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CEO Shake-Up Looms At Paramount Global Amid Skydance Merger Discussions - Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) 2024-04-28 13:38:00+00:00 - Loading... Loading... Bob Bakish, the current CEO of Paramount Global, may be facing termination as the company continues its merger talks with Skydance Media. What Happened: A recent CNBC report suggests that the board of Paramount Global PARA is contemplating the dismissal of Bakish, which will possibly come as early as Monday. In the event of Bakish's departure, the company is expected to rely on division heads while continuing merger discussions with Skydance Media. Paramount Global has set up a special committee to explore the potential merger. The two companies are in exclusive talks until May 3, though this period may be extended. See Also: Former Democratic Senator Says Biden's New Capital Gains Tax Proposal Aimed At Billionaires Has 'No Chanc Shari Redstone, Paramount Global's controlling shareholder, has reportedly lost faith in Bakish. Redstone had plans to remove Bakish before the company's carriage negotiation with Charter Communications, a pivotal event for determining Paramount's value in its merger talks with Skydance. As the merger talks progress, it is expected that Bakish will leave Paramount and Skydance's CEO David Ellison will take over. Bakish has privately opposed the merger, arguing it could dilute common shareholders. The proposed deal would see Skydance and its private equity partners owning nearly 50% of the merged company, with ordinary shareholders owning the rest. Why It Matters: The merger talks between Paramount Global and Skydance Media have been heating up. The companies are reportedly close to agreeing on a valuation of about $5 billion for Skydance in the merger. Interestingly, this isn't Paramount's first involvement in merger talks. In December 2023, Bakish met with Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. CEO David Zaslav to discuss a potential merger. Loading... Loading... The discussions centered on how the two companies could complement each other, including leveraging Paramount's children's programming assets and combining CBS News and CNN into a global news outlet. Now Read: Why Paramount Global Shares Are Gaining Today This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo: Shutterstock
If you can say these 6 phrases with confidence, you live a happier, more hopeful life than most 2024-04-28 13:26:00+00:00 - After three decades researching human hope and happiness, I discovered a method you can use to measure your happiness. It's based on this simple equation: Hope ÷ Hunger = Happiness This math formula — hope divided by hunger equals happiness — says that the more hopeful and less hungry you are, the happier you become. When I say hungry, I don't just mean you have a hunger for food. I'm saying you have a compelling desire or craving for: Inclusion and acknowledgment Intimacy and trusted companionship Food and comfort Information and answers Continuity and certainty Hope, meanwhile, comes from: High self-esteem Robust human relationships A good sense of economic sufficiency Adequate knowledge Spiritual assurances To measure hope and hunger — and therefore happiness — with this formula, I developed a questionnaire that identifies whether you're languishing, flourishing, or functioning somewhere in between. If you're languishing, it means you're overwhelmingly hungry, unhappy, and disconnected, with feelings of emptiness, low hope, and a hollow sense of purpose. You're functioning at the lowest end of the wellbeing spectrum. If you're flourishing, on the other hand, it means you're happy, full of hope, and functioning well emotionally and socially. So if you can confidently make these six statements, you're flourishing — living a happier, more hopeful life than most people: 1. 'Generally speaking, I am an optimist' If you can say this, it means that you habitually choose the most favorable interpretation of events and outcomes of the past, the present, and especially the future. To an optimist, the future is full of hope, whereas to the pessimist it's full of hunger, or unfulfilled desires. Optimism makes you resilient. When you haven't achieved a goal after a few attempts, you try and try again. And if you determine a goal is truly impossible to achieve, you modify it to keep hope alive. The predisposition for optimism is partly inborn and partly acquired or learned. You can learn to be more optimistic by noting and acknowledging that good things do happen, and anyone (including yourself) can make them happen. 2. 'I have something to offer to other people' This phrase reflects a high degree of self-esteem, or a strong belief in yourself. When you have something to contribute, it means you're a consequential member of the community. You matter, and you belong. The best way to build this belief is to identify your true calling or passion — something you love to do and do very well. 3. 