ministry said today that Syrian and Libyan fighters from illegal armed groups were being sent to the region. Russia called on the countries involved to prevent the use of 'foreign terrorists and mercenaries' in the conflict. Two Syrian rebel sources have said that Turkey is sending Syrian rebel fighters to support Azerbaijan, which Turkey and Azerbaijan have denied. Earlier today, Armenia revealed photos of the wreckage of its SU-25 fighter jet which it claims was shot down by a Turkish F-16 amid accusations that Ankara is throwing its military might behind Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan today announced it had 'neutralised' 2,300 Armenian soldiers as fighting entered a fourth day in the worst eruption of violence between the two countries since a 1994 ceasefire over an Azerbaijani territory which is largely inhabited by Armenians. Despite Azerbaijan and Turkey denying that an F-16 had downed Armenia's SU-25, the defence ministry in Yerevan named its dead pilot as Major Valeri Danelin and published photos of the jet painted in the Armenian Air Force colours, smouldering on a mountainside. Turkey has been stridently backing Muslim Azerbaijan, raising fears that Russia - which has a military base in Christian Armenia - could be drawn into a proxy war after Moscow and Anakara came close to trading blows in Syria last year. French President Emmanuel Macron today slammed Turkey's fighting talk as 'reckless and dangerous' after Ankara pledged its full support for Azerbaijan to reclaim the ethnically-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The Kremlin, which also wields influence over the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, has called on the hostilities to be 'immediately ended' and warned Turkey not to 'add fuel to the flames.' Azerbaijan said today it has killed or wounded at least 2,300 Armenian troops so far in the battle which started on Sunday. The defence ministry, which has been tweeting numerous videos of its strikes, said it had destroyed 130 tanks and armoured vehicles, 200 artillery and missile systems and 50 anti-tank guns. Turkey borders Armenia but is an ally of Azerbaijan, and Ankara's support for Baku is the latest military adventure in the region after incursions into Syria and Libya. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are former Soviet republics that border Iran. Moscow has called for both sides to stop the fightingFootage released by Azerbaijan's military showed two tanks being blown up during the latest fighting in ArmeniaMacron on Wednesday pledged his support to Yerevan, telling reporters: 'I say to Armenia and to the Armenians, France will play its role. Why Armenia and Azerbaijan are fighting WHAT AND WHERE IS NAGORNO-KARABAKH? Karabakh is a region within Azerbaijan which has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since a full-scale separatist war ended in 1994, after killing about 30,000 people and displacing an estimated one million. Nagorno-Karabakh is about 1,700 square miles in size, but Armenian forces also occupy other nearby territory. HOW DID THE CONFLICT START? Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis began boiling over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Once the USSR collapsed in 1991 and the republics became independent nations, war broke out. A 1994 cease-fire left Armenian and Azerbaijani forces facing each other across a demilitarised zone, where clashes were frequently reported. WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE? International mediation efforts have brought little visible progress. The conflict has been an economic blow to the Caucasus region because it has hampered trade and prompted Turkey to close its border with Armenia. Fighting periodically breaks out around Nagorno-Karabakh's borders, often deadly, notably in 2016 and this July. Since new fighting erupted on Sunday, dozens have been killed and wounded in apparent shelling by both sides. Each country blamed the other. WHAT S THE BROADER IMPACT? In addition to causing local casualties and damage, the conflict in the small, hard-to-reach region is also of concern to major regional players. Russia is Armenia s main economic partner and has a military base there, while Turkey has offered support to Azerbaijanis, fellow Muslims and ethnic brethren to Turks. Iran neighbors both Armenia and Azerbaijan and is calling for calm. Meanwhile, the United States, France and Russia are meant to be guarantors of the long-stalled peace process, under the auspices of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. AdvertisementBut the French president also said it was too soon to speak of a regional conflict. He said he would discuss the tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday evening and US President Donald Trump on Thursday before reporting on the situation to the European Council of EU leaders. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow was willing to host the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks, a ministry statement cited him as saying. He said Russia would continue to work both independently and together with other representatives of the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to mediate in the conflict. Ethnic-Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh are fighting for secession from Turkish-backed Azerbaijan and the dispute has led to decades of unresolved violence. Erdogan's aide Fahrettin Altun has said that Turkey 'stands with Azerbaijan, our friend and brethren' despite UN condemnation for the violence. 'Let there be no doubt that the world will hear our roar if Azerbaijan were to suffer from the slightest injustice under international law,' he said on Tuesday. Azerbaijan also aired footage of two Armenian tanks being blown up on the battlefield, while Armenia claimed to have taken out 80 armoured vehicles, 49 drones and four helicopters in the latest fighting which has killed dozens of people, allegedly including civilians. However, Altun dismissed the F-16 claim as 'absolutely untrue' while Azerbaijan described it as 'yet another lie of Armenian propaganda'. 'Armenia should withdraw from the territories under its occupation instead of resorting to cheap propaganda tricks,' Altun said. Russian-backed Armenia warned that it would deploy more destructive weapons in the conflict because of what it described as an Azerbaijani offensive, saying the fighting had been 'elevated to a new level'. Armenia last night accused Turkey of 'supporting Azerbaijan to carry out genocidal acts', a reference to the early 20th-century massacre which it calls the Armenian Genocide and which still poisons relations between Turkey and Armenia. Both nations have accused each other of firing into each other's territory beyond the Karabakh region, raising fears of an all-out war which could draw in nuclear-armed Russia. The Kremlin has a military base in Armenia but has called for the hostilities to be 'immediately ended' - warning Turkey not to 'add fuel to the flames' by raising the prospect of intervention. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that 'both sides need to stop the violence' while German chancellor Angela Merkel called for an 'immediate ceasefire' and France called for a revival of peace talks. Martial law has been declared in both countries and Armenia has banned men over 18 in its military reserves from leaving the country as the warfare continues despite global appeals for calm. Azerbaijan's defence ministry said today that the opposing forces attempted to recover lost ground by launching counter-attacks in the directions of Fizuli, Jabrayil, Agdere and Terter. The ministry said there was fighting around Fizuli on Tueday morning and the Armenian army shelled the Dashkesan region on the border between the two countries, miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia denied those claims, but reported fighting throughout the night and said that Nagorno-Karabakh's army repelled attacks in several directions along the line of contact. Footage released by Armenia's military purported to show a drone being shot down (left) and the remains of a helicopter bursting into flames on the battlefield (right)Both sides blame each other for causing the latest flare-up, with Armenia claiming that the separatists in Nagorny-Karabakh are resisting a 'thoroughly planned attack'. 'Defence forces of Nagorno-Karabakh are left with little option but to defend themselves,' Armenia's foreign ministry claimed. Military leaders in the Armenian enclave say that 84 servicemen on their side have been killed so far, while both sides blame the other for alleged civilian deaths. Azerbaijan says 10 civilians have died on its side, but has yet to give details on military casualties. Armenia claimed on Tuesday that a nine-year-old girl was killed in shelling, while her mother and a brother were wounded, while Azerbaijan says five members of a family died in the gunfire. Armenia's defence ministry said a civilian bus was set on fire after being hit by an Azerbaijani unmanned drone. Armenia accuses its enemy of using Smerch and TOS-1A rocket launchers, saying it was forced to use 'military hardware with larger power' in response. 'Since early morning the Azerbaijani side resumed large-scale offensive ops. TOS-1A heavy flamethrowers are being employed. The use of TOS, Smerch and other large-caliber systems changes the philosophy and the scale of mil ops, elevating them to a new level of escalation,' claimed defence spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan. As a result, Armenian forces are 'compelled to use pieces of equipment and munitions designed to engage wide area targets, intended for large and indiscriminate destruction of manpower, and static and mobile property alike,' she warned. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan came down firmly on the side of Azerbaijan, which shares ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties with the larger power. 'The time has come for the crisis in the region that started with the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh to be put to an end,' Erdogan said. 'Now Azerbaijan must take matters into its own hands.' Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev on Monday ordered partial military mobilisation and General Mais Barkhudarov vowed to 'fight to the last drop of blood in order to completely destroy the enemy and win'. Armenia has accused Turkey of sending mercenaries to back Azerbaijan, a claim which Erdogan's government denies. Turkey informed the fighters they would be tasked with 'guarding border regions' in Azerbaijan in return for wages of up to $2,000, said Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Anna Naghdalyan, a spokeswoman for Armenia's foreign ministry, said people in Nagorno-Karabakh were 'fighting against a Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance'. 'Turkey, which a century ago annihilated Armenian people in their historical homeland and justifies that crime, now supports Azerbaijan by all possible means to carry out same genocidal acts in South Caucasus,' she said. As many as 1.5million Armenians were rounded up and killed by their Turkish rulers in mass killings which started during World War I, but Turkey fiercely disputes the term 'genocide'. Russia has previously supplied Armenia with weapons in the sensitive region, where pipelines shipping Caspian oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the world pass close to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday urged the opposing sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to hold their fire, during a conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin emphasised the urgent need for a ceasefire and for all sides to take measures to de-escalate the crisis, the Kremlin said. Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR said yesterday that the country's oil and gas infrastructure was safe thanks to measures taken by the army. The report of Turkish intervention comes after the European Union warned regional powers not to interfere in the fighting and condemned a 'serious escalation' that threatens regional stability. Omer Celika , spokesman for Erdogan's ruling party, denied reports that Turkey had sent arms or foreign fighters to Azerbaijan. 'Armenia is disturbed by Turkey's solidarity with Azerbaijan and is producing lies against Turkey,' Celik said. Erdogan criticized France, the US and Russia - the three chairs of the so-called Minsk group that was set up in 1992 to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict - saying they had failed to resolve the issue for 30 years. 'They have done their best not to solve this issue. And now they come and counsel and issue threats. They say, is Turkey here, is the Turkish military here?,' Erdogan said. France said yesterday it would 'trigger a co-ordination of the Minsk Group' in the coming days to 'find a way out' of the crisis. Armenia and Karabakh declared martial law and military mobilisation on Sunday, while Azerbaijan imposed military rule and a curfew in large cities. Analysts warn that the conflict could escalate into a proxy conflict between Moscow and Ankara, who both wield influence in Syria and Libya already. Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon official, said any Turkish involvement would be 'hugely destabilising' and 'could lead to a proxy war between Turkey and Russia'. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence monitoring group, said the two countries 'continue to vie for control across region, backing proxies on contentious non-secular lines' - referring to the fact that Azerbaijan is a majority-Muslim country, while most Armenians are Christians. In addition to the EU and Russia, France, Germany, Italy and the United States have urged a ceasefire. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States would seek to end the violence. 'We're looking at it very strongly,' he told a news briefing. 'We have a lot of good relationships in that area. We'll see if we can stop it.' Democratic nominee Joe Biden urged the White House to push for more observers along the ceasefire line and accused Russia of 'cynically providing arms to both sides.' Erdogan last night discussed the crisis in a phone call with British PM Boris Johnson, with Downing Street calling for 'urgent de-escalation in the region'. German chancellor Angela Merkel - who has clashed with Erdogan in the past - has called for an 'immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table' after speaking with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's rocket launches from missile system at the contact line of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-KarabakhFive European countries - Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany and Britain - asked for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating conflict on Tuesday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to both countries' leaders and called for 'an immediate stop to the fighting, a de-escalation of tensions and a return to meaningful negotiations without preconditions or delay. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation 'is a cause for concern for Moscow and other countries.' 'We believe that the hostilities should be immediately ended,' Peskov said, adding that the process of resolving the conflict should shift into 'a politico-diplomatic' dimension. Nuclear-armed Russia has a military base in Armenia and considers it to be a strategic partner in the South Caucasus region, supplying the ex-Soviet country with weapons. The Kremlin has cast itself as a mediator but Azerbaijan claimed last month that Moscow was 'intensively arming Armenia' after earlier clashes in July. Hostilities this year have been the worst since 2016, when intense fighting killed dozens and threatened to escalate into all-out war. Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan in a conflict that broke out as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Although a ceasefire was agreed in 1994, after thousands of people were killed and many more displaced, Azerbaijan and Armenia frequently accuse each other of attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the separate Azeri-Armenian frontier. During the worst recent Karabakh clashes in April 2016, around 110 people were killed. In July 2020, heavy clashes along the two countries' shared border - hundreds of miles from Karabakh - claimed the lives of at least 17 soldiers from both sides. | 1 |
###CLAIM: the treasury, office of foreign and assets control, which enforces sanctions rules, said the market for buying and selling was particularly vulnerable to violations because it afforded buyers and sellers high anonymity with little transparency.
###DOCS: Blacklisted foreigners such as terrorists and drug traffickers could buy expensive artworks to get around sanctions meant to shut them out of the American financial system, the feds say. US Treasury officials spelled out their concerns in an advisory warning high-end art galleries, collectors, brokers and auction firms to watch out for such shady buyers or else face possible penalties. The art market is particularly vulnerable to sanctions violations because it affords buyers and sellers a high degree of anonymity with little transparency, according to the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which enforces sanctions rules. Intermediaries and shell companies are often used to buy, sell or hold expensive artworks and to make and receive payments, which allow bad actors to obscure their true identities from other market participants, and help to hide prohibited conduct from law enforcement and regulators, the office said in its Friday advisory. The mobility, concealability, and subjective value of artwork further exacerbate its vulnerability to sanctions evasion, the document reads. The OFAC said theres a risk the art market could be abused by people on its List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, which includes narcotics traffickers and terrorists who are banned from doing business with Americans. As one example, the office cited the case of Nazem Said Ahmad, a Lebanese diamond dealer and art collector whom the Treasury has sanctioned for allegedly financing Hezbollah. The feds say Ahmad stored some of his personal cash in valuable artworks in a preemptive attempt to mitigate the effects of US sanctions. Ahmads daughter denied the allegations when the sanctions were announced last year, according to The New York Times. The OFAC warned art dealers to mitigate their exposure to sanctions violations as they could face civil penalties for dealing with blacklisted individuals. The office also affirmed that it will enforce sanctions in transactions where a blocked person has an interest to the extent that the artwork is primarily an investment asset. US persons involved in the high-value artwork trade should be mindful of this sanctions risk, the office said in the advisory. | 0 |
###CLAIM: race, ethnic or cultural sense is identified with people of african diaspora and african origin.
###DOCS: The Associated Press Stylebook account tweeted on Tuesday that people should not use the term mistress to define someone in a long-term sexual relationship with, and is financially supported by, a man who is married to someone else.The AP Stylebook has guided the media industry on language use since 1953, decades after releasing similar guides and rules for professional writing like the 1909 first internal edition. The AP is arguably the most influential news agency in the world, with 248 news bureaus in 99 countries. Its work forms the basis for most articles read inside the United States. But for years, the AP has demonstrated partisan leftism in redefining terms to serve political ends. Given its immense influence over journalists, and thus the American people, the AP is in a powerful position to change the way people think about not only language but what language refers to. Instead of using the term mistress to define someone who is engaging in adultery, they plead with people to use the terms companion, friend, or lover instead. The definition of mistress, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, is [a] woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a man who is married to someone else. The APs suggested replacements have different definitions and connotations. A companion does not indicate there is cheating involved or even sex, a friend is a term to define two individuals who do not have a sexual relationship, and lover lacks information about other relationship commitments that may be damaged by the sexual activity, as well as the financial interests involved in a mistress relationship. In September, the AP said riot should no longer be used. Not only did the agency claim the word was used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, but it said people should identify the Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioting and looting as a revolt and uprising, since this indicates broader political dimension. Call me crazy, but rioting and looting are criminal and should not be romanticized. Stealing, attacking bystanders, and damaging other peoples property are morally wrong and rightfully criminal, and thats what rioting means. After a review, the AP found that white people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color, and therefore there is less of an argument to capitalize the word. Capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs, the Associated Press said. Its unclear who was informing the AP judgment calls here, but it seems pretty ignorant to declare that all people of a somewhat similar skin hue on the entire continent of Africa, and around the rest of the world, share the same identity and culture. Rwandans, for example, have significant cultural differences than Somalis even though to uninformed people they might look somewhat similar, just as some people of German ancestry might look a lot like others of Russian ancestry but have widely different cultural histories. To anyone with any knowledge of world history or major world cultures, the APs language use and explanation for it is wildly misinformed and motivated by political prejudice. The 2017 AP edition said the term pro-life should not be used, but anti-abortion should be. Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and pro-abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice, it demanded, treating the two political sides differently for what, again, can only be partisan reasons. Also in 2017, the AP redefined the term they to be used as a singular pronoun for people who are non-gender conforming. Gone are the days of strictly, and properly, using they to identify a group of people. The AP stands by language-mangling gender theory. These redefinitions are appalling. Americas institutions have been corrupted by woke millennials who have been trained at the most expensive institutions money can buy. Now we are all coping with their ideological overhaul of truth. In Ray Bradburys dystopia, Fahrenheit 451, firemen search for books and burn them. In todays society, the AP searches for words that do not fit the leftist narrative and twists them up. In the process, the AP burns its own reputation. Gabe Kaminsky in a fellow at The Daily Caller News Foundation. He interned for The Daily Wire and The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter | 0 |
###CLAIM: prime minister boris johnson will give the green light for hs2 in february 2020, running into billions of pounds over the initial budget.