'I have someone I can count on' Knowing you're not alone in a life full of uncertainties is calming and anxiety-relieving. All humans have an inborn desire for human connection. When you have someone you can count on, especially in case of an emergency — whether it's a family member, a friend, a neighbor, or a colleague — it mitigates the natural hunger for trusted companionship. You can start today to gradually widen your circle of well-wishers and foster a sense of connection. Try to make a habit of doing things that make others smile. Send someone a note just because you're thinking of them, give your neighbor a ride, compliment a friend, or let the other driver go first. 4. 'When I need answers, I usually find them' You may have noticed that young children ask a lot of questions — sometimes following up one "why?" with another and then another. That's because humans have an inborn hunger for information and answers. When you believe that answers to your questions are within reach, that hunger is mitigated and under control. Simply understanding "Why?" can ease heavy burdens. You may have heard the expression "knowledge is power." One of the reasons it's true is that knowledge is a source of human hope. It bolsters self-esteem and self-confidence and instills courage. A sense of confidence in the adequacy of what you know, and a reasonable certainty that you have access to information, alleviates fear and anxiety. 5. 'When I think about what I have, I believe I'm more fortunate than many' This phrase reflects gratitude for the economic assets you currently have or expect to have — including money, food, shelter, and other material resources — and the financial and material comfort that comes with them. As I wrote in my recent book "The Happiness Formula," when you value and appreciate what you have, the value of what you have instantly appreciates. You can do small things every day as a good steward of the resources you have, including making your bed, tidying your desk, conserving water and electricity, and counting your blessings. 6. 'Relying on something larger than myself is reassuring'
How to design a volunteering program in your workplace 2024-04-28 12:12:08+00:00 - More workplaces are bolstering their volunteer programs, especially as employee demands grow for socially responsible employers and engagement. Nearly three in five companies surveyed by the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals reported increased opportunities for group volunteering last year. With National Volunteer Week in the rearview mirror, coworkers buoyed by recent acts of kindness might be looking for ways to integrate service more regularly into their professional schedules. They stand to benefit themselves, too. Recent University of Oxford research suggests organized volunteering is one of the most effective workplace programs for improving workers’ well-being. But not all corporate volunteering is created equal. The following advice from experts and nonprofit leaders provides some best practices for anyone interested in building or strengthening an officewide culture of service. EMPLOYEES IN CHARGE Dr. Eddy Hogg, a University of Kent lecturer who studies volunteering, recommends giving agency to employees in the design of their workplace volunteer program. People who volunteer on their own time likely have a much more personal connection to the cause, he said, whereas an employee group will have varied levels of interest in any given act of service. Allowing employees to select from a range of local community groups, and suggest their own, can help ensure everyone feels connected to their nonprofit partner’s mission. Affinity groups can be a good place to start aligning employee interests with service work. Still, buy-in from the entire corporate ladder is necessary. “It’s one thing for a guy in head office to think it’s a good idea,” Hogg said. “But if people’s line managers think it’s a load of rubbish, it’s not going to happen. Even if the staff are actually really keen to do it.” MAKE IT MEANINGFUL Hogg also recommends breaking away from the short-term, light-touch days of service frequently featured in company press releases. Otherwise, Hogg says, you’re essentially just participating in a company retreat. Deep connections between employees and the community won’t form if they only interact once or twice a year. “You might as well just put everyone on a bus and take them up to the Catskills, right?” he said. Bosses and nonprofit leaders to communicate how the chosen activity will benefit the community. That means fostering direct interactions with the people being served, said Jessica Rodell, which can help ensure employees return for future volunteering. “The more meaningful the activity, the better,” said Rodell, a University of Georgia management professor. DON’T GO IT ALONE Cold-calling charitable organizations can be daunting. Luckily, there are third-party organizations ready to partner companies looking for skills-based volunteering opportunities with nonprofits in need of extra help. Common Impact leverages the increased power of corporations in society by connecting their employees with community groups. CEO Leila Saad describes it as the corporate version of legal pro bono work. The nonprofit has partnered with dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Common Impact connected Allstate employees with a Wisconsin domestic violence prevention group to improve staff parental and bereavement leave polices, for example. It also brought Blue Cross Blue Shield employees together with a Worcester, Massachusetts gang rehabilitation