###DOCS: AdvertisementNew flexible rail season tickets were today blasted as a 'real missed opportunity' by passenger groups who said the small level of discounts offered are unlikely to entice people back onto trains following the pandemic. The much-heralded scheme, which offers savings on certain routes for passengers travelling two or three days a week, is the first step in a major shake-up announced last month by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The flexible tickets, which can be used from June 28, will allow travel on any eight days in a 28-day period and have been launched in response to the decline in five-day commuting amid an increase in working from home. But analysis has found only limited savings - with those travelling from Stevenage to London King's Cross paying 1.78 or 7 per cent a day less if buying a flexi ticket, which is 22.12 a day compared to 23.90 anytime day returns. Those travelling from Guildford to London Waterloo will make a daily saving of 3.40 or 12 per cent, with the flexi ticket at 24.20 per day instead of a 27.60 anytime day return. Reading to London Paddington commuters will pay 3.10 or 12 per cent a day a less - with the flexi ticket at 21.50 a day instead of a 24.60 anytime day return. And those travelling from Southend Central to London Fenchurch Street will save as little as 1.10 or 5 per cent each day, with the flexi ticket cost coming in at 19.50 per day, compared with a 20.60 anytime day return. Campaigners also warned there was 'a lot of confusion about whether it will be available for shorter commuter journeys into London', with flexi tickets not believed to work on trips made only within the capital's zone system. And former shadow transport secretary Norman Baker said today: 'Finally, after years of campaigning people who commute part time are being offered an alternative to full-time season tickets. Mr Baker, who now advises the Campaign for Better Transport's chief executive, added: 'There appears to be no standard level of discount and in some cases the flexible season ticket could end up being more expensive than the day return option. How much can London commuters save each day with flexi season tickets? The test will be whether the level of discounts offered will entice people onto rail. 'Sadly, we don't think they will, except at the margins, so this could turn out to be a real missed opportunity.' Passengers can use an updated season ticket calculator on the National Rail website to find out which ticket they should purchase based on their route and working pattern. But London Travelwatch said it was unclear whether the tickets will be valid when travelling between two stations in the capital's travelcard zones. A spokesman told MailOnline: 'London TravelWatch are pleased to see the new flexi season ticket brought in for longer distance commuters who want to come in for just two days a week, but there is a lot of confusion about whether it will be available for shorter commuter journeys into London. 'If you are making a trip from Romford to Liverpool Street, Eltham to Charing Cross or Bromley to Victoria, it looks like you can't buy one, because it's in the Travelcard zone system. 'The rail industry need to issue clearer and more consistent communications to passengers about what the rules are in London, to clear up any confusion.' And Elly Baker, Labour's London Assembly Transport spokesman, added: 'The introduction of these new flexible season tickets falls far short of the widespread reform that the fares system desperately needs. 'Even as a short-term measure, it does little for Londoners as the discounted tickets do not apply to journeys made between stations in the capital. 'This means that commuters travelling into work two days a week on busy routes, such as from Romford to Liverpool Street, won't see any benefits.' The Department for Transport said commuters travelling two days a week on flexible season tickets could save 260 from Woking to London, 230 from Liverpool to Manchester, and 170 from Stafford to Birmingham, compared to the cost of normal daily fares. How much money do transport officials say commuters could save? Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: 'Our railways work best when they are reliable, rapid and affordable. 'As we kickstart the biggest reforms to our railways in a generation, flexible season tickets are the first step. They give us greater freedom and choice about how we travel, simpler ticketing and a fairer fare. 'With a season ticket calculator to see which option works best for you, and a book with confidence guarantee to make journeys stress-free, the future of fares is flexible.' The introduction of flexible tickets comes amid changing travel patterns due to the coronavirus pandemic. An increase in home working has led to a huge decline in the number of people travelling by rail, particularly those commuting rail five days a week. Robert Nisbet, director of nations and regions at the Rail Delivery Group - which represents train operators, said: 'We've worked with Government to introduce the new Flexi Season ticket, which goes on sale today, to give commuters the freedom and flexibility to divide their time between home and the office. 'The rail industry is helping people travel and book with confidence by providing better journey information, boosting cleaning and helping them change a booked journey fee free should their circumstances change.' Anthony Smith, chief executive of passenger watchdog Transport Focus, said: 'Some passengers will welcome today's new flexible tickets and discounts. This will be useful in helping people choose rail again. 'Our research with passengers showed us there was strong demand for a new ticket that suited people who expected to commute less frequently in future. What are flexible tickets and how will they work? Flexible rail season tickets go on sale today, but they will only save money for some passengers. Here are some key questions about the new tickets. - What do the tickets allow me to do? The new Flexi Season allows unlimited travel between two stations on any eight days in a 28-day period. - Who will benefit? People who travel two or three days a week at peak times will save money using the tickets on certain routes. - How much could I save? The minimum discount for using a Flexi Season compared with a monthly ticket on the same route is 20 per cent. The Department for Transport says part-time commuters on certain routes will save hundreds of pounds a year. - What if I only commute one day a week? You will be better off buying daily tickets. - How about four or five days a week? An annual season ticket is likely to continue to be your cheapest option. - How do I get one of these flexible tickets? They are available on rail websites and apps, as well as at some station ticket offices. - How are the tickets issued? The new tickets are only available as either a smartcard or barcode ticket. - How do I use them? You must activate your pass on the day of travel by 'touching in' on a yellow reader on a gate, a platform validator, a ticket machine, or using the National Rail Smartcard app. - Can I travel in first class? No. Flex Season tickets are for standard class travel only. - Are there further discounts for children? The tickets are only sold at adult prices. - I've bought one. When can I use it? The new tickets can be used from June 28. AdvertisementTickets offering discounts for part-time commuters were already available in Scotland and Wales. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail will lead to the creation of a new public sector body named Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure, issue contracts to private firms to run trains, set most fares and timetables, and sell tickets. Rail franchises were effectively ended when the Government took over the financial liabilities of operators in March 2020 to keep services running amid the collapse in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic, at a cost of 12 billion. The emergency agreements will be replaced by passenger service contracts, with GBR contracting private firms to operate trains. It comes as HS2's costs have reportedly jumped by another 1.7billion in the past year as the coronavirus pandemic adds further pressure to the high-speed railway project. The suspension of work at most sites at the start of the virus crisis, combined with social distancing measures causing delays and reduced productivity, mean costs for phase one between London and Birmingham have risen by up to 800 million, sources close to the scheme told the Financial Times. This follows an 800million increase announced by HS2 Ltd in October 2020, which was partly driven by problems redeveloping Euston station, the month-long operation to remove activists from a network of tunnels at Euston Square Gardens, and pandemic pressures. It emerged earlier this month that the contract for building Birmingham Interchange station is worth up to 370 million, some 100 million more than an estimate in March 2020 which excluded money for contingency and options to maximise the site. A 1.7 billion overall increase in costs would be covered by 5.6 billion of contingency funds included in the 44.6 billion budget for phase one. A Department for Transport spokesman said: "Our focus remains on controlling costs, to ensure this ambitious new railway delivers its wealth of benefits at value for money for the taxpayer. The response to Covid-19 remains ongoing and final assessments of its effect have not been made." The Government-commissioned Oakervee Review warned in 2018 that the final bill for HS2's entire Y-shaped network could reach 106 billion. Despite it running tens of billions of pounds over its initial budget, and several years behind schedule, Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave HS2 the green light in February 2020. HS2 was a major issue in last week's shock by-election defeat for the Tories in Chesham and Amersham. The high-speed line is being built through the Buckinghamshire constituency. | 1 |
###CLAIM: venezuelan migrants started trickling back through informal points at the border around a month ago, a migration agency said this week.
###DOCS: SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Yaidis Colmenares tired and gaunt face leaves little need for explanation as to why the desperate Venezuelan mother of three is fleeing her native country for Colombia. Venezuelan migrants walk towards the border between Venezuela and Colombia during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in San Cristobal, Venezuela October 12, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo RamirezThe 37-year-old weighs 19 kilos (42 pounds) less than she did 10 years ago, she says. She could barely afford to buy food with the money she earned selling candy on the metro in Caracas, amid a strict coronavirus quarantine. Last week, she walked and hitchhiked 800 kilometers (500 miles) to Venezuelas western border city of San Cristobal in the hope of reaching neighboring Colombia with her 13-year-old son, her eight-year-old daughter and her one-year-old baby strapped to her chest. Look how malnourished I am, said Colmenares as she walked with a group of 15 people through a park near a major avenue to avoid roadblocks set up by police and the National Guard to enforce a nationwide quarantine. Now everything is in dollars. We have to run or well die, she said, referring to the increasing dollarization of basic goods in Venezuela that makes them inaccessible to the vast majority of the population, who get paid in local currency. Venezuelans face an increasingly dysfunctional economy in which fuel shortages make basic transportation impossible and basic goods and services are so expensive that most cannot afford them. Simple chores such as house cleaning and washing clothes have become a constant struggle due to the lack of electricity and running water. The renewed emigration threatens to swell the ranks of the Venezuelan diaspora throughout South America, a refugee crisis of proportions never witnessed in the region. The United Nations estimates that some 5 million Venezuelans left the country between 2015 and 2019, mostly for other parts of South America, to escape a hyperinflationary economic collapse under President Nicolas Maduro. This year, at least 100,000 Venezuelans returned to their country as the pandemic shuttered businesses and left those working as informal street vendors unable to make a living. Slideshow ( 4 images )Those who returned say they were stigmatized by the government for fueling the disease and ended up in a hand-to-mouth existence that was marred by blackouts, crime and chronic fuel shortages. Human Rights Watch in a report this week said returned migrants have faced abusive treatment from Venezuelan authorities, including being held in overcrowded quarantine centers with limited access to food and water. WALKING THROUGH ROADBLOCKSColombias migration agency this week said Venezuelan migrants started trickling back in via informal crossing points around a month ago. Colombias borders officially remain closed until at least Nov. 1. Director-General Juan Espinosa of the agency said last week the number of Venezuelans seeking refuge in neighboring Colombia could reach around 2 million within three to five months once the border reopens, up from 1.73 million at the end of July. Some San Cristobal residents try to support the new wave of migrants by offering advice on the shortest routes or helping them avoid roadblocks and checkpoints set up by the police and the National Guard. When 30 migrants on their way to the Colombian border were stopped by troops on Oct. 12, a group of neighbors arrived and sang the national anthem as they waved a Venezuelan flag. The troops eventually allowed them through. Look at all these Venezuelans who are emigrating because of you, Maduro, dont try to cover up whats happening, shouted Ambar Orellana, 27, walking through San Cristobal with her husband and two children in hopes of reaching Peru. Orellana said bus drivers carrying migrants had to pay off troops to get through roadblocks and that those on foot were charged $20 each. Venezuelas information ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the new wave of migration or the accusations of public officials seeking bribes from migrants. Juana Contreras, a homemaker in her 60s who lives on the road that leads to the border, said she began in recent weeks cooking arepas - traditional Venezuelan corn pancakes - as well as soup with vegetables to give to migrants. They leave because they cannot afford to eat or feed their family, said Contreras. It is satisfying to do this because we dont know if we will suddenly have to do the same. It would be very hard at my age. | 0 |
###CLAIM: `` i 've not slept for a week and it 's not really in the real world, '' he said of his rajasthan-royals indian premier league link-up, now set by stokes.
###DOCS: Ben Stokes could be in Indian Premier League action in just over a week after flying to the United Arab Emirates to hook up with Rajasthan Royals. The 29-year-old posted a photograph of himself with his dad and older brother James in an airport departure lounge on Instagram, captioned goodbyes never get easier.Stokes has not played since Englands first Test match victory over Pakistan in Manchester in early August, after being granted compassionate leave to be with his ill father Ged, who recently revealed he has brain cancer. Rajasthan told their 1.4million-a-season star to take his time in returning to cricket but he now appears on course to make the seventh of their 14 group games, against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Sharjah a week tomorrow. Stokes was granted compassionate leave by England after the first Test with PakistanGed was taken ill in South Africa last winter before brain tumours were spotted when he returned to New Zealand in JanuaryHe has been keeping up his fitness at Sydenham Cricket Club, his first team in New Zealand. Ged, 64, a former rugby league player and coach, was first diagnosed with brain cancer in January after returning to Christchurch from South Africa where he watched his son play for England. He had spent five weeks seriously ill in hospital in Johannesburg. Stokes senior told the New Zealand Herald: 'They had to assess how I travelled and from that they discovered I had a couple of tumours on my brain. 'So, basically brain cancer. How that came about nobody knows but obviously I've had a few bangs on my head through my life so that's probably contributed to it.' Stokes junior admitted his father's cancer diagnosis left him completely unable to concentrate on England duties. Big hitting Stokes is now set to link up with the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League'I didn't sleep for a week and my head wasn't really in it,' he said. 'Leaving [the team] was the right choice from a mental point of view.' The Royals also play next Friday against Delhi but as per the IPLs Covid-19 regulations, players coming from outside cricket bubbles overseas must self-isolate for six days and return three negative coronavirus tests. As he is scheduled to arrive in the early hours of Sunday morning, it appears that time frame will delay his availability for selection until the October 11 fixture. Stokes was named the IPLs most valuable player in helping Pune to the runners-up spot in 2017 and will be determined to help a Royals team also featuring fellow England internationals Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and Tom Curran into the latter stages of this years competition. | 1 |
###CLAIM: berezza and her husband fought with bianca and domingues after her husband 's death, but images of a video recorded by a guest at the rio de janeiro brisa ( barra ) hotel showed the man who walked into kevin 's room lying next to a pool after he and his wife slipped and fell off a fifth floor balcony.
###DOCS: Newlywed Brazilian singer MC Kevin fell to his death from a hotel balcony after panicking that his wife was about to catch him having a threesome with a model and pal, it is claimed. According to Extra Globo, that model - Bianca Domingues, 26, said she met MC Kevin, 23, and his singer friend Victor Fontenelle outside the Brisa Barra Hotel in Rio De Janeiro. Domingues said she was then invited to the popular singers suite Sunday evening. Domingues and Fontenelle told authorities that MC Kevin, whose real name is Kevin Nascimento Bueno, was afraid that his wife, criminal lawyer Deolane Bezerra, 33, would show up at the hotel room and catch him cheating on her. The singer and Bezerra had gotten married just three weeks earlier with a lavish bash in Tulum, Mexico. Moments after the wedding, MC Kevin and Domingues stepped out to the balcony of room 502 after an individual later identified as his friend came knocking. Brazilian singer MC Kevin (left) married criminal lawyer Deolane Bezerra (right) on April 28 in Tulum, Mexico. MC Kevin subsequently tried to jump to the balcony located in the room below, but lost his footing and plunged five floors, landing by the side of a swimming pool. Video recorded by guests at Barra de Tijuca beach hotel shows three people standing next to MC Kevin, who was lying on top of marble slab. One of the men says in Portuguese, (He) is breathing, call the ambulance.MC Kevin was rushed to Miguel Couto Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Still image of a video recorded by a guest at Brisa Barra Hotel in Rio de Janeiro shows a man walking towards MC Kevin who wound found lying face down next to the pool after he slipped and fell from a fifth floor balcony. MC Kevin was rushed to a local hospital, where he diedDeolane Bezerra with her late husband, Brazilian singer MC Kevin. She is said to have been trying to find him shortly before he fell to his deathAccording to Brazilian newspaper Metropoles, Bianca Domingues worked as an escort girl and had posed nude in a magazineSources told Metropoles that MC Kevin suffered two heart attacks inside the ambulance before reaching the medical facility. Domingues, who met with cops Monday, said MC Kevin believed that his wife was at the bedroom door, he was scared and tried to leave.Domingues and Bezerra reportedly exchanged punches and had to separated by cops at the precinct after the tragedy. The newspaper also reported that Domingues has previously posed nude for a magazine and worked an escort girl. Brazilian online news portal G1 reported Tuesday that the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police confiscated six phones belonging to the late singer, Fontenelle, Domingues, Bezerra and another person who was not named. MC Kevin was in Rio de Janeiro performing at a clandestine party Saturday night and reportedly had an argument with Bezerra. MC Kevin was laid to rest Tuesday morning at Parque dos Pinheiros Cemetery in Sao Paulo. MC Kevin hugs Deolane Bezerra at their wedding in Tulum, Mexico, less than a month before he fell to his death from a hotel balcony while allegedly cheating on her with a modelMC Kevin takes a selfie with Deolane Bezerra on a beach in Tulum Mexico, after their wedding. Berezza is said to have fought with Bianca Domingues after her husband's deathMC Kevin and Bezerra celebrated their wedding April 28 on a beach in Tulum, Mexico. On Monday night, Bezerra shared a photo of MC Kevin kneeling before her at a makeshift altar several steps away from the beach's shoreline. 'And on that that you spoke in my ear, @Life is now until death separates us,"' Bezerra wrote in Portuguese. 'And I am unique that just as well as we separate, we were not either for anything or anyone, being happy was our goal. How we laughed at the criticism ... How did we live everything so fast? ... We had to hurry to be happy, your destiny was place.' 'You left and took a piece of me, you were always so incredible ... I waited 33 years to be happy and you abandon me? It is not fair you will leave like this! It is not! It is not! My love.' MC Kevin's songs were part of a genre of music created in Sao Paulo in 2008, known as funk paulista. Lyrics often revolve around cars, motorbikes, alcohol, women and achieving life goals. He released his first song in 2013. His 2019 hit 'Cavalo de Troia', known in English as 'Trojan Horse', has hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. A popular Brazilian singer fell to his death from his fifth-floor hotel room on Sunday, only a fortnight after tying the knot. Kevin Nascimento Bueno, 23, also known as MC Kevin and had 8.6million followers on Instagram, was declared dead following the incident at a beachside neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 'funk paulista' artist fell from his room in the beachside neighbourhood of Barra da Tijuca on Sunday evening. The fire brigade was called to the scene and took the 23-year-old to Miguel Couto Hospital in a critical condition, where he later passed away. He married criminal lawyer Deolane Bezerra on a Mexican beach just two weeks ago. Kevin Nascimento Bueno, 23, also known as MC Kevin, fell to his death from his fifth-floor hotel room on Sunday, only a fortnight after tying the knotHe was declared dead after the fall on Sunday night. He married criminal lawyer Deolane Bezerra (pictured) on a Mexican beach just two weeks agoFollowing his tragic death, Bezerra posted a photo of the them embracing at their wedding on Instagram. She said: 'You are and will always be the love of my life, the most beautiful love I had, the man who loved and admired me the most! 'Go with God, my boy, I will always love you!!!' Following his tragic death, Bezerra posted a photo of the them embracing at their wedding on Instagram, writing ' I will always love you!!!' (pictured, the couple in Dubai)Kevin, who came from Sao Paulo, released his first song in 2013. His hit 'Cavalo de Troia', known in English as 'Trojan Horse', from 2019 has hundreds of millions of views on YouTubeHis mother also paid tribute on Instagram, revealing in a post the last words she heard from Kevin were 'Mum, I love you'. Kevin, who came from Sao Paulo, released his first song in 2013. His hit 'Cavalo de Troia', known in English as 'Trojan Horse', from 2019 has hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. His songs were part of a genre of music created in Sao Paulo in 2008, known as funk paulista. Its lyrics often revolve around cars, motorbikes, drink, women and achieving life goals. Kevin's songs were part of a genre of music created in Sao Paulo in 2008, known as funk paulista, which often involve lyrics about cars, motorbikes, women, and achieving life goalsHe had previously had a number of brushes with the law. His neighbours reported him to the police for breaching COVID-19 restrictions after he filmed himself strolling outdoors after testing positive for the virus last yearHe had previously had a number of brushes with the law. He was charged with libel and incitement after swearing at the police and posting the footage to social media earlier this year. And, neighbours reported him to the police for breaching COVID-19 restrictions after he filmed himself strolling outdoors after testing positive for the virus last year. He was also arrested at a hotel in the city of Belo Horizonte for drug use in 2019. The police are investigating his death. | 2 |
###CLAIM: deborah fuller, a university of washington microbiologist working on a second-generation vaccine for novel coronaviruses, said progress has been pretty amazing.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareUnlock This article is free to access. Why? The Washington Post is providing this news free to all readers as a public service. Follow this story and more by signing up for national breaking news email alerts. In a matter of weeks, one of the most closely watched human experiments in history will start to report results, with early data on prospective coronavirus vaccines possibly coming this month or next from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotechnology company Moderna. Amid the turmoil, chaos and misinformation that have defined the U.S. response to the pandemic, progress toward a vaccine, or vaccines, has been steady, reassuring and scientific. Political meddling has so far been largely deflected. Drug companies, working closely with the U.S. government and fueled by an infusion of more than $10 billion of taxpayer money, have developed, tested and scaled up a half-dozen potential vaccines at unprecedented speed. And on Thursday, independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will convene their first full-day meeting to lay the groundwork for their coming consequential deliberations on whether to recommend specific vaccines for public use. Those decisions will not be binding on the FDA, but the agency typically follows the recommendations of its advisory committees. Creating a new vaccine can involve thousands of people over several years. Here's what it takes to produce a new FDA-approved vaccine. (Video: The Washington Post)Going from where we were in January and February where we are going to be hit by this tsunami to very likely having a vaccine, or more than one vaccine, that is proven safe and effective within a year, is staggeringly impressive, and would only have happened with strong and effective federal action, said Robert Wachter, the chair of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. AdvertisementWachter has strongly criticized the administrations response to the pandemic, arguing it has cost tens of thousands of lives. But he called the vaccine effort nearly flawless so far words he said he found difficult to say. There are no guarantees, of course. No vaccine has yet been proved safe and effective, some trials have been paused, and candidates still may fail. Once a company has gathered what it considers compelling evidence, regulatory review will take a few weeks. Most significant, the challenges of getting successful vaccines to hundreds of millions of people still loom after the science succeeds. So does the job of persuading Americans that vaccines, while powerful tools, are not panaceas and must be regarded as one of several strategies they must use to protect themselves against the novel coronavirus. Yet Wachter and others say the governments initiative to speed the development of vaccines and therapeutics may live up to its fantastical moniker plucked from science fiction Operation Warp Speed. AdvertisementPfizer, which received a nearly $2 billion preorder of 100 million vaccine doses from the U.S. government, has projected having enough cases of covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, among study participants to assess the effectiveness of its vaccine sometime this month and sufficient safety data by mid-November to seek regulatory clearance. Before they authorize a vaccine, regulators will require that the vaccine be at least 50 percent effective, that there be at least five severe cases of covid-19 among people who receive a placebo and that there be at least two months of follow-up on half the study participants. Backed by about $2.5 billion from the federal government, Moderna is likely to have 53 covid-19 cases among participants by November enough for a first look at the data with sufficient safety data available just before Thanksgiving. AstraZeneca, although its U.S. trial is on pause to investigate a possible adverse reaction, still expects enough data from worldwide trials to determine effectiveness by years end. Johnson & Johnson has paused its trial pending an investigation into a potential safety issue. But with a one-dose regimen and 60,000 study subjects, its trial is built to move fast if it is restarted. Novavax has begun a trial in Britain and soon will start one in the United States, followed by a trial launch by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline. Other vaccines are in the pipeline. AdvertisementThe Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could be albeit with a low probability approvable in the month of November, when we would have a few single digit million doses of vaccine, but odds of regulatory clearance rise dramatically in December and January, Moncef Slaoui, the vaccine veteran leading Warp Speed, said in an interview. If a vaccine is authorized, Slaoui said, the United States will have enough doses to immunize 100 million people with their first dose, including elderly people and front-line workers at high risk, by January. Operation Warp Speed is a federal initiative, but the concept is grounded in years of global work on emerging pathogens. The idea of taking the financial risks out of vaccine development and rapidly repurposing technologies developed against other diseases builds on a global intellectual movement, an understanding of whats needed in these types of situations, said Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-disease physician at Boston University School of Medicine. AdvertisementThe irony is that any political meddling in the approval process could erode public trust and undermine faith in vaccines that experts say could otherwise stand as a singular triumph, a vaccine effort that has kept pace with a timeline about which many were skeptical when the efforts began. The progress has been pretty amazing, said Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at the University of Washington who is working on second generation vaccines for the novel coronavirus. In January, people were telling me we could have a vaccine within a year, and all of us were like, Well believe it when we see it.' Im still cautious about that, because, like anything, its not here until its here.The meeting this week of the FDA advisory committee, a panel of experts in infectious diseases, vaccines and biostatistics, will be a milestone in demonstrating that despite the speed, people will be able to trust the vaccine. It may seem technical and arcane to the public, and that would be a good thing, several scientists said. After months of political grandstanding about the vaccine, these are the principles that will determine the fate of a shot. AdvertisementA lot of words ... may not necessarily appeal to the average listener, said Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. Its an important moment, though, to reassure the public this is going to be a transparent decision-making process, and FDA is not going to be pressured into giving an emergency use authorization if the data doesnt support that.Much of the debate over the timeline for a vaccine has been fueled by the unpredictability of the clock in each vaccine trial, which ticks forward according to the accumulation of covid-19 cases among study participants. The vast majority of coronavirus infections are mild or even cause no symptoms, but regulators will require at least five severe cases of covid-19 in a trials placebo group against which to measure the efficacy of the particular vaccine and also to look for any signal that the vaccine could cause worse cases of disease, as has occurred with vaccines for some other pathogens. The companies have models that are based on the attack rate of the virus, or how fast people in the trials will become infected, but those are just predictions. AdvertisementSince we must wait for a certain number of cases to occur, this data may come earlier or later based on changes in the infection rates, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla wrote in an open letter Friday. The participants, the study investigators and even the companies running the trials do not know who received the real vaccine and who received a jab of saline. Its only when the trial clock chimes when a certain number of infections have occurred that expert committees can peer beyond the firewall to see whether theres an early signal that the vaccine works. Those experts, who form a data-safety and -monitoring board, can review whether those who received a particular vaccine are protected, exhibiting fewer infections than are observed among those who got a placebo and they recommend to an oversight group whether the shots are ready for consideration by regulators. Pfizers trial clock is set to allow experts to take earlier and more frequent looks at the data, the first at 32 covid-19 cases. The government created similar protocols for vaccines whose development is funded by Operation Warp Speed, and those trials wait for more people to become ill, with Modernas first look coming after 53 cases. Gaming out when those first looks might occur has become its own kind of sport. But all that has obscured the fact that even if the trials allow their clocks to run to midnight that is, to preset endpoints for the whole trials it will be only a matter of weeks, not many months. AdvertisementLarry Corey, a virologist at Seattles Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who is co-leading clinical trials under Operation Warp Speed, has projected that in a two-dose vaccine trial with 30,000 participants, it would take 16 weeks to get the first look at the data sometime in November for the Moderna trial. But it is likely to take only an additional seven weeks to get to the endpoint of the trial, which is 151 infections. We designed [the trial] to understand that with 150 endpoints, there was a reasonable balance, in defining whether the vaccine would work in severe disease or mild disease, in elderly or less elderly, whether it would have enough cases among Hispanic and Black people, Corey said. A successful first vaccine is far from being the end of the pandemic or even the end of the scientific race. But a scientific problem will quickly morph into a potentially contentious debate about how to distribute and use initially limited numbers of doses. A country that has often stumbled on implementing and communicating basic public health messages will be faced with an unprecedented new challenge. AdvertisementIt will be an absolute tragedy if we invest $10 billion and hundreds of thousands of volunteers to develop a vaccine thats truly safe and effective, and people wont take it because there has been so much noise and misinformation and redirection, said Stephen Thomas, the chief of the infectious-disease division at SUNY Upstate Medical University, who is working on the Pfizer trial. The first vaccine will create a cascade of follow-on effects, raising questions about how to test the next generation of vaccines. If an effective vaccine becomes available in the next few months, it may no longer be ethical to test other vaccines against placebos, for example. Even a very large vaccine trial cannot rule out very rare adverse events, and a careful watch will have to be kept for such events after any vaccine is approved, according to strict regulatory requirements that will be debated at Thursdays meeting. But with levels of the virus rising, it will not be a long wait to reach the endpoint of the trials. Coreys projections show that Modernas trial could reach its 151-case endpoint around years end, and two trials that havent even started in the United States could, if all goes as projected, have evidence of effectiveness by spring. Even experts who have been concerned about political interference marvel at what has been accomplished. Im stunned still to think that [from] the virus sequence in January, and well have trials with results in December, in the same year, said Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research Translational Institute. Not five years later and even five years would have been a near record.GiftOutline Gift Article | 1 |
###CLAIM: from experience, i know entirely that someone who has an emotional attachment to making friends and family available can learn something from it.
###DOCS: John Cardillo, a television host and former police officer, posted on Twitter on Wednesday what he seemed to think was a dunk on Joe Biden and his relationship with his son, Hunter. Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you? he asked. Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you? pic.twitter.com/XDMIsgjUKI John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 22, 2020AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe tweet was panned by the thousands, and rightfully so. Cardillos implication is absurd. But dismissing it out of hand misses a crucial opportunity to talk bluntly about how complicated a fathers love for his son can be, and the equally complicated way sons receive that love. It is not crazy to feel uncomfortable or a little embarrassed by that picture. Thats how men are trained to be. My father would argue that for men, there is nothing more important than providing for your family. Given his circumstances as an Arab taxi driver with four kids, he did just that. He believed helping me to develop in other ways was just beyond his pay grade. Especially when I hit puberty, there were no hugs, no talking about our days, no intimacy whatsoever. It would have been revelatory just to feel like more of a part of his world. In retrospect, I think now listening to him describe what he was going through emotionally would have given me the right vocabulary to do the same. But while I was lucky enough to be raised in a household with two parents, he believed his share of the work was fulfilled when he paid the bills. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIf that sounds off to you, thats because those ideas are changing, slowly. In a sense, American fathers are now raising sons in a new world. In a 2016 YouGov survey, researchers found that younger men were far less likely to say they were completely masculine than older men; only 30 percent of respondents under 29 said they were, compared with 65 percent of men 65 or older. But still, ideals of stoicism, hardness, and quiet, solitary strength are projected and performed by men. A portrait of open and unembarrassed affection between a father and his adult son challenges that, and as you can see in Cardillos reaction, defying those conventions often yields mistrust and even disgust. AdvertisementAdvertisementWhen I was younger, projecting strength was easy. I was from Newark, New Jersey; I knew how to stand my ground. I was swept up with wanting to keep it real, which ironically meant hiding behind a facade of toughness, so much so that I didnt allow myself to sit with my feelings before I tossed them out. The fear of being perceived as unmasculine ruled my behavior, and it ruled my fathers behavior too. Being soft and intimate around other boys on the playground was dangerous because of how boys found it easier to knock one another down. Similarly, my father was patient and kind in private, but stern and unforgiving with me in public, worried that a moment of compassion would be misconstrued as a sign of fragile authority. Many of us dont free ourselves from that pressure until later in life, if at all. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIf I hadnt matured since then, Id have agreed with Cardillo that that picture is an expression of weakness. But I realize now that those feelings were coming from a fear thats constantly reinforced. So I dont think we should harangue men for not recognizing the strength it takes to be intimate with other men. I know from experience that its entirely possible for someone to learn to make themselves emotionally available to friends and family. But for men who cant let go of backward ideals, ridicule is exactly the wrong reaction. What will work for people like Cardillo is what worked for me: to reframe what strength is. In that photo, Biden is showing it. That kind of intimacy takes work, courage, and strength, the kind of traits people tend to lionize when Pew polls them about masculinity. These masculine traits are required to be compassionate and kind, particularly with other men, and its absolutely the more difficult role to take on. If youre a man reading this, maybe youve thought about this stuff and feel like youre in a good place with it. Maybe you are. But I doubt it will be hard for you to think of a man close to you that you would feel uncomfortable embracing like this. Try it. I do with my dad now. Its more difficult than you might think. | 1 |
###CLAIM: community in the united states and australia have generated greater fears of random racial motivated attacks and violence.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareAnd this trend isnt happening just in the United States. In Australia an English-speaking country where 12 percent of the population is of Asian descent, and where immigration policies also have an exclusionary history nearly 1 in 5 Chinese Australians report physical or verbal abuse since the pandemic began. Anti-Asian sentiment is a global concern, our research finds. AdvertisementThe model minority stereotype often makes it easy for people to dismiss the threat against Asians we tend to connote, inaccurately, moderate economic success with an immunity to racial discrimination. Yet Asians have long been subjected to stereotypes of being foreign, which can lead to discrimination and violence. Former president Donald Trump frequently called coronavirus the China virus and kung flu, despite policymakers and public health officials pleas to avoid attaching locations or ethnicities to the disease. The return of overt forms of racism and racial violence, while unsurprising, has left the larger Asian American community scared and demanding change. Our research looks at anti-Asian sentiment both subtle and overt at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and Australia. We learned that anti-Asian bias is similarly present in both countries, though political partisanship played a crucial role in the U.S.AdvertisementHow we researched anti-Asian biasTo understand anti-Asian bias during the ongoing pandemic, we conducted nationally representative online surveys in the United States and Australia. We surveyed 1,060 Americans and 1,375 Australians in September 2020 through YouGov, which conducts public opinion surveys across 40 countries. Our U.S. and Australian surveys capture a diverse set of respondents across racial groups and national origins, though they are predominantly White (34 percent of the U.S. sample is non-White; over 15 percent of the Australian sample is likely foreign-born). Australia emerged as a global leader in covid-19 containment, while the U.S. struggled to contain new surges in infection. In September 2020, the state of Victoria was under strict lockdown, but Australias overall infection rates were very low relative to the United States, as the figure below reveals. Other Australian states remained open, with infection rates close to zero. We tested anti-Asian sentiment two ways. We included the following statement, randomly assigning respondents to one of two groups: Below is a list of venues you might normally visit for a meal or to meet friends. After you read all four (five), just tell us how many of these venues you would be concerned about visiting because of the risk of catching coronavirus (covid-19)? The control group was given the following four items: (1) Italian restaurant, (2) nightclub, (3) gym, (4) Indian restaurant. The treatment group received a fifth item a Chinese restaurant to understand how its addition affected survey respondents level of worry. Heres what we learned about bias against people of Asian descentDespite the greater magnitude of covid-19 in the U.S., our survey results show that anti-Asian bias was similarly present in Australia. In fact, Australians expressed a slightly higher level of anxiety about catching covid-19 from Asians, with an average response of 2.74 out of 5, compared to 2.53 among Americans. Similarly, slightly more Australians (46 percent) than Americans (39 percent) would have avoided a Chinese restaurant. Thus, even though covid-19 had been largely contained in Australia, Australians still feared the risk of being infected by Asians. AdvertisementIn the United States, we found political partisanship was critical in explaining overt and subtle anti-Asian sentiment. Relative to Democrats, Republicans expressed greater worry of catching covid-19 from Asian Americans relative to other racial groups, though they were less likely to avoid any venues, including Chinese restaurants. By contrast, Democrats in our survey expressed worry about catching covid-19 from all racial groups, but relatively less worry from Asian Americans compared to White Americans. Democrats avoided more venues under covid-19 and perceived an equal level of danger from Chinese restaurants as from other venues. Approximately 45 percent of Democrats avoided Chinese restaurants for fear of catching the coronavirus. What does this tell us about anti-Asian bias? Our research show that Anti-Asian sentiment is evident in two countries with colonial legacies and institutionalized White supremacy, consistent with other research in countries with similar histories, including Canada, New Zealand and Britain. In Australia, despite a better pandemic response, including fewer infections and deaths and a smaller economic recession, there is evidence of anti-Asian bias. U.S. Republicans in our survey, compared to Democrats, express more overtly a fear of Asian Americans as disease carriers. However, Democrats are more likely to avoid visiting multiple types of venues, including Chinese restaurants. AdvertisementFor Asian communities in the United States and Australia, these unmitigated fears have created a double whammy, by hollowing out Chinatowns and Asian businesses and generating a greater fear of random, racially motivated attacks and violence. Our survey findings from the two countries show that the pandemic may have triggered historical stereotypes about Asians, while rising anti-Asian sentiment is deepening broader discriminatory narratives around the world. Rennie Lee (@rennielee) is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research and ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Lifecourse at the University of Queensland. Xiao Tan (@monicaxtan) is a research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne. GiftOutline Gift Article | 0 |
###CLAIM: the dispute includes a republican-backed plan to reign in the federal reserve's lending program, intended to ease the economic sting of the pandemic.
###DOCS: McConnell summed up the state of play on negotiations that have seemed within reach for days: Weve been close for a while now. And we still are.Congress had hoped to at least announce a deal on Friday, using the shutdown deadline to pressure lawmakers to finish their work. Now lawmakers will work through the weekend. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said even if negotiators clinch a deal late Friday, which appears unlikely, the earliest the House would vote would be at 1 p.m. Sunday, teeing up a frantic day of legislative action to close out the weekend. We are hopeful that they will reach agreement in the near future, they have not reached one yet, Hoyer said, noting there were still some significant issues outstanding.The dash to prevent a government shutdown capped a day of lame duck drama. Frustrations boiled over with rank-and-file members, who vented about being left out of the negotiations only to be expected to vote on a nearly $2 trillion package sometime this weekend that no one will have fully read. This is ridiculous, said Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.). We should have a deal we shouldve had a deal a long time ago. Its unconscionable that were even here the weekend before Christmas.Speaker Nancy Pelosi and McConnell spoke by phone around 1 p.m. and agreed to try to wrap up negotiations within the next three to four hours. But that afternoon deadline came and went without an announcement of a deal. After meeting with McConnell later Friday, Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said the state of play was increasingly tenuous. He said announcing a deal on Friday would be a triumph of hope over experience.The issues hindering Congress are complex and multi-layered. Democrats are blaming GOP Sen. Pat Toomeys insistence on winding down a key Federal Reserve program as the primary impediment to finishing negotiations, but Republicans say Democrats are just looking to send states and cities more funds through a backdoor method. Conservatives are raising alarm about new spending. And several senators are pushing for higher direct payments than the current level of $600, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sanders and Hawley. Hawley briefly threatened to stop a short-term spending bill over concerns about whether direct payments were in the bill, but relented at 5 p.m. after being briefed by GOP leaders. Sanders rose to object to McConnells attempt to pass the spending bill, but backed down with a threat about the next deadline. And let me also be absolutely clear that I will object to any attempt by the Senate to pass an omnibus appropriations bill and leave town before passing a Covid relief bill with substantial direct payments going to working people, Sanders said. As he left the Capitol for the night he declined to specify whether $600 met his definition of substantial.Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) blocked Hawley and Sanders from passing a new round of $1,200 stimulus checks, exposing the rift in the GOP about how to handle the pandemics sweeping economic impacts. Though McConnell said on Friday morning that hes even more optimistic now than I was last night that a bipartisan, bicameral framework for a major rescue package is very close at hand, the finger-pointing at Toomey (R-Pa.) in the frantic negotiations and complaints by Hawley and Sanders suggested a tough road ahead for congressional leaders. Despite the last minute disputes, lawmakers say theyre hopeful a deal is still within reach. This is just the normal pain associated with getting to a final solution, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. But that hasnt stopped the blame game from continuing in full force in the meantime. Senior Democrats said an agreement was within sight until Toomey and the GOP made a new ask on the Feds emergency lending programs. Toomey has pushed for similar provisions since July, but Democrats argue his latest proposal is more restrictive. Republicans are concerned the emergency lending program will be used to help state and local governments, which they have repeatedly objected to. The current version of Toomeys plan would prevent the emergency lending program established by the CARES Act from continuing next year and would also bar the central bank from starting any similar program, according to a draft viewed by POLITICO. The Federal Reserve has said it would like the emergency programs to continue operating until the economic crisis has ended. Brian Deese, President-elect Joe Bidens pick to be National Economic Council director, urged negotiators to keep the Fed program. But Toomey pushed back in a statement Friday afternoon, saying in a statement that his language affects facilities that received CARES Act money expire at the end of the year ... cannot be re-started or duplicated without authorization by Congress. Any statement to the contrary is inaccurate.The early skirmishing was an ominous sign for one of the most pivotal days of Congress this year. While congressional leaders have agreed to the broad outlines of a package that would deliver $600 stimulus checks to many individuals and children, $325 billion for small businesses and a $300 weekly unemployment boost, finalizing the deal has proven stubbornly difficult. Johnson raged against that framework as he blocked Hawleys proposal, suggesting conservatives will not appreciate more than $2 trillion in spending being dropped in their laps at the last minute. Im certainly lodging my objection to whats barreling through here. The train has left the station on the package thats being negotiated right now that is way too big, Johnson said on the Senate floor. The weekend session and new Sunday shutdown deadline mark a fitting finale for a Congress that opened with the longest government shutdown in history. In addition to the Fed fight, disaster relief, direct payment eligibility and money for entertainment venues were also among the final sticking points for negotiators. Then theres the issue of drafting hundreds of pages of legislative text and getting it through the House and the Senate, where one individual senator can slow everything down. Marianne LeVine, Caitlin Emma and Victoria Guida contributed to this report. Congress looked to avert a government shutdown for the second time in a week by passing a two-day stopgap funding bill to allow lawmakers more time to agree on a COVID relief bill. The continuing resolution (CR), which passed both the House and Senate with just hours to spare before a midnight deadline, will prevent a government shutdown and allow Congress more time to iron out sticking points in the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill that Americans have been awaiting for months. The House passed the measure in a 320-60 vote with the Senate approving it by a voice vote soon after, The Associated Press reported. President Trump signed the legislation late Friday, the report said. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said the public should not expect a bill to be agreed to sooner than 1 p.m. Sunday. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blamed Republicans for the inability to reach a deal Friday, saying the stimulus checks have proven to be the sticking point. "We want $1200 at least," she told the Hill. "And Republicans are fighting it back down to $600, which is really unfortunate. $600 is not enough." But GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, Mo., who along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have pushed Congress to approve stimulus checks, said he would "continue to fight for $1200/ person and $500 (min) for kids for working families." NANCY PELOSI, MITCH MCCONNELL RECEIVE COVID-19 VACCINE"I am so frustrated by the inability of us to act like adults, with responsibility," Hoyer told reporters Friday evening, The Hill reported. Though lawmakers are hopeful they will actually vote on the relief package this weekend, Hoyer said they would only be given two hours notice before needing to appear at the Capitol for the vote meaning lawmakers will have little time to read through a $908 billion package likely running hundreds of pages long. "I'm adamantly opposed to shutting down the government that serves the people of the United States, and indeed globally," Hoyer told Fox News. "And I'm definitely not for keeping 2 million federal employees twisting in the wind about what we're going to do so, that would not be an option for me." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe House majority leader was clearly frustrated by the second passing on a stopgap bill after last weeks continued resolution, and said he wasnt concerned by the short amount of time lawmakers will have to review the legislation given the "thousands of people in food lines and millions of people worried about how theyre going to pay the rent ... how theyre going to survive the next day. Much more worried about that," the Washington Post reported. Fox News' James Levinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
###CLAIM: both chambers were entered by rioters who vandalized statues and offices including that of house speaker nancy pelosi of calif.
###DOCS: Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Thursday resigned from his post as the special envoy to Northern Ireland following the riot at the U.S. Capitol. I cant stay here, not after yesterday, Mulvaney said in an appearance on CNBC. You cant look at that yesterday and say I want to be a part of that in any way shape or form.His resignation follows that of some other notable White House aides in the aftermath of the violence, including Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger. National security adviser Robert OBrien also reportedly considered stepping down on Wednesday, according to several reports. Mulvaney said he wouldnt be surprised to see more resignations as President Trump winds down his final 13 days in office but added that he understood why some in the administration would still choose to stay. I wouldnt be surprised to see more of my friends resign over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours, and itd be completely understandable if they did, Mulvaney said. Those who choose to stay, and I have talked some of to them, are choosing to stay because they are concerned that the president might put someone in to make things even worse.Trump appointed Mulvaney to the special envoy role in March after he had served as chief of staff from 2018 to 2020. A mob of Trump supporters overtook the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College results, forcing both chambers to evacuate. The situation quickly spiraled out of control, with rioters entering both chambers and vandalizing statues and offices including House Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-Calif.) office. One woman was shot and killed by Capitol Police, and three other people died after suffering separate medical emergencies near the Capitol grounds. Congress affirmed Bidens victory despite the riot, and Trump acknowledged there would be an orderly transition of power minutes after the certification. A couple of years into Donald Trump's presidency, there was a running joke about Mick Mulvaney and the many jobs the president gave him. Mulvaney, a former far-right congressman, was originally tapped to serve as the White House budget director, but before long, he was also leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Soon after, Trump made him White House chief of staff. After Mulvaney was no longer politically useful, the president named him the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland. That job, however, will apparently be his last. President Donald Trump's former acting chief of staff and current special envoy to Northern Ireland Mick Mulvaney on Thursday said he has resigned from his post after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. "I called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I would be resigning from that. I just can't do it. I can't stay," Mulvaney said in an interview with CNBC. Mulvaney conceded his resignation doesn't have any real practical significance, but he felt the need to do it anyway. "I can't stay here, not after yesterday," Mulvaney said. "You can't look at that yesterday and think I want to be a part of that." While his resignation is arguably the highest profile departure after yesterday's Trump-incited riot, there have been others. White House deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger has also reportedly resigned, as have a handful of other officials, including a deputy press secretary and a White House social secretary. (I believe the first to quit was Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump's chief of staff.) By some accounts, the list is expected to grow today. And that's probably a good thing. For four years, I've been among the many who've marveled at some officials' willingness to tolerate and enable Trump's madness, wondering what it'd take for them to resign. Evidently, Trump inciting an attack on his own country's Capitol -- because he's desperate to nullify election results he doesn't like -- was a bridge too far. I'm not inclined to criticize those who take the step I've long suggested they take. But it's not unreasonable to ask these same officials what in the world took them so long. It wasn't until yesterday that Mick Mulvaney, a member of Team Trump for four painful years, realized that he "just can't" be a part of this administration? | 3 |
###CLAIM: on nixon 's final day, bernstein said, `` he was not the president of the united states but of a deranged delusion whose restraints of constitutional straitjacket have to come off. ''
###DOCS: The new He Who Must Not Be Named is the late President Richard Nixon at least in the final days of the Trump administration. Soon-to-be-ex President Donald Trump has ordered advisers not to mention the name of Nixon, who resigned in 1974 under the cloud of the Watergate scandal, CNN reported Thursday. In separate conversations with aides, Trump declared a ban on any utterance of his disgraced predecessor even cursing out one adviser and demanding never to bring up the ex-president ever again, according to CNN. AdvertisementTrump has shut down calls that he resign with just days to go in his own disgraced presidency. He told people that he didnt trust that Vice President Mike Pence would pardon him like President Gerald Ford did when he replaced Nixon, CNN reported. Richard Nixon spent his final days in introspection while Donald Trump is likely not doing the same, Carl Bernstein said. GettyCarl Bernstein, whose Watergate reportage for The Washington Post helped lead to Nixons downfall, told Anderson Cooper on Thursday (watch the video above) that Trumps final days appear to be nothing like Nixons resignation or not. In his final days Nixon was not a deluded, deranged, out-of-control president of the United States who has to be restrained in a constitutional straitjacket, which is really what is going on right now, Bernstein said. The military wont heed his orders, we know something about that. People around him are trying to restrain him because they think he is dangerous.AdvertisementOn the other hand, Nixon, though he was drunk part of the time, turned to introspection at what he had done something Trump would be unlikely to do, Bernstein said. While Nixon deserved his fate, Bernstein had even harsher words for Trump, who finds his ruinous presidency indelibly stained by the Capitol riot he incited. The reporter called him a seditious president of the United States who inspired and celebrated a riot to burn down the Capitol, which is really what occurred. He encouraged it.It was Trump, ironically, who earlier in his presidency invoked Nixons name as a way of bragging about his strategy to subvert the Russia investigation. I learned a lot from Richard Nixon, Trump said in spectacularly un-self-aware commentary in May on Fox & Friends. Dont fire people. | 0 |
###CLAIM: the 1mdb earlier this month filed six suits against nine entities, including two foreign financial institutions and 25 people, for various violations including breach of trust, fraud and negligence.
###DOCS: FILE - In this May 14, 2015, file photo, construction workers chat in front of a billboard for state investment fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) at the fund's flagship Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia's Finance Ministry said Monday, May 10, 2021 that sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and a former subsidiary have filed 22 lawsuits to recover assets worth over $23 billion from various institutions and individuals. (AP Photo/Joshua Paul, File)FILE - In this May 14, 2015, file photo, construction workers chat in front of a billboard for state investment fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) at the fund's flagship Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia's Finance Ministry said Monday, May 10, 2021 that sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and a former subsidiary have filed 22 lawsuits to recover assets worth over $23 billion from various institutions and individuals. (AP Photo/Joshua Paul, File)KUALA LUMPUR (AP) Malaysias finance ministry said Monday that sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and a former subsidiary have filed 22 lawsuits to recover assets worth over $23 billion from various institutions and individuals. 1MDB was set up by former Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009 but it accumulated billions in debts and sparked investigations in the U.S. and several other countries. U.S. investigators allege that over $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB and laundered by Najibs associates. Finance Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the governments recovery efforts are now focused on pursuing other wrongdoers who have caused losses to 1MDB and SRC International following successful settlements with U.S. firm Goldman Sachs, Malaysias AmBank Group and Deloitte PLT. 1MDB earlier this month filed six suits against nine entities including two foreign financial institutions and 25 people for various violations including breach of trust, fraud and negligence. SRC filed 22 lawsuits against 15 individuals and 8 entities over for similar wrongdoings. ADVERTISEMENTThe two companies contend those entities and people were unjustly enriched by wrongfully receiving monies from 1MDB or SRC, the ministry said in a statement that did not name any of the entities or individuals. The government will not rest until all those involved are made fully accountable for the wrongdoings caused to the country through their involvement in 1MDB and SRC, Zafrul said in a statement. Malaysia received a 10.5 billion ringgit ($2.5 billion) settlement from Goldman Sachs last August. The ministry said the government will also receive 2.83 billion ringgit ($689 million) from the Ambank Group and 336 million ringgit ($80 million) from Deloitte. The 1MDB saga sparked public anger that led to the defeat of Najibs long-ruling coalition in 2018 elections. But it has regained power by joining an unelected alliance that took over last year. Najib was found guilty last year and sentenced to 12 years in jail in the first of several corruption trials linked to the 1MDB scandal. He is appealing the sentence. KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 (Reuters) - Malaysia 1MDB fund is suing units of Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and J.P. Morgan (JPM.N), and Coutts & Co Ltd to recover billions in alleged losses from a corruption scandal at the fund, court documents seen by Reuters showed on Monday. 1MDB is claiming $1.11 billion from Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Bhd, $800 million from J.P. Morgan (Switzerland) Ltd and $1.03 billion from Coutts, and interest payments from all of them, according to documents filed at a Kuala Lumpur court. Malaysia's finance ministry said earlier on Monday that 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and a former unit have filed 22 civil suits seeking to recover more than $23 billion in assets from entities and people allegedly involved in defrauding them. read moreReporting by Rozanna Latiff; writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Martin PettyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 3 |
###CLAIM: dear diana, my response was that your letter was particularly touching as it proved to me that you do care about me, if not already known.
###DOCS: EXCLUSIVE: When Princess Diana joined the British royal family, another "outsider" quickly became her ally. Her father-in-law, Prince Philip, was initially taken with the Princess of Wales and was willing to provide support as she navigated her new role. In 1981, Diana married Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne. "Philip spent seven decades walking behind the queen both literally and metaphorically but he was the backbone of the royals private life, supporting Diana during her most difficult periods," British author Tom Quinn told Fox News. "He also admonished his sons, including Prince Charles, when he felt their behavior was not good enough." Quinn previously wrote a book titled "Kensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir from Queen Mary to Meghan Markle" where he spoke to those who worked for the royals over the years. 'THE CROWN' STARS TOBIAS MENZIES, MATT SMITH REACT TO PRINCE PHILIP'S DEATHIn unearthed letters that were found after Dianas death in 1997 at age 36, it was revealed that Philip offered to provide a listening ear when he learned the princess marriage to Charles was on the rocks. Diana had long suspected that Charles was having an affair with his ex-girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles. "I can only repeat what I have said before," Philip wrote, as quoted by Woman and Home magazine. "If invited, I will always do my utmost to help you and Charles to the best of my ability. But I am quite ready to concede that I have no talent as a marriage counselor!" In response, Diana wrote: "Dearest Pa, I was particularly touched by your most recent letter, which proves to me, if I did not already know it, that you really do care. You are very modest about your marriage guidance skills, and I disagree with you! The last letter of yours showed great understanding and tact, and I hope to be able to draw on your advice in the months ahead, whatever they may bring." Quinn said that at first, Philip was on Dianas side. PRINCE PHILIP DIDNT WANT THE FUSS AND FRILLS OF A MASSIVE FUNERAL, AUTHOR SAYS"When Diana was at her lowest point, Philip wrote to her and said he couldnt understand why Charles insisted on being with Camilla," he claimed. "He told her he thought Charles was mad to have even thought of abandoning her. He had already told Charles he was mad to choose Camilla over Diana who Philip really liked." "Philip told Diana that she had his sympathy and he told her he would try to talk to Charles," Quinn continued. "But as we know, nothing was going to keep Charles away from Camilla. Diana wrote in reply to Philip to say how grateful she was that he was thinking of her and understood her position." In another letter, Diana shared: "I would like you to know how much I admire you for the marvelous way in which you have tried to come to terms with this intensely difficult family problem," as quoted by U.K.s Independent. However, their relationship reportedly took a turn when Diana took matters into her own hands. In 1992, Andrew Morton wrote "Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words," a bombshell book that was based on tapes the Princess of Wales recorded and delivered to him secretly. Diana candidly spoke about her strained marriage to Charles. PRINCE PHILIPS DEATH WILL PROMPT PRINCE HARRY TO REUNITE WITH HIS FAMILY SOONER THAN EXPECTED, AUTHOR CLAIMSIngrid Seward, royal author and editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, later told U.K.s DailyMail that Philip was allegedly "incensed" by the revelations and accused Queen Elizabeth II of "procrastinating" on the question of whether Charles and Diana should divorce. "Can you honestly look into your heart and say that Charless relationship with Camilla had nothing to do with your behavior towards him in your marriage?" Philip wrote to Diana, as quoted by Seward. His comments to Diana were stern, and the prince said he wanted her to understand that being a wife of the heir to the throne "involved much more than simply being a hero with the British people." Diana was allegedly furious by the response. Diana and Charles officially divorced in 1996. In 2002 when the letters became public, Philip issued a statement and denied ever using "the insulting terms described in the media reports" during their correspondence. "He regards the suggestion that he used such derogatory terms as a gross misrepresentation of his relations with his daughter-in-law and hurtful to his grandsons," the statement added. PRINCE PHILIP WILL NOT HAVE A STATE FUNERAL, BODY WILL LIE AT REST IN WINDSOR CASTLEDespite their differences, Philip stepped up to support his grandsons, Prince Harry and Prince William, after their mothers tragic death. The Independent reported that it was Philip who comforted William after the prince said he didnt want to walk in his mothers funeral procession. "If I walk, will you walk with me?" Philip reportedly told his grieving grandson, as reported by the outlet. Philip later did join the two boys as they walked behind their mothers coffin. In February, Harry, now 36, spoke lovingly of his grandparents. "[Philip] was a controversial figure who found what he saw as press intrusion infuriating, who made occasional racist remarks, and whose bluntness sometimes caused offense," said Quinn. "But, ultimately, he became a figure much admired, if not loved, who was praised for his long support for the queen." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPPhilip, who spent more than seven decades supporting his wife, died on Friday. He was 99. "It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh," the palace said. "His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle." The Associated Press contributed to this report | 0 |
###CLAIM: activists say the legislation represents an escalation in the aim of restricting the rights of transgender people in particular.
###DOCS: There arent many people like Yulia Tsvetkova in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The Russian city is 5,000 miles and seven time zones east of the capital, Moscow, and for half the year, it is under snow or ice. Its known more for shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturing than LGBTQ rights and feminist activism but that hasnt stopped Tsvetkova forging a reputation in both. There are practically no activists here, most of them try to leave, she says, over a phone call. But theres still a lot I can do.In the past three years, the 27-year-old has headed a youth theatre, where she created plays that explored gender stereotypes, run online groups on feminism and sex education, and published drawings that she says promote LGBTQ and womens rights on social media. Her activism has made her a target for the authorities. In July, about a week after the Kremlin pushed through constitutional amendments that include defining marriage as a union between a man and woman, Tsvetkova was fined for a second time under the countrys notorious gay propaganda law and forced to pay 75,000 Rubles ($1000) over her colorful illustrations of same-sex couples and their young children. Tsvetkova is now facing charges of spreading pornography for a Vagina Monologues page she published on social media last November, which features illustrations of vaginas, aimed at breaking the stigma around womens bodies. I laughed, my lawyer laughed, my friends laughed. Anyone can see that this isnt pornography, she says. Yet she spent four months under house arrest and prosecutors are relentlessly trying to build a case against her. If she is found guilty, as 99% of those prosecuted in Russias criminal courts are, she could be sent to jail for up to six years. Tsvetkova has become a symbol of the resistance against Russias enforcement of traditional values and despite the Kremlins attempt to stigmatize her activism, she has received unprecedented support from celebrities, artists and journalists across Russia and beyond. The defiance of Tsvetkova and many other LGBTQ activists in Russia may finally be paying off. Two weeks after the constitution was changed, the government proposed a bill to ban same-sex marriage and end the legal recognition of transgender people. Many activists had expected the landmark bill, co-authored by conservative lawmaker Elena Mizulina, to pass in the fall. But on Nov. 16 parliament revoked the bill for revision and it could now be scrapped altogether. Svetlana Zakharova, a spokesperson at the Russian LGBT Network in St. Peterburg says she cant say for sure why the law was repealed, but emphasizes that the LGBTQ community and its allies in Russia managed to unite to resist the legislation more than ever before. Our activities, together, helped to dismiss the bill, she says. Mizulina lost support because of the tremendous level of public outrage about the bills homophobia and transphobia, Jonny Dzhibladze, a coordinator at Vykhod (Coming Out), a St.Petersburg based LGBT rights group, says. It looks like we can breathe freely for some time, he says. But a battle won does not mean the war is over. The climate for LGBTQ people in Russia is still extremely hostile. According to a 2019 report by the Russian LGBT Network, 12% of LGBT people surveyed reported being subject to physical attacks, and 56%, psychological abuse. LGBTQ activists have been arrested, attacked and killed. If you live your life quietly and you do not make demands from the government, you do not express yourself publicly as an LGBT person, the government is not going to go after you, says Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Human Rights Watchs Europe and Central Asia division. The repeal of the bill is unlikely to change that situation. Its not as if everything was fine before the bill, and if it passed, everything would be bad, says Tsvetkova. But it does seem like were in a moment of transition between accepting whats around us and challenging it, she says. Artist Julia Tsvetkova is seen on an iPad screen during a July video interview. Ulf Mauderpicture alliance/Getty ImagesRussias culture of intoleranceOver the past 20 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has closely aligned himself with the socially conservative Orthodox Church and has enacted legislation in purported defense of traditional values that activists say has promoted a culture of hostility toward the LGBTQ community. Russia is already one of the least LGBTQ friendly places in Europe, ranking higher than only Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey in the 2019 Rainbow Index, by Brussels-based advocacy group Ilga-Europe. In 2012, Moscow city authorities banned pride events for 100 years. A year later Putin passed the so-called gay propaganda law, which bans information deemed to promote homosexuality to minors. The punishments were not severe, but it made it more dangerous for LGBTQ activists to claim their rights and stifled access to support services for LGBTQ youth. Alexander Kondakov, a researcher at the Centre for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg says It cannot be denied that the discriminatory law and the hateful rhetoric around LGBT rights at the time influenced an increase in violence towards LGBT people. Then came this years bill. Activists say the legislation represented an escalation, taking aim at the rights of transgender people in particular. It was a tremendous blow for the trans community in Russia, says Lokshina. Activists say that ending legal recognition banning transgender people from changing the sex on their birth certificate as the bill proposed, would further marginalize an already vulnerable group and open the way for more discrimination. Alexei Lis, a 36 year-old activist and transgender man from St. Petersburg says that If the police stop me and ask for my I.D. and see a womans photo, I could be harassed and beaten. Gaining legal recognition is an important step for transgender people in intergrating in society, in terms being able to apply for jobs and access medical services without fear of discrimination, says Reinera Veles, an 23 year-old activist and transgender woman from Moscow. For many LGBTQ people and their allies, the bill was a step too far. Russian LGBTQ activists fought back through campaigns including a social media movement (#ProtectRussianTransLives) and a petition that has been signed by almost 23,000 people. Dozens of doctors specializing in gender transition also condemned the move. In an appeal to lawmakers, medical professionals wrote that the bill will destroy the process of full gender transition by ending the legal recognition of transgender people. They said that the practice, which has been in place for decades in Russia, is extremely important for the socialization of transgender people. Banning it would aggravate gender dysphoria, they said. High profile figures also joined the protest, including playwright Valery Pecheikin, opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, and lawmaker and TV presenter Oksana Pushkina. Defying her colleagues in Putins United Russia party, Pushkina called it an absolutely insane law in an interview with TV Dozhd (Rain), one of the countrys few remaining independent outlets. Referring to Article 19 of Russias Constitution, which guarantees equal rights and freedoms to all citizens, she emphasized that sexual orientation cannot be the basis for restricting civil rights. Afterwards, several LGBTQ activists wrote open letters to Pushkina explaining how the bills would affect them. The Russian government has entrapped itself, says Lokshina. The more the government cracks down, the more vigorous LGBT activism in Russia becomes, she explains. One of the greatest developments that she says shes seen in her 20 years of human rights work in Russia is the the mainstreaming of the LGBTQ rights movement. Seven or eight years ago LGBT activists were seen as separate from the human rights community. The mainstreaming happened because of the crackdown, she says. Justice for YuliaThe widespread criticism over Tsvetkovas persecution is a case in point. Several high profile figures have publicly defended her over the pornography investigation, including TV host and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, actress Renata Litvinova, and veteran broadcaster Vladimir Pozner. They urged the authorities to protect the activist, who says she has received death threats from an anonymous homophobic network called Saw that publishes the names and contacts of LGBTQ people, and calls for violence against them. LGBTQ activist Elena Grigoryeva was murdered in July 2019 after her details appeared on Saws website. Opposition grew. In June, over 500 Russians across the country staged single person pickets in solidarity with Tsvetkova. Police responded aggressively, detaining 40 demonstrators in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The same month, over 50 media outlets organized a Media Strike for Yulia, demanding that the pornography investigation be dropped. Writers, journalists, actors, influencers, and bloggers published articles, including in Vogue, under the hashtag #forYulia and #FreeJuliaTsvetkova, and some 248,000 people signed an online petition calling on authorities to drop the case against her. Until recently, very few public figures in Russia were voicing their support for LGBTQ issues, says Zakharova, at the Russian LGBT network. It shows that society is changing. Its not as homophobic as our officials and religious leaders think, she says. While the Russian public is still deeply divided on LGBTQ rights, support for the community appears to be growing. A 2019 poll by the Levada Center, an independent polling agency in Moscow, found that 47% of Russians support equal rights for the LGBTQ community, the highest level in 14 years (43% were not in support). The trend is especially pronounced in 16-18-year-olds, 81% of whom reported a friendly or calm attitude toward LGBTQ people and 33% reported having LGBTQ acquaintances, compared to 42% and 8% respectively among the general public. Theres a lot of hope in young people, says Zakharova. While there is little evidence that Putins ruling party is becoming less hostile to LGBTQ people, there seems to have been a shift in attitudes among Russias democratic opposition figures. In 2009, Russias most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny suggested that gay people could frolic in a cordoned stadium rather than in public in a Pride Parade. Yet during his bid for Moscow mayor in 2013 and an aborted run for the presidency in 2017, he proposed to allow regional referenda on same-sex marriages. More recently, in June, he accused the government of going completely crazy after pro-Kremlin media group Patriot released a homophobic political advert. Sobchak, the TV host, in 2011 doubted the need for same-sex marriages. I just dont understand why this phenomenon should be called marriage, she said. But as a presidential candidate in 2018, she included same-sex civil unions and the lifting of the gay propaganda law in her political program. The repeal of the bill was an important win for Russias LGBTQ community, but its just one victory. Its not the end point, Tsvetkova says. Homophobia is a daily reality in Russia. Battling that requires the daily work of LGBTQ groups across the country, the willingness of the the public to speak out about inequality and efforts of human rights lawyers as they defend LGBTQ rights activists, like Tsvetkova, who currently awaits the start of her trial. But many activists feel that the change that they have long been fighting for is finally in the air. Contact us at [email protected]. ORYOL, RussiaAround 200 miles southwest of Moscow, Oryol is a world away from the bright lights and prosperity of Russias capital city. To understand the tens of thousands of demonstrators who turned out across the nation to protest the detention of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, look here. Industry in Oryol never fully recovered from Russias post-Soviet collapse. Once-proud factories sit abandoned. Parts of the city lack indoor toilets and running water. With few job prospects, many young people feel they have no choice but to leave. | 2 |
###CLAIM: in february 1988, a picture of him and joe was taken at stevenson 's the stone, stone and balloon, where center-bruce and springsteen were playing for advance pay and stevenson had to go to northern new jersey for it.
###DOCS: Dr. Jill Bidens first husband spoke up this week publicly for the first time in decades, announcing he is voting for President Donald Trump instead of his ex-wifes husband, Democrat Joe Biden. In the interview with Inside Edition, Bill Stevensonthe owner of the Delaware nightclub the Stone Balloon and Jill Bidens first husbandclaims the story that Joe and Jill tell about how they met is a lie. I was betrayed by the Bidens. Joe was my friend. Jill was my wife, Stevenson said in the interview with Inside Edition. Joe and Jill Biden claim they were set up on a blind date in March 1975, a few years after Joes first wife, Neilia Biden, died in a fatal car crash that also claimed their daughters life. Joe and Neilias sons, Hunter and Beau Biden, survived the fatal car accident, which happened in December 1972 right after Joe was first elected to the United States Senate. Joe was sworn into the Senate from the hospital where his sons were recovering. Beau Biden would later become the attorney general of Delaware, but he has since passed away due to brain cancer. Hunter Biden, meanwhile, has had his share of problems over the years with drugs and relationships but also has drawn scrutiny over various financial relationships he developed with foreign powers like the Chinese Communist Party and business dealings in Ukraine. As the story goes, as the Bidens have told it time and again in campaign rallies and books and again most recently at the Democrat National Convention, a few years after Neilias death he saw a picture of Jilla modelon an advertisement in Delaware in March 1975. The next day, Joe claims his brother Frankwho has also been drawn into corruption concerns surrounding the Biden familyintroduced Joe and Jill Biden since Frank knew Jill from college. The Bidens love story reads like a classic fairytale, Inside Editions Steven Fabian said in the news package rolling out the Stevenson interview. They saw a movie together on that blind date, fell in love, and never looked back. But Jill Bidens ex-husband says theres much more to the story, claiming Jill and Joes relationship actually started in 1974 when he was still married to Jill.Fabian asked Stevenson if the Bidens story of how they met is true. It was a blind date. Point blank, is that story true? Fabian asked Stevenson. No, not even a little bit, Stevenson replied. Stevenson married Jill when she was 18, six months after they first met on the beach. Jill and I met on the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey, in August of 1969. Sure I fell in love with her because I married her six months later, he said in the interview. Despite the official 1975 blind date narrative, Fabian said that Stevenson claims he introduced the two of them years earlierand they knew each other well. According to Bill Stevenson, both he and Jill first got to know Joe Biden when Biden was a county councilman in New Castle, Delaware. Stevenson asked for his help in obtaining a liquor license, Fabian said in the news package. Asked if he and Jill were friends with Joe Biden, Stevenson told Inside Editions Fabian that oh yeah and not only that, I threw a fundraiser for him in August and raised between $2,500 and $3,000. We got married in 70. I introduced Joe to Jill in 72. Right before the election in 72, Jill, Joe, Neilia, and I were in his kitchen. How do you forget that?Fabian said that that would be three years before that now-famous blind date.Stevenson said his first inkling something was up was when Jill refused to go with him to meet Bruce Springsteen, who was booked to appear at the Stone Balloon, Fabian said. She said Joe asked me to keep an eye on the boys. Stevenson said. I just thought in the back of my mind, Hmmm.Then one day a man came into his bar and asked him to pay damages for a fender bender that involved Jill, Fabian said. He looks at me, and he says, Oh, she wasnt driving. I said, Her beloved Corvette she wasnt driving? He goes, Sen. Biden was driving it, and I went, What? Stevenson recalled. Did you confront Jill at the time and say, Whats going on here? Fabian asked. Yes I did, Stevenson replied. She didnt say anything. She just looked at me. I said, You gotta go. You gotta go get your own place.Jill Biden and Bill Stevenson were formally divorced in May of 1975. Stevenson, who Fabian noted later was convicted on federal fraud charges and sentenced to six years of probation for passing bad checks, blamed politics for the legal issues. He said the divorce from Jill became contentious in Fabians telling of it when she tried to get a stake in the Stone Balloon. He has just written a book about his life and is considering publishing it, Fabian noted. Fabian also asked Stevenson why he waited until now to tell this story. Were talking about decades and decades ago. This story comes out right before the election; a lot of people are going to ask some questions, Fabian asked. Its years ago, but guess what? Its so current right now because he is picking on people about character, Stevenson replied. Stevenson also denied that any Republican Party or Trump campaign officials reached out to him to get him to go public with his story. The Bidens are denying Stevensons account, for what its worth. These claims are fictitious, seemingly to sell and promote a book, Jill Bidens spokesperson said according to Inside Edition. The relationship of Joe and Jill Biden is well documented. Jill Biden separated from her first husband irreconcilably in the fall of 1974 and moved out of their marital home. Joe and Jill Biden had their first date in March of 1975 and they married in June of 1977.At the end of the interview package, Inside Editions anchor wrapped the segment by noting that Stevenson said he voted for Barack Obama and Biden twice in 2008 and 2012 but will be voting for Trump this year because of Trumps stance on police issues. | 1 |
###CLAIM: denzel, mims, breshad and perriman had a quiet day, with the defender taken away from crowder.
###DOCS: The Jets won their second straight game on Sunday, stunning the Browns 23-16 at MetLife Stadium. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:1. Watching the way the defense has played the last two weeks makes me wonder if Adam Gase waited too long to fire defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. The defense has played inspired, mostly mistake-free football in the wins over the Rams and Browns. Frank Bush deserves a lot of credit for the way his unit has played. It is not like he is lining up with the 1985 Bears right now. The Jets were a weak unit to begin with and are now playing a lot of backups. The Jets only had four starters on Sunday from their opening day lineup in Buffalo. Williams did a good job last year, but it got a little overstated. The Jets played a lot of weak quarterbacks and Williams capitalized on that. The defenses best games came against Daniel Jones, Dwayne Haskins and Devlin Hodges. That led to an inflated view of how Williams coached. This season, Williams seemed to coach scared most of the year. That is what made his Cover Zero blitz against the Raiders even more shocking. It was a departure from how he coached most of the season. If you look at the Jets losses, I think you can attribute three of them directly to the defense. The losses to the Broncos, Patriots and Raiders were all on the defense. Maybe if they beat the Broncos in Week 4, the team gains some confidence and wins a few more games. The Jets still would have been a bad team, but more like 6-10 bad, not 2-13 bad. Who knows how it would have turned out, but the Jets have been a better team without Williams than with him. Gase probably should have made a move sooner. Adam Gase (r.) and Gregg Williams Bill Kostroun2. I know that this two-game winning streak probably has a segment of the fanbase worried that it might be enough to save Gases job. It wont be. In my opinion, based on conversations Ive had with people, the Jets are set to fire Gase next week and a few meaningless wins at the end of the season wont change that. It shouldnt. When I covered baseball, scouts used to say that you could not put too much stock in what you saw in September. The game changes with call-ups and teams that are out of the playoff race play differently. I think the same thing is true in football for teams out of the playoff race. Gase needs to be judged on the full picture and that includes the 0-13 start. Even more than record, though, the evaluation of Gase is about the way his offense has performed. He was hired in large part for his offensive acumen, but it has not worked here. The Jets have now gone 20 straight games with less than 400 yards of total offense, the longest streak in the NFL. The Giants are second with 16 games. The defense has been the catalyst for these two victories with the offense doing just enough to get the win. The one thing I do think these two wins do for Gase is improve his prospects for the future. If he went 0-16, I was wondering if he would get a job in the NFL again. I think he takes too much blame for the Jets struggles. The roster is atrocious. Now, he has shown that players will play for him and the offense has looked better with his starting receivers playing. Gase should be able to land somewhere as at least a position coach next year. 3. Get ready to hear a lot of names as the coaching carousel starts spinning. I expect the Jets to cast a wide net in the coaching search and speak to a lot of coaching candidates. Two names that came up in reports on Sunday are interesting. ESPN reported that teams have inquired about former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer. I doubt the Jets would be interested in Meyer or vice versa. It does not feel like a fit to me. I suspect Meyer would want to go someplace where he can have input on who the GM is going to be. NFL Network mentioned Ravens defensive coordinator Don Wink Martindale as a strong candidate. This one makes more sense for the Jets. Joe Douglas has strong ties to the Ravens organization, having worked there for 15 years. Douglas and Martindale overlapped from 2012-14 when Martindale was the linebackers coach. More than that, though, I expect Douglas to lean on longtime Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome for his opinion on coaches and Martindale could get the seal of approval from Newsome. That would carry weight with Douglas. 4. We give the Jets a lot of deserved grief about their free-agent decisions in recent years. But one that has worked is wide receiver Jamison Crowder. Former GM Mike Maccagnan signed Crowder to a three-year, $28.5 million deal in March 2019 and this is one Maccagnan got right. Crowder has been the most reliable offensive player for the last two seasons. He had a huge day Sunday with a touchdown catch and a touchdown pass. Crowder showed he can flourish when he has the other starting receivers on the field to take some attention away from him. Denzel Mims and Breshad Perriman had quiet days, but they took defenders away from Crowder. The Jets have Crowder under contract for one more year and should hold onto him for whoever the quarterback is next year. Revealing statThe Jets are the third team to start 0-13 and then win two straight games. The 1986 Colts and 2011 Colts also did it. The 86 Colts won their final three games to finish 3-13. Well see if the Jets can match that Sunday in New England. Surprising snap countRookie RB LaMical Perine only played 19 snaps (28 percent) in his return. I expected him to have a bigger role, but the Jets stuck with Frank Gore (31 snaps) and also mixed in Ty Johnson (18 snaps). Game ballOLB Tarell Basham had a huge game. He forced two fumbles, including on the fourth-and-1 stop at the end of the game. He had five tackles, one sack, three quarterback hits and the two forced fumbles. | 0 |
###CLAIM: investigators said they had just taken off when the helicopter got into difficulty and came down in a private land.
###DOCS: A multi-billionaire French MP who set numerous world airspeed records has died in a helicopter crash in northern France. Olivier Dassault, 69, who was the eldest son of the late French billionaire Serge Dassault, had been flying over Touques, near Deauville in the Normandy region, when his AS350 Squirrel came down on Sunday at around 5.50pm. The father-of-three, who was heir to the Dassault Aviation fortune, died alongside the helicopter's pilot. 'They had just taken off, when the helicopter got into difficulty and came down on private land,' said an investigating source. Mr Dassault was returning to Paris following a weekend in the English Channel resort of Deauville, where he owned a holiday home. Frances Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis of Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) immediately sent five investigators to the scene to carry out an enquiry. French billionaire Olivier Dassault, 69, who was the eldest son of the late French billionaire Serge Dassault, has died in a helicopter crashLocal prosecutors supported by gendarmes and judicial police have launched an enquiry into the tragedy, which took place in daylight and in good weather conditions. Today French President Emmanuel Macron took to Twitter to salute a man who 'never ceased to serve our country' and 'value its assets'. In a tweet President Macron said: 'Olivier Dassault loved France. Captain of industry, deputy, local elected official, reserve commander in the air force: during his life, he never ceased to serve our country, to value its assets. 'His sudden death is a great loss. Thoughts on his family and loved ones.' At the time of his death, Mr Dassault's fortune was thought to exceed the equivalent of 6billion, according to sources in the financial world in Paris. Mr Dassault had been an MP for the conservative Republicans party since 2002, and was the 361st richest person in the world alongside his two brothers and sister. Born in 1951 in the Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, he was the eldest son of the late French billionaire Serge Dassault, whose company Dassault Aviation builds the Rafale fighter planes and which also owns the newspaper Le Figaro. He and his three other siblings later inherited Dassault Aviation, which was founded by Mr Dassault's grandfather Marcel in 1929. Marcel, who was born Marcel Bloch, was captured by the Nazis during the Second World War and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He later changed his name to Dassault, meaning 'assault tank,' in honour of his brother who used the pseudonym when he served in the French resistance. His son, Serge Dassault, Olivier Dassault's father, took over the Paris-based company in 1986. President Macron paid tribute to the politician in a tweet today and said he 'never ceased to serve our country' and 'value its assets'Olivier Dassault ((left with his father Serge Dassault) was the eldest son of the late French billionaire Serge DassaultThe billionaire (pictured with wife Natacha Nikolajevic) served as a member of the National Assembly since 2002However in May 2018, Olivier inherited his father's wealth after he died of a heart attack in his Paris at the age of 93. Olivier graduated from the air force academy - Ecole de l'Air- in 1974 before going on to qualify as an instrument flight rules (IFR) pilot in 1975. He also held a master's degree in mathematics as well a doctorate in business management computing. The lawmaker went on to represent the French National Assembly and was a member of The Republicans party since 2002. The qualified pilot first set a speed record in a Dassault Falcon 50 flying from New York to Paris in 1977. There were similar successes in the following decades, including Paris to Abu Dhabi in a Falcon 900 EX in 1996. Mr Dassault first set a speed record in a Dassault Falcon 50 flying from New York to Paris in 1977Mr Dassault later stepped down as a director of Dassault due to his political role to avoid any conflict of interest. The billionaire was once considered favourite to succeed his father as the head of the family business, but the role instead went to former Dassault Aviation CEO Charles Edelstenne. Today Valerie Pecresse, a conservative politician who is president of the Paris region, tweeted: 'Great sadness at the news of the sudden disappearance of Olivier Dassault. 'A businessman, but also a renowned photographer, he had a passion for politics in his blood, rooted in his department of Oise. My warm thoughts to his family.' | 1 |
###CLAIM: she wants to go back to her friends who finished elementary school in that building, even if it's just 2 hours of separation and masking.
###DOCS: Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. In addition to our traditional advice, every Thursday we feature an assortment of teachers from across the country answering your education questions. Have a question for our teachers? Email [email protected] or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Were trying to decide whether to start our child in kindergarten at age 5 or 6. He turns 5 late next summer, shortly before the kindergarten age cutoff. Notably, he is physically quite slight for his age. Hes currently 4 and a half years old, knows the alphabet, spells, and writes some simple words, counts to 100, and grasps simple addition and subtraction. He has a huge vocabulary and likes to be read to for hours. He has good fine motor control and makes detailed drawings, usually with little guidance. He was in preschool as a 3-year-old, until COVID shut things down, and hes been home with me since. We dont push him or do any formal lessons. Hes had very little social interaction with other children since March 2020. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEven before COVID hit, I was on the fence about starting him in kindergarten as a barely 5-year-old, mostly because of his small size and also to give him one more year of play. He is also biracial and has some health issues, which I worry could make him a target for bullying, especially if much smaller physically than his peer group. On the flip side, I wonder whether starting kindergarten at age 6 would result in a bored kid and ensuing problems, since academically he already seems ready for it. COVID complicates everything. Compared to prior years, its possible that next years kindergarten class could be larger and skewed older (and hence even bigger kids), depending on how much of this years diminished enrollment was due to 5-year-olds being held back. AdvertisementAdvertisementIve met a few retired kindergarten teachers whove all unequivocally advised to hold him back, but theyre from an older generation. People Ive spoken with in our school district dont seem to have a strong opinion. Some of the traditional reasons to redshirt, like to confer a sports or academic advantage, have zero influence for us. We just want to keep our small kid safe. If we wait, wed pursue various social activities for him in the meantime, depending on the COVID situation at the time. What opinions do you think? AdvertisementLate Start? Dear Late Start,Generally, I err on the side of dont redshirt your child. The benefits of redshirting are overstated by its proponents, and a child who is a year ahead of his peers and bored may enjoy school less. That being said, your case is one of the few where I see some benefit to holding him back. COVID has created this black holewe dont yet know how it will impact the next few years of school (or beyond). Given that your son is close to the cutoff date, holding him back may not have the negative impact that Id normally worry about. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI can understand why the people in the district seem ambivalentits hard to say for certain one way or another, given that most districts dont know what next year will look like. However, if you can safely visit the kindergarten classroom, I think that might help. Im a proponent of trusting your gut, and if you walk into a classroom and immediately think hes not ready for this or this would be great for him, that reaction may help make your choice a little easier. AdvertisementAdvertisementOne other thing: Small kids know theyre small. Holding him back a grade isnt going to change that. And if hes really that small, he may even find it more odd or embarrassing height-wise to be held back a grade, where he finds that many kids a full year younger are still taller than he is. I also wouldnt expect children to bully a smaller kid at that age. AdvertisementAdvertisementUltimately, I would probably err on the side of sending him, but if you go and you still feel like waiting will be better, I can understand that. Ms. Sarnell (early childhood special education teacher, New York)Slate needs your support right now. Sign up for Slate Plus to keep reading the advice you crave every week. I live in a city where schools have been fully remote since the beginning of the pandemic. My children, who are in first and fourth grade, attend a small and well-regarded public elementary school. Both kids are typical in their development and generally good at school. We went into this year cautiously optimistic that their school would be creative and flexible in making remote instruction work as well as possible. Im a teacher (of college students), and I figured I could supplement remote instruction if needed. While its gone reasonably well for my first grader, it became clear quickly that my fourth graders teacher was ill-suited to remote instruction. She struggles mightily with the technology, to the point where my daughter was receiving no instruction, no assessments, and no meaningful feedback. She scolded the kids for failing to complete assignments she didnt actually provide links to, among other things. After trying to make it work for a couple of months (with both her and the principal), I concluded that change was unlikely and opted to homeschool that child. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNow the district and the teachers union have reached an agreement to finish the year with (at most) two hours per day of in-person instruction per week. I understand that teachers are not happy with this because they wont have adequate time to prepare or adequate in-class staffing support (although their class size will be essentially half of normal). Kids will have no recess, no lunch, no access to in-person specials, and no school-wide activities. I have no reason to believe that a return to full-time in-person education is likely in the fall. At this time, the state health authoritys rules on personal space wont allow it. The thought of my daughter having had essentially no school from mid third grade to the end of fourth grade is something I can accept. According to the testing I can access, shes working above grade level. She has a therapist. I think shes okay. But to extend thishalf-school at bestfor another year is unthinkable to me. She wants to go back where her friends are and finish elementary school in that building, even if its just two masked and distanced hours per day. If I send her, this year or next year, I feel like Im sending her into a situation where normal expectations of teaching and learning have been indefinitely suspended, and its entirely possible that not much teaching and learning will go on. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIve lost faith and dont feel like her school will teach my bright and capable child at grade level, let alone at her level. My feelings of being let down and unheard are intense. I fantasize about moving or finding a private school that will take us. The time to make that move would be right now. I would like to be able to trust my citys public schools again, but I dont know how to get there. Do you have any words of wisdom? AdvertisementAdvertisementInvoluntary Homeschool MomDear Involuntary Homeschool Mom,Im so sorry youre going through thisit sounds incredibly frustrating. On the one hand, I feel compelled to advocate on behalf of the public school, as a public school teacher myself. On the other hand, Im also a parent, and if I were in your shoes, Im sure I would be making the same calculations. AdvertisementBack in October, I was required by my district to return to school (while still offering online learning to families who chose that option). Thus, my daughter went to kindergarten in person. I was very worried about what it would be like for her, wearing a mask all day and staying six feet apart. She does not have in-person specials (they do P.E., art, and music via Zoom in her classroom), and she does not eat lunch in the cafeteria. There was no Halloween carnival (Boo Fest) or spring move-a-thon like last year. She basically stays in her classroom until recess. And you know what? She loves school! She loves being with her teacher in person, making new friends, andof courserecess. Its definitely not the kindergarten experience I had imagined for her, but shes much happier now than she was before school reopened. AdvertisementAdvertisementOf course this hasnt been completely without risk. There has not been a coronavirus outbreak at her school, but there have been some cases; in fact, my daughter had to quarantine for two weeks after being exposed at school (luckily, she did not get sick). But my kids school is open all day, and your daughters will only be at school for two hours. That said, I would recommend you take your daughters wishes into consideration when making this decision. The comfort and familiarity of childrens school and their friendships are important, perhaps equally important as academics considering the upheaval quarantine life has wrought. I would not underestimate the schools significance to your daughters. AdvertisementI also think you can hold out some hope for the fall, since vaccinations (including teacher vaccination) are rising, and the CDC has changed their guidelines to indicate that students can be spaced three feet apart instead of six. As we get closer to summer, districts should be making public announcements about their intentions for the 2021-2022 school year. I would try to find out their plan before leaving the school for good. AdvertisementThat said, I would understand why youd want to explore your options, not just for the sake of your childrens academic growth but for your own career and sanity. Homeschooling while working full-time is untenable. AdvertisementAdvertisementI apologize that I havent given you any actual wisdom. How can I, when this is all unprecedented? I have felt myself pulled back and forth many times in the past year, from being anxious about a return to in-person learning to wanting my own children to return to school, from wanting to defend teachers unions against public criticism while also understanding the deep frustrations of parents. I am sure that if you walk away from this school, you will not do so lightly. Good luck to you, and good luck to your girls. AdvertisementMs. Holbrook (high school teacher, Texas)My family moved to a new state last summer, in the middle of the pandemic. In the fall, our three kids (a third grader and twin kindergartners) attended hybrid classes for about a week at the public school, but my husband and I quickly decided that they needed to be in school more frequently. We decided to look into private school for them, and we ended up choosing a small Catholic school. The kids have been very happy at the school. Its a close-knit community with a lot of traditions. However, I didnt realize the school would be so highly focused on academics. My twins are doing work in their kindergarten class that my older child did in first grade. My older child typically has 4-5 homework assignments a night in third grade. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMy twins are a young 5 and reminisce about the crafts and creative play from their Montessori-type preschool. I feel like it will be even harder when they have to start doing weekly spelling tests in first grade. If I could do it all over again, I would have my twins repeat preschool this year instead of entering kindergarten. I am considering talking to the twins teacher about having them repeat kindergarten just to give them a little more time before the rigors of first grade. I know my twins will want to move to first grade with their class. However, I would really like for them to have more time to mature into the workload of this school. We have considered switching them to a different school, but the kids have already gone through COVID and an interstate move. What do you think? AdvertisementTrying to Navigate It AllDear Trying to Navigate,Im glad you were able to find a school community your kids have enjoyed during this stressful time, even though it sounds like the pace of learning is moving a little more quickly than your kids are used to. I think youre right to be cautious of relocating your kids to another school. Three moves in such a short amount of time can be destabilizing for younger students. Adjusting to new norms, making new friends, all while beginning first grade is a lot change. AdvertisementAdvertisementThat said, judging by your letter, I do wonder whether your current school is the right long-term fit for your family. Its important to keep in mind a decision like this doesnt only impact your kids academically, but developmentally and emotionally as well. Retention is a big deal, and I only recommend retaining a student if there are serious academic or developmental concerns, which doesnt seem to be the case for your twins. Even though your kids are young, from what you describe they dont seem to be exhibiting any learning differences or delays, and retaining them could have the opposite intended effect and stunt their development overall. AdvertisementAdvertisementIt sounds like holding your children back a grade would ultimately only serve as a Band-Aid for a larger problem, which is that this schools approach to academics is a bit too heavy-handed for you. Its not uncommon for Catholic schools to be a bit less progressive when it comes to academics, and its possible a school with a bit more creativity and freedom could be a better fit for your family. Ultimately, I believe giving them a fresh start in a new learning environment that accommodates their needs and learning styles seems like the better option to me. The academic expectations of your current school arent going to change, and if your fourth grader is currently completing 45 homework assignments a night, I wonder how well your twins will fare at this school over time. In the long run, I believe finding a happy medium between school climate and academic approach will always yield a better experience for kids. In your twins case I believe ripping off the Band-Aid and finding a school that works for them now outweighs the potential drawbacks of changing schools a third time. AdvertisementMr. Hersey (second grade teacher, Washington)I have an elementary school-aged son who has an IEP for speech. He is doing great and likely will not need services after his next IEP. I also have a 4-year-old daughter in the early education speech program. I absolutely love her teachers and the program itself. My sons experience with his speech-language pathologist (SLP) has not been stellar. Communication with her has been limited. Our school system started out hybrid, switched to distance learning, and now is back in person. As a result, my son lost about six weeks of services as his speech pathologist worked on transitioning with the different models. In addition, Ive found her unwilling to work with me on when he receives his services during the school day, so that he can avoid missing his favorite subjects. In fact, the scheduling was such a problem while he was doing distance learning, I wound up pulling him out of speech and doing it with him from home myself. AdvertisementAdvertisementI find myself worrying for the future. My daughter will need far more services, and I dont trust this teacher to give them to her. The teacher is the only SLP in the school. Should I speak up now about the lack of communication, services, and poor scheduling in hopes of having a better experience with my daughter, or should I wait and see if things change in the future? I should note that even thinking about this situation makes my blood boil. I cant imagine what this must be like for parents of children with more needs or who still have to work outside the home. AdvertisementAdvertisementCats Got Our TongueDear Cat,My suggestion is that when your daughters planning and placement team (PPT) meets to discuss her services, you go into it with a well-thought plan. Make it clear that you feel your sons struggles were in part because the school was unwilling to work out a schedule that would set your son up for success, and you dont want that to happen to your daughter. I would also request a specific communication plan with service providers, and if possible, have that written into her IEP. You can also ask what you should expect to see to make up lost hours if your daughters service time is interrupted. AdvertisementBy bringing up these issues at a PPT, this speech teacher may not feel so singled out, and you can also garner the support of other teachers or administrators who will be at this meeting. I would not wait to see how things go for your daughter, but rather be exceedingly specific and proactive from the onset. An initial, specific, written plan will allow you to hold their feet to the fire if they fail your daughter. Mr. Dicks (fifth grade teacher, Connecticut)More Advice From SlateI love my 7-year-old sons name, Andrew, but I hate the nickname Andy. When we named him Andrew we agreed to only use the long version and never the nickname. Until this year everyone has called him Andrew. We moved over the summer, and somehow he has become Andy in his new school! What can I do? | 0 |
###CLAIM: the caller was called a `` vague and unsatisfactory answer '' to a question about the potential for military employment in an electoral scenario in the dispute.
###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article SharePentagon leaders faced renewed challenges in their attempt to steer clear of divisive election politics this week, as events during the final sprint toward the Nov. 3 polls underscore the potential for the military to be thrust once more into the partisan fray. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The issues included a new online campaign ad featuring President Trump in the White House Situation Room flanked by Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in defiance of norms excluding uniformed leaders from campaign material and criticism from Democratic lawmakers highlighting Defense Secretary Mark T. Espers handling of concerns about possible military involvement in a disputed election. In the run-up to the vote, Trump has appealed to would-be military voters and cited his record as commander in chief as a reelection credential, as supporters of his opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, seek to brand the president as a callous leader who has blamed his top brass for problems on his watch. AdvertisementAt the same time, Trump has declined to commit to conceding power if he loses, fueling speculation about a disputed outcome and the potential for him to reach for the military as part of an attempt to clinch another term. Esper, an Army veteran, and Milley, a lifelong soldier, appear intent on shielding the military from the nations charged political moment, but the goal has proved challenging given Trumps penchant for flouting civil-military norms. From his first days in office, the president treated troop events like campaign rallies, diverted military funds for his border wall project and used the Pentagons Hall of Heroes to launch his ban on travel from Muslim-majority nations. In rare cases, defense leaders have publicly dissented. More often, they have stayed silent and sometimes sought to push back behind the scenes. AdvertisementRemaining isolated from politics becomes even more difficult during a charged reelection campaign, said Jim Golby, a former Army officer and Pentagon official who is a senior fellow at the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Its virtually impossible for the military to come off as not taking a side, he said. If theyre silent, theyre seen as complicit. If they speak out, theyre seen as anti-Trump.Esper has tried to distance himself from political issues in recent months by keeping a low profile, focusing on executing a military shift toward China and mostly avoiding interactions with the news media. Milley, meanwhile, has spoken repeatedly about the militarys duty to defend the Constitution rather than any particular party or leader. In an interview with NPR over the weekend, Milley sought to minimize the possibility that the military could be pulled into an election dispute, as experts have warned. While most academics suggest the most likely such scenario would involve the president employing the military to address post-election unrest, Milley appeared to address an assertion that the military could be asked to help arbitrate the result. AdvertisementI would tell you that in my mind, if theres a disputed election its not in my mind, its in the law if theres a disputed election, thatll be handled by Congress and the courts, he said. Theres no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election. While presidents seeking reelection, including Barack Obama in 2012, have frequently made reference to their decisions as commander in chief, and shown military personnel in campaign material, Feaver said the inclusion of a senior uniformed officer was especially problematic. AdvertisementIm sure that Esper and Milley are uncomfortable with this and dont like the appearance, even though theyre not allowed to say it, Feaver said of the ad. And I hope they dont say it, because that will just extend the damage by getting them crosswise with the president.Officials said neither Milley nor Esper knew about the ad, which one official said was later taken down, ahead of time. The ad recalls an incident in August in which several uniformed troops in American Samoa were featured in a Democratic convention video, which resulted in an Army investigation. Relations between Trump and Esper, Trumps second confirmed defense secretary, have been visibly strained since June, when Esper spoke out against Trumps desire to use active-duty military troops to address widespread protests against racism and police brutality. Officials have said Trump has considered firing Esper since then. AdvertisementEsper has also come in for criticism for appearing to back Trumps response to those events and later apologized for referring to U.S. cities as a battle space.On Tuesday, Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a retired Navy officer, spoke to reporters about what they called Espers vague, unsatisfactory answers to their questions about the potential for the military to be employed in a disputed election scenario. In response to extensive questions from the two lawmakers, Esper provided a terse response: The U.S. military has acted, and will continue to act, in accordance with the Constitution and the law, he wrote. Espers reply, submitted more than a month after a congressional deadline, differed from the more explicit responses provided by Milley in August. Slotkin, a former Pentagon official, called on Esper to make a firmer commitment to a peaceful transition of power. AdvertisementThe Pentagons chief spokesman, Jonathan Rath Hoffman, said that Esper is determined for the U.S. military to remain apolitical as the American people expect.The Secretary will continue to focus on leading the Department in implementing the Presidents national security policy by prioritizing the readiness of the force, pivoting to confront emerging powers, and taking care of our men and women in uniform, Hoffman said in a statement. Milley has faced his own difficulties in navigating the Trump era. He issued an unusual public apology in June after coming under criticism when he appeared at a photo op alongside Trump outside the White House, in an area that shortly beforehand had been forcibly cleared of protesters by uniformed personnel. GiftOutline Gift Article | 1 |
###CLAIM: a decade later, by comparison, amazon grew its gnp from 1. 6 billion dollars in 2001 to 5. 8 billion dollars.
###DOCS: This article is more than 2 years old. American vote badges on national USA flag background, copy space, elections 2020 gettyWith the 2020 election less than a week away, many investors are uncertain of where to deploy their capital. The outcome of the election may significantly impact future economic growth and create winners and losers at the sector level (e.g. Energy) and individual stock level. As a result, many investors fear that being in the market means they are betting on a particular election outcome. This report provides relief to that concern as does my report on 5 Stocks to Own Regardless of the Election. This report focuses on stocks that investors, and particularly those with fiduciary responsibilities, should avoid regardless of the election results. These five stocks are Wayfair Inc. (W), Carvana Co. (CVNA), Beyond Meat (BYND), Dropbox Inc. (DBX), and Spotify Technology (SPOT), and were recently featured in my Most Dangerous Stocks for Fiduciaries themed reports, and are back in the Danger Zone. See Figure 1. Avoid These Highly Overvalued StocksFiduciaries need to consider how much risk they take by owning these stocks anywhere close to current levels. Figure 1: 5 Stocks to Avoid Regardless of Election Outcome5 Stocks Avoid Regardless of Election New Constructs, LLCThese five stocks are not only overvalued, but the underlying fundamentals are weak and/or trending in the wrong direction. Wayfair Inc. Unattractive RatingRead the entire report here: This Online Retailer Is Furnishing Investors With RiskI put Wayfair in the Danger Zone on August 17, 2020. Since then, stock is down 13% while the S&P 500 is +1%. Given the strength of its competitors, the stock could fall much further. Wayfairs end game, particularly as COVID-19 drove consumers inside and increasingly online for their shopping, is to grab market share and achieve economies of scale. This strategy is not affected by election outcomes. Up to this point, it should have resulted in decreased operating expenses relative to revenue, greater efficiencies, and, therefore, profits. But, it has not and will not no matter who wins next week. Competitors, With Greater Scale, Dont Disappear Post ElectionWayfair competes against firms that have, perhaps, the largest economies of scale advantages ever: Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT). Those firms generated a combined TTM revenue of ~$864 billion compared to Wayfairs $11.5 billion. Worse yet, Wayfairs business shows no signs of achieving economies of scale any time soon. The firms operating expenses as a percent of revenue rose from 28% in 2015 to 39% TTM. For all the talk about the firms revenue growth, its operating expenses are growing even faster. Over the past four years, its operating costs have grown 49% compounded annually while its revenue has grown by only 42% compounded annually. In other words, as Wayfair gets bigger, its business grows more costly. Despite the competitive disadvantages, as evidenced by Wayfairs negative NOPAT margin and ROIC, the stock is still priced as if it will immediately achieve profitability and grow faster than Amazon did as it rose to dominance. Still Priced to Outpace Amazons Growth TrajectoryWayfairs current economic book value, or no growth value, is -$89/share. But, lets see what the price looks like if I give the firm credit for being able to grow into a profitable enterprise. Below Ill use my reverse discounted cash flow (DCF) model to analyze the expectations implied by the current valuation. Doing so reveals that despite falling 13% since my original article, deteriorating fundamentals, and more profitable competition, Wayfair is still priced as if it will grow even faster than Amazon after it became profitable. To justify its current price of ~$274/share, Wayfair must:Grow revenue by 23% compounded annually for the next decade, which includes 84% YoY growth in 2020 (equal to 2Q20 YoY increase vs. 2020 consensus of 52%) . Immediately achieve a 2% NOPAT margin (vs. -4% TTM) in 2020 and 2021 and increase NOPAT margin to 4.6% (equal to Amazons TTM NOPAT margin) in 2022 and each year thereafter. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Wayfairs revenue in 2029 would reach $74.5 billion, which is just below Target (TGT) and Lowes (LOW) TTM revenue ($84.7 & $80.4 billion, respectively), and nearly three times the combined TTM revenue of eBay (EBAY) Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), and Overstock.com (OSTK). Ten years after it first reached profitability, Amazons revenue was just $48.1 billion, or 35% below Wayfairs implied 2029 revenue. Figure 2 shows the revenue growth expectations baked into the stock price compared to Amazons revenue growth from 2001 to 2011. In this scenario, Wayfair will achieve positive NOPAT in 2020 (vs. -$480 million TTM). I chose to compare Wayfair against Amazons performance from 2001 to 2011 since this period represents the first ten years of Amazon achieving positive NOPAT. Figure 2: Revenue Growth Implied by Wayfairs Stock PriceW DCF Implied Revenue Growth Greater Than AMZN New Constructs, LLCIn this scenario, Wayfairs NOPAT reaches $3.4 billion (vs.-$480 million TTM) in 2029 or ~10 years. For comparison, Amazon needed 16 years to generate over $3 billion in NOPAT after it first achieved profitability. Figure 3 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to Amazons actual NOPAT from 2001 to 2011 (Amazons first ten years of profitability). This scenario assumes Wayfair will achieve profitability for the first time ever in 2020 like Amazon did in 2002. In any scenario worse than this one, W holds significant downside risk. Figure 3: NOPAT Growth Implied by Wayfairs Stock PriceW DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Greater Than AMZN New Constructs, LLCSignificant Downside in a More Realistic ScenarioGiven the competitive issues outlined above and in my original report, I believe the future cash flow scenario above is highly unlikely (regardless of the election), if not impossible for Wayfair to achieve. Even if I assume Wayfair can achieve Walmarts profitability and grow revenue by consensus estimates, W has significant downside risk. In this scenario, Wayfair must:Achieve 18% compounded annual revenue growth for the next 10 years (equal to consensus through 2029). Immediately achieve a 3% NOPAT margin (equal to Walmarts TTM margin). See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Wayfair grows NOPAT from -$885 million in 2019 to $1.4 billion 10 years from now and the stock is worth just $98/share today a 64% downside. For comparison, Amazon grew NOPAT from -$348 million in 2001 to $705 million a decade later. In other words, this scenario expects that over the next ten years, Wayfair will achieve significantly greater growth in NOPAT than Amazon during its first 10 years of profitability. Figure 4 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to its historical NOPAT. Figure 4: Wayfair Has Large Downside Risk: DCF Valuation ScenarioW DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Consensus Estimates New Constructs, LLCCarvana Co. Unattractive RatingRead the entire report here: You Wont Find a Bargain With This Car DealerI featured Carvana as a Sell Idea on August 26, 2020. Since then, the stock is flat while the S&P 500 is down 3%. Given the firms lack of competitive advantage, I think shares could fall much further. For investors believing in Carvana as the future of used automobiles the election wont provide any solutions to the firms fundamental problems. Carvanas issues are not a matter of policy or tax status, but rather a lack of sustainable competitive advantage in a highly competitive industry. Carvana Is Not Unique, Nor is E-commerceCarvanas new way of doing business is more style than substance and is easily replicated by incumbents. CarMax (KMX) already sells cars online and has customers sign the final paperwork upon arrival (same as Carvana). Penske Automotive Group (PAG) offers consumers tools to research the firms inventory within a specified mileage radius. Firms such as TrueCar (TRUE) already partner with dealerships to offer inventory on the internet as well. Carvana, at its core, is a car dealership that, like all other dealers, must source vehicles, manage inventory, attract customers, and sell cars for more than they paid for them. No matter the election outcome, the basic structure of Carvanas business model, along with its industry-low NOPAT margin and ROIC, remain unchanged. However, the firm is priced as if it will sell more than double the number of cars the CEO expects, which illustrates the high level of risk in owning CVNA. No Election Result Helps Carvana Achieve the Expectations Implied by Its PriceDespite a clear lack of competitive advantages, as outlined above and in more detail in my original report, Carvana is priced as if it will grow 5x larger than CarMax (KMX), which is the current largest used car dealer in the U.S.To justify its current price of ~$208/share, Carvana must:Grow revenue at 41% compounded annually over the next decade (vs. consensus estimate of 29% CAGR over the same time). Immediately achieve a 4% NOPAT margin (equal to peer group average TTM margin). For reference, Carvanas TTM margin is -9%. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Carvanas revenue in 2029 would reach $122 billion, which is 119% of the combined TTM revenue of each of the competitors listed in my original report. Last year, Carvana generated a total of $3.9 billion in revenue and sold 217 thousand combined retail and wholesale vehicles or $18 thousand in revenue per unit sold. Assuming inflation of 3.5% per year, revenue per unit sold in 2029 would be ~$26 thousand, at which point, the firm would need to sell ~4.7 million retail and wholesale vehicles to achieve $122 billion of revenue. Such a high number would probably shock even Carvanas optimistic CEO, Ernest Garcia III, who stated last year, we believe we can sell two million cars per year. Not only does the current price imply the firm sells more than twice the number of cars the CEO expects, it also implies the firm takes over 9% of the current market share. For reference, CarMax, the largest used car dealer in the U.S., holds just 2% of the market. Figure 5 shows the NOPAT growth expectations baked into the stock price compared to the firms historical NOPAT. Figure 5: Carvanas NOPAT Growth Implied by Stock PriceCVNA DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Justification Scenario New Constructs, LLCSignificant Downside Even If the CEO Is RightEven if I assume Carvana can achieve the CEOs goal of becoming a 2 million car per year firm, CVNA has significant downside risk. In this scenario, Carvana must:Grow revenue by 30% compounded annually for the next decade. Immediately achieve a 4% NOPAT margin (equal to peer group TTM margin)See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Carvana grows NOPAT from -$272 million in 2019 to $2.1 billion 10 years from now and the stock is worth just $81/share today a 62% downside. In this scenario, the firm grows revenue to $52 billion in 2029. If I assume, as I did in the previous scenario, that Carvana will generate ~$26 thousand per car sold in 2029, then the firm reaches its 2 million car per year goal a decade from now. Figure 6 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to its historical NOPAT. Figure 6: Carvana Has Large Downside Risk: DCF Valuation ScenarioCVNA DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Valuation Scenario New Constructs, LLCBeyond Meat Very Unattractive RatingRead the entire report here: Competition Will Eat This Firm AliveI featured Beyond Meat as a Sell Idea on September 2, 2020. Since then, the stock is up ~25% while the S&P 500 is down 5% despite no fundamental improvement in the firms operations. While the stock has underperformed as a short and may continue to do so in the short term, Beyond Meats business faces significant competition and the stock holds substantial downside risk. No election result changes these facts. Meat and consumers preference for a type of meat will not be affected by the election. On the other hand, the large and growing body of competition makes it nearly impossible for the company to achieve the expectations baked into its stock price. Well-Funded Competition Is Here to Stay, Regardless of the ElectionAttracted by Beyond Meats impressive growth rates and soaring market value, multiple competitors are entering the alternative meat industry. Tyson Foods (TSN), the largest meat producer in the U.S., sold its stake in Beyond Meat in April 2019 and just a few months later announced the launch of its plant-based protein brand, Raised & Rooted. Some of the largest consumer food brands, such as Kellogg (K), SYSCO Corp. (SYY), The Kroger Co. (KR), Nestle (NSRGY), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Hormel (HRL), Kraft Heinz (KHC), and Impossible Foods have followed suit. Unfortunately, Beyond Meats profitability ranks at the bottom of this group. Additionally, many of these competitors enjoy key competitive advantages based on their multi-year relationships with grocery stores and retailers, such as captive shelf space, production and distribution scale, marketing and advertising capacity, and strong brands. These advantages are very important and very difficult, if not impossible, for new entrants like Beyond Meat to match or overcome in the near term, if ever. As a result, Beyond Meat must spend heavily (operating expenses as a % of revenue are the highest of nine firms in my original report) simply to gain exposure to consumers. Meanwhile, other competitors can reinvest profits from traditional meat products into competing alternatives and enter the market with unmatched scale and distribution. No election result can remove the superior scale of Beyond Meats peers, nor the investment required to reach such a level. As a result, the firms ability to achieve the expectations baked into its stock price dont look promising. The Election Wont Help Beyond Meat Alter the Entire Meat IndustryWith low margins and little control over the majority of distribution outlets, I think shares can fall sharply from current levels. When I use my reverse DCF model to analyze the expectations implied by the stock price, BYND appears significantly overvalued. To justify its current price of ~$162/share, Beyond Meat must immediately improve its NOPAT margin to 5% (same as Tyson and more than double its current margin of 2%) and grow revenue by 38% compounded annually for the next 12 years. The margin improvement means NOPAT would grow 43% compounded annually in this scenario. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Beyond Meat would earn ~$14 billion (more than MarketsandMarkets 2019 estimated global plant-based meat market size of $12.1 billion) in revenue in 2031. For comparison, this scenario implies Beyond Meat would generate more sales than incumbent competitors such as Pilgrims Pride (PPC), ConAgra Foods (CAG), and Hormel Foods (HRL) in their last fiscal years. Furthermore, Beyond Meats current valuation implies it will generate sales equal to 33% of Tysons 2019 revenue a level that would make it the sixth largest meat and poultry processor in the world in 2019. See Figure 7 for details. Figure 7: Current Valuation Implies Significantly Greater Revenue Than Many IncumbentsBYND DCF Implied Revenue Vs. Peers New Constructs, LLCSignificant Downside Even if Beyond Meat Meets Consensus ExpectationsEven if Beyond Meat can improve its NOPAT margin to 5% (equal to Tysons TTM margin) and grow revenue by 26% compounded annually over the next decade (equal to consensus estimates), the stock is worth just $29/share today an 82% downside to the current price. In this scenario, Beyond Meat grows NOPAT by 32% compounded annually over the next decade. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. Figure 9 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to its historical NOPAT. Figure 9: BYND Has Large Downside Risk: DCF Valuation ScenarioBYND DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Valuation Scenario New Constructs, LLCDropbox Inc. Very Unattractive RatingRead the entire report here: Theres a Dark Cloud on the HorizonI put Dropbox in the Danger Zone on September 29, 2020. Since then, stock is down 1% while the S&P 500 is up 2% and has more downside. The problems facing Dropboxs business are not related to politics. Nothing in either partys plans can help the firm attract more paying users, increase the usefulness of its product, or stave off competition from the likes of Google (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Amazon, and Box (BOX). Instead, regardless of the election, the firms inability to grow market share during the COVID-19-induced work-from-home expansion looks more likely to continue. No Matter the President, Dropbox Is at a Competitive DisadvantageAs a standalone cloud storage provider (which is trying to expand into workflow optimization and other enterprise markets), Dropbox faces an uphill battle to grow registered and paying users. Most of its potential paying users are already customers of firms that provide the same service as Dropbox along with many other important services. As I showed in my original report, Dropboxs user base pales in comparison to Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Furthermore, Dropbox is at a stark disadvantage when going head-to-head with these providers. For instance, Apple offers all of its customers 5 GB of free space through iCloud, and these customers may find Apples new Apple One subscription (which bundles iCloud, Music, TV, Arcade, Fitness, and News) more appealing than a third-party cloud service. Dropbox not only has to convince customers not to use Apples more convenient and competitively-priced service, but it also must convince them that Dropboxs service is meaningfully better. Lastly, Dropbox offers neither the most storage nor the cheapest storage (excluding free tiers). In fact, each of the competitors in my original report offer more storage at the free tier. Having to charge users for services they can get free from competitors is not a good position especially when those users have already integrated their workflow with those competitors. No election result can magically fix those problems. Taken together, the issues Dropbox faces make achieving the expectations baked into the firms stock price improbable, to say the least. Dropbox Is Priced as if Paying Users Will Be Equal to 31% of Amazon Prime MembersDespite facing larger and more entrenched competition, Dropbox is priced as if it will quickly improve profitability while also increasing its average paying users to equal 30% of Amazons Prime members. To justify its current price of $19/share, Dropbox must:Grow revenue at 17% (vs. average consensus estimates from 2020 to 2022 of 12%) compounded annually over the next eight years. Immediately achieve a 7% NOPAT margin (vs. Amazons TTM margin of 5%). See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Dropboxs revenue reaches $5.8 billion in revenue in 2027, or nearly eight times more than the $737 million of revenue Box generated over the TTM. To illustrate the extraordinarily high growth expectations embedded in Dropboxs stock price, I compare Dropboxs implied paying users to the paying users of competitors. By dividing the implied revenue in 2027 of $5.8 billion by the firms 2Q20 ARPU of $126, I arrive at ~46 million implied paying users in 2027. In other words, DBXs current valuation implies the company will grow its paying user base to equal 31% of Amazon Prime members and 23% of Microsoft Office 365 subscribers today. 46 million paying users also translates to 2.6% of the global cloud storage market share. I think it is difficult to make a straight-faced argument that Dropbox can maintain that level of market share with a more expensive and less integrated product. Figure 10: Dropboxs Implied 2027 Average Paying Users vs. CompetitorsDBX DCF Implied Paying Users Vs. Peers New Constructs, LLCDropbox Has Significant Downside Assuming Consensus GrowthIf I assume more realistic revenue and profit growth, DBX has significant downside. In this scenario, I assume Dropbox will:Grow revenue at 11% (equal to 2021 consensus estimate) compounded annually over the next ten years. Immediately achieve a 4% NOPAT margin (double TTM margin of 2%). See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Dropbox grows NOPAT from -$43 million in 2019 to $189 million in 2029, and the stock is worth just $8/share a 58% downside. Figure 11 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to its historical NOPAT. Figure 11: DBX Has Large Downside Risk: DCF Valuation ScenarioDBX DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Valuation Scenario New Constructs, LLCSpotify Technology Unattractive RatingRead the entire report here: It Sounds Like This Market Leader Is in TroubleI made Spotify Technology a Sell Idea on September 30, 2020. Since then, stock is up 19% while the S&P 500 is up 1% despite no fundamental improvement to the business operations. As with each of the firms above, Spotify faces strong competition from other tech firms. Plus, its heavy dependence on the Big Three music labels is not affected by any election result. The bottom line is that the firm has little to no defensible moat, and its original content strategy is risky and expensive while offering no guarantee to grow market share. No Election Can Help Spotify Grow Market ShareAs noted in my original report, Spotifys competitors include Apple, Amazon, and YouTube, each of which have larger music catalogs than Spotifys and have gained market share since 2018. Meanwhile, Spotifys market share has fallen over the same time. Spotify struggles to maintain market share because it offers mostly the same product as its competitors. In an attempt to differentiate, Spotify is investing more in proprietary content via exclusive deals with artists and a growing collection of podcasts. However, this strategy risks leading to an ever-growing content budget that is not matched by commensurate growth in subscription revenue. So far, the podcast strategy appears to be more hype than a revenue driver. In 2Q20, an estimated 79% of monthly active users (MAUs) did not listen to podcasts. By and large, Spotify is a music streaming service, facing stiff competition, and reliant upon third-parties for the majority of the content subscribers will pay for. No election outcome will change the structural disadvantages that Spotify must overcome to justify the huge profit growth expectations baked into its stock price. Spotify Is Priced to Be Bigger Than NetflixDespite facing significant competition, declining ARPU, and a costly exclusive content strategy, Spotify is priced as if it will quickly improve profitability while increasing its revenue beyond what even Netflix generated over the TTM. To justify its current price of $287/share, Spotify must:Grow revenue by 23% compounded annually for the next seven years (compared to consensus estimates for 16% revenue CAGR over the same time). Immediately achieve a 10% NOPAT margin (twice Amazons TTM margin of 5% and less than Sirius XMs 18%, which is boosted by its monopoly in satellite radio. For reference, Spotifys TTM NOPAT margin is -3%. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Spotifys revenue in 2026 would reach $32.3 billion, or four times greater than exclusive satellite radio provider SiriusXMs (SIRI) 2019 revenue. In this scenario, Spotifys implied revenue in 2026 equals 71% of MIDIAs 2026 global streaming music revenue forecast of $45.3 billion and is actually 1.4 times greater than the $22.6 billion of revenue Netflix generated over the TTM. Achieving a 70% share of the global streaming music market is a very large expectation especially considering that the firm must do so in direct competition with large, established companies such as Apple, Google, and Amazon. To illustrate the extraordinarily high growth expectations embedded in Spotifys stock price, I compare Spotifys implied premium subscribers to the paying subscribers of its competitors. By dividing the implied revenue in 2026 of $32.3 billion by the firms 2Q20 ARPU of ~$59, I arrive at ~547 million implied paying users in 2026. In other words, Spotifys current valuation implies the company will grow its paying user base to more than 13 times Sirius XMs, nine times Apple Musics, and nearly three times Netflixs, per Figure 12. Figure 12: Spotifys Implied 2026 Premium Subscribers vs. CompetitorsSPOT DCF Implied Subscribers Vs. Peers New Constructs, LLCSpotify Has Significant Downside Assuming Consensus GrowthSpotifys current economic book value, or no growth value, is -$16/share. But I can see what the price looks like if I give the firm credit for being able to grow at consensus estimates. If I assume Spotify can immediately achieve a 5% NOPAT margin (equal to Amazons TTM margin) and grow revenue by 16% compounded annually over the next eight years (equal to consensus estimate over the same time), the stock is worth just $105/share today a 63% downside to the current price. See the math behind this reverse DCF scenario. In this scenario, Spotify grows NOPAT from -$50 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion in 2027. Figure 13 compares the firms implied future NOPAT in this scenario to its historical NOPAT. Figure 13: SPOT Has Large Downside Risk: DCF Valuation ScenarioSPOT DCF Implied NOPAT Growth Valuation Scenario New Constructs, LLCThe Importance of Reliable Fundamental Data In Any Market EnvironmentIn times of uncertainty, whether due to economic conditions, upcoming elections, or any other situation, it pays to incorporate accurate fundamentals into investment decision making. Having access to reliable data can reveal situations where the market has overly pessimistic expectations of fundamentally strong companies, or overly optimistic expectations of firms with inferior profitability and competitive disadvantages. Its important that investors make decisions based on the best data available. My Company Valuation Models incorporate all the data from financial filings to truly assess whether a firm is under or overvalued, get an accurate representation of the risk/reward of a stock, and make more informed investment decisions (rather than blindly allocating to indexes). For Wayfair Inc., Carvana Co., Beyond Meat, Dropbox Inc., and Spotify Technology the risk/reward looks poor. Disclosure: David Trainer, Kyle Guske II, and Matt Shuler receive no compensation to write about any specific stock, sector, style, or theme. | 0 |
###CLAIM: with admirable discretion and poise, the ups and downs of his life have been survived, including scandals around the royal family.
###DOCS: One of the most recent photos of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William, Duke of ... [+] Cambridge, attending a charity event last week. Photo by Andy Commins Getty ImagesIt has been 10 years since the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge got married in a lavish ceremony watched by billions of people at Westminster Abbey in April 2011, and during their decade together they have been a fixture of support and love through their domestic and royal life. They have formed a solid family, participated in hundreds of engagements, backed many charities, traveled around the world on official missions and survived the ups and downs of royal life including the scandals around their royal family with admirable discretion and poise. One of the photos released by Kensington Palace to celebrate thee Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's ... [+] wedding anniversary. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge @KensingtonRoyalLove, support and learning togetherThe wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and was attended by 1,900 guests, including foreign royal family members and heads of state. Well-wishers from around the world also flocked to London to witness the spectacle and pageantry of the Royal Wedding. The wedding was watched by 17.6 million people in the U.K. and two billion worldwide, including thousands of royal fans who travelled to London to try and get a glimpse of the couple on their special day, the BBC recalled. As the prince explained in a BBC documentary; Me and Catherine, we support each other and we go through those moments together and we kind of evolve and learn together.Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, kiss on the balcony at ... [+] Buckingham Palace after their royal wedding on April 29, 2011 in London. Photo by George Pimentel WireImageWilliam and Kate walking hand in hand from Buckingham Palace the day after their wedding to a ... [+] waiting helicopter as they left for a secret honeymoon location. Photo by John Stillwell Getty ImagesDiscretion and glamourKate Middleton and Prince William, who are globally admired for their discretion, good sense and glamour, have three children: Prince George, who was born in July 2013, Princess Charlotte, who has just turned six and Prince Louis, who is three years old. To mark their special anniversary, the Cambridges issued two new portraits taken by photographer Chris Floyd earlier this week outside Kensington Palace in which they appear happy and at ease. At the London 2012 Olympic Games. Photo by Pascal Le Segretain Getty ImagesWilliam and Catherine, expecting Prince George, standing on the balcony during the annual Trooping ... [+] the Colour Ceremony at Buckingham Palace on June 15, 2013 in London. Photo by Samir Hussein WireImageThe Cambridges at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 9, 2014 in New York City. Photo by ... [+] James Devaney GC ImagesA great family video montageThe pictures were also posted on the Royal Family's social media accounts, along with a new video on their Instagram account thanking the public for their support and congratulations: Thank you to everyone for the kind messages on our wedding anniversary. We are enormously grateful for the 10 years of support we have received in our lives as a family. W & CThe video shows the family of five enjoying time at the beach and at the grounds of their family home, Amner Hall in Norfolk, laughing, playing together and toasting marshmallows over an open fire. William and Catherine in London in October 2015 during a visit by the President of the Peoples ... [+] Republic of China. Photo by Chris Jackson Getty ImagesWith Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a Royal Tour of Canada in September 2016. Photo ... [+] by Karwai Tang/ WireImageThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in front of the Eiffel tower during an official visit to Paris in ... [+] March 2017. Photo by Arthur Edwards Getty ImagesSitting in front of tennis legend Rod Laver, attending the Men's Singles final of the Wimbledon ... [+] Tennis Championships on July 15, 2018 in London, England. Photo by Clive Brunskill. Getty ImagesIn February 2019 during a visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photo by Max Mumby Getty ImagesWalking in Dublin, Ireland, in March 2020 in Dublin. Photo by Julien Behal WireImage | 0 |
###CLAIM: sharma said one solution to sustainable growth could be changing the types of crops grown in different regions, such as reducing up to 20 percent of land used to grow rice and wheat in central and punjab.
###DOCS: (CNN) Hundreds of millions of people in India face a serious threat to their livelihoods and food security due to overexploitation of vital water supplies, according to the authors of a new study. India is one of the world's biggest crop producers and more than half of its 1.3 billion people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. But the groundwater that makes up 40% of the country's water supply has been steadily depleting for years. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that overuse of groundwater could cause winter harvests in some regions of the country to fall up to two thirds by 2025. A team of international researchers analyzed satellite imagery and census data to gauge the impact on winter harvests, which account for 44% of the country's annual cropped acreage for food grains, according to the study. Winter agriculture relies heavily on groundwater irrigation -- as opposed to other seasons that can take advantage of heavy monsoon rains. Indian food production has skyrocketed since the 1960s, as farmers began widely using tube wells, which draw water from deep underground. This has allowed them to continue farming even during dry seasons when there isn't rain or sufficient surface water -- but over-extraction has left "critically low groundwater availability" in the country's northwest and south, according to the research. "Many studies have shown that India has large groundwater depletion, but to date it has been unclear what the impacts of this depletion could have on agricultural production," said lead author Meha Jain, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability. The researchers found that if farmers in over-exploited regions lose all access to groundwater, and if that irrigation water isn't replaced by water from other sources, winter harvests could decrease by 20% nationwide and by 68% in the most severely affected areas. This is a worst-case scenario, and the damage could be mitigated if authorities take action and adopt alternative irrigation options, the study said. The government has already been widely pushing the adoption of canal irrigation, which diverts surface water from lakes and rivers, and could help offset some of the losses. Water commuters fill containers at a groundwater source in Latur, Maharashtra, India, in 2016. But it's far from a perfect solution -- even if all regions currently using depleted groundwater switched to canal irrigation, winter harvests could still decline by 7% nationwide and by 24% in the worst hit locations, according to the study. And canal irrigation comes at its own cost -- it would mean farmers are more vulnerable to weather changes, since lakes and rivers depend on rainfall. Groundwater is also a more equitable way to distribute water across villages, since wells are decentralized as opposed to large-scale canal projects. "Our results highlight the critical importance of groundwater for Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods, and we were able to show that simply providing canal irrigation as a substitute irrigation source will likely not be enough to maintain current production levels in the face of groundwater depletion," said Jain in a news release. Instead, the government needs to adopt a wide range of strategies -- for instance, switching from winter rice to less water-intensive cereals, the use of sprinklers and drip irrigation to conserve water, and policies to increase the efficiency of irrigation canals, according to the study. Farmers hard hitIndia's water crisis has been building for years, gaining international attention in 2019 when Chennai, the country's sixth largest city, faced an acute water shortage. The city's four main reservoirs ran nearly dry due to insufficient rainfall and low groundwater levels. Water had to be trucked into Chennai from other states and regions, forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to stand in line for hours in the summer heat to receive rationed water. It's a national problem: 100 million people, including those in the large cities of Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, face the threat of groundwater running out entirely, according to a 2018 report by Niti Aayog, an Indian government think tankA man fills up a container with drinking water during a citywide water shortage in Chennai, India, on June 17, 2019. The agricultural sector has been one of the hardest hit. The regions with the most severe water depletion fall along India's food bowl -- states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which support the whole country's food security, said Bharat Sharma, scientist emeritus at the International Water Management Institution, who was not involved in the study. "The water table is depleting very fast in north India ... That is why the farmers started making use of groundwater, because surface water was not available and the explosive use of groundwater began," he said. "The cropping system we are using requires more water than is available." The devastating effects of climate change have also added to the difficulties facing farmers. Monsoon rains, which they depend on to water their crops, have been more erratic and droughts more common. "Indian farmers are in a very challenging situation right now," Jain, from the University of Michigan, told CNN. "On top of groundwater depletion, there's also going to be negative impacts of climate change in the coming decades." This years-long crisis has been linked to persistently high rates of farmer suicide, with many farmers driven to desperation by growing debts, bankruptcies and crop loss. Every year, more than 10,000 farmers and agricultural workers die by suicide, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau . In 2019, that number was 10,281 -- averaging 28 suicides a day. The government has taken action in recent years to try to address these various crisis points. In 2020, the federal Central Ground Water Board agency released a "Master Plan" to conserve and artificially recharge depleted groundwater, using strategies like canals, injection wells, and groundwater reservoirs. One sustainable solution could be changing the types of crops grown in different regions -- for instance, reducing up to 20% of the land used to grow rice and wheat in Central Punjab, said Sharma. These are thirsty crops -- replacing a portion with less water-reliant crops could turn the land "water neutral," meaning "the rate of depletion of water will be equal to the rate by the recharge." Prime Minister Narendra Modi made agriculture a key focus of his 2019 re-election campaign, pledging to double farmers' incomes by 2022. After he won, Modi created the Jal Shakti Ministry, a government branch focused on water resources, conservation and sanitation. But efforts by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party to reform the agricultural sector have backfired. A series of new agricultural laws passed last September have prompted the biggest nationwide protests seen in years, that are still ongoing now months later. Though the government says the laws are necessary to modernize the industry and grant farmers more autonomy, farmers fear the laws could instead allow big companies to drive down prices, thus further devastating their livelihoods. | 0 |
###CLAIM: a decision on whether to restart the astra injection has now been postponed twice by norway, awaiting a report by a government appointment commission due in may.
###DOCS: OSLO, April 22 (Reuters) - Norway will lend 216,000 doses of the AstraZeneca (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine it has in stock to Sweden and Iceland, the countrys health ministry said on Thursday, enabling the two Nordic neighbours to speed up their inoculation campaigns. Norway on March 11 suspended the rollout of the vaccine after a small number of younger people were hospitalised for a combination of blood clots, bleeding and a low count of platelets, some of whom later died. Sweden and Iceland will be able to receive the doses from Norway for as long as the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout is suspended. "We will get the doses we lend back as soon as we ask for it," Health Minister Bent Hoeie said in a statement. Norway has twice postponed its decision on whether to restart AstraZeneca injections, and is now awaiting a report from a government-appointed commission due on May 10. If a decision is made to permanently exclude the AstraZeneca vaccine from Norway's campaign, the doses it has ordered can be donated to other countries in cooperation with the European Union, the health ministry said. Sweden continues to use the AstraZeneca vaccine for certain age groups, in line with many other European nations, reserving it for those who are 65 years and older for whom the benefits are seen to clearly outweigh the risks. And while Swedish infection rates and hospitalisations are on the rise, Norway is currently seeing a decline in new COVID-19 cases. "Sweden is in a demanding situation with regards to infections and has also given significant support to Norway in our work to secure access to vaccines," Hoeie said. European Union outsider Norway's participation in the EU's vaccination purchase programme, signed last year, was organised in collaboration with Sweden. Of the total, 200,000 doses will go to Sweden and the remaining 16,000 to Iceland, which has a much smaller population. The relevant doses are set to expire in June and July. Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Victoria KlestyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 1 |
###CLAIM: before jurassic world, dominion, black panther, wakanda and forever, the theater industry had got to the base of james, cameron and avatar 2, just knocking on the park doors to bring the whole team home in december, 2022.
###DOCS: 'Jurassic World: Dominion' UniversalThose who attended last nights press screening of F9 at the TCL Hollywood theater were gifted with the first public look at the teaser for Colin Trevorrows Jurassic World: Dominion. Yes, I saw the tease last night (yes, I drove there and back for the teaser, mostly because its been well over a year since I engaged in such nonsense), and it does the job. For those seeing F9 in IMAX theaters when it opens domestically in exactly ten days, youll get a two-part tease. First, theres a prehistoric prologue of sorts, offering something vaguely resembling an origin for the franchises star T-Rex. Despite concerns that the movie would get bogged down in Unrequested Origin Story City, the scene as it existed is no different than the Smeagol finds the ring of power prologue of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Or, even better example, its dawn of time setting and its nature is a cruel beast sensibilities reminded me of the caveman discovers the black goo prologue in The X-Files: Fight the Future. Second, theres a beat that takes place in present day. It acknowledges the dinosaurs live among us status quo of Fallen Kingdom and plays even better today than it might have in normal circumstances due to it A) being set in a location that has been frequented far more often in the last year B) serving as a metaphor for the movie industry as it exists today. Anyway, the most exciting part of the tease for the Trevorrow, Derek Connolly and Emily Carmichael-penned sequel was merely the text proclaiming that the film was coming next summer.Even without the last year of blockbuster-free hell, this kind of long-lead tease for a preordained hit always hits in the right spot. Sure, theres no reason to drown us in marketing material months and months and months before the release date, and there was a clear effort by the studios to pull back on that mentality even before Covid. Studios are realizing that the months and months selling these franchise films to the already converted, via pricey convention presentations, ridiculously long-lead magazine articles and the like, dont do much for general moviegoers. If you have a kick-ass SDCC presentation (often not meant too be seen by the general populace) a year in advance, well, you still have to spend the money when the film is much closer to opening weekend. And if you bomb at Comic-Con, well, then youre on the defensive for no good reason. That terrific Marlon Brandon-narrated teaser for Superman Returns didnt prevent the Bryan Singer film from disappointing a year later. The not-that-great teaser for The Dark Knight Rises (debuting a year out attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II) didnt prevent the Chris Nolan trilogy capper from topping $1 billion global. Conversely, Godzilla Vs. Kong (debuting today on EST after a $441 million-and-counting run) played to best-case-scenario box office even amid a pandemic and with concurrent streaming availability from a first trailer debuting just 65 days before its March 31 release date. Jordan Peeles Us nabbed a $70 million domestic debut with a single Christmas Day trailer launched less than 90 days out from its late March opening day. You dont need to drown us in pre-release marketing, but a fun tease like this, especially if followed by radio silence until Christmas is harmless fun. I was (obviously) reminded of the year-out tease for The Dark Knight and the other Chris Nolan movies (like Tenet, attached so prints of Hobbs & Shaw in summer 2019) that followed suit. I am reminded of the Thanksgiving weekend teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a kind of because the fans demanded it 13-months-out preview that fortunately was followed by relative silence prior to April of 2015. And, yeah, in what may be the first example of this sort of thing, I remembering the roaring and applause that followed the year-out teaser for The Flintstones. Opening night Jurassic Park audiences lost it when the bouncing ball flew off-screen and was caught by an in-costume John Goodman who then yelled out Yabba-Dabba-Doo! The movie wasnt very good, but it was an early example of IP-specific marketing and the appeal of a well-liked actor playing a cast-to-type marquee character. Last nights tease was a little different, as the next summer... rule the Earth text was a pronouncement that, yes, were still getting a summer movie season in 2022, and a reminder that the real text for the box office begins after this summer. As Ive mentioned a few times, the vast majority of big studio releases were pushed out of the summer, leaving a slew of coin-toss franchise plays (Jungle Cruise, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Snake Eyes), horror flicks (sequels to A Quiet Place, Conjuring, Dont Breathe, Escape Room along with Candyman and M. Night Shyamalans Old) and two conventional 1600 lbs. gorillas in F9 and Black Widow. F9 has passed $270 million worldwide, including a decent $213 million from China, while Black Widows advance ticket sales are allegedly on par with previous solo MCU flicks. But otherwise, the real game begins on Labor Day with Marvels Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, followed by Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Dune, No Time to Die and Halloween Kills. The year closes out with the likes of Eternals, Top Gun: Maverick, Sing 2, Matrix 4 and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Barring a fluke, Id peg Sony and Marvels third MCU Spider-Man movie as the years biggest Hollywood release and maybe (emphasis on maybe) the first $1 billion grosser since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. But next year will be when some sense of normalcy returns. Next year offers two Universal mega-movies (Minions 2 and Jurassic World 3), three DC Films flicks (The Batman, Black Adam, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom), four MCU flicks (Thor 4, Doctor Strange 2, Black Panther 2 and The Marvels) and the likes of Mission: Impossible 7, John Wick: Chapter 3 and Indiana Jones 5. Pardon the baseball metaphor, but I could see the likes of Jurassic World: Dominion and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever getting the theatrical industry on base before James Camerons Avatar 2 just knocks it out of the park in December 2022 to bring the whole team home. So, yes, barring a happy miracle, I wouldnt expect much this year (especially outside of the Marvel/DC flicks, No Time to Die and F9) to earn even as much as Tenet ($363 million) or Godzilla Vs. Kong ($441 million). But next year is when we get movies that in normal times absolutely would have been commercial monsters, amid hopefully a mostly recovered North American and comparatively recovering overseas marketplace. Thats the promise of the Jurassic World: Dominion teaser. Next summer, there will be a real summer movie season. To quote In the Heights, it wont be long now... | 0 |
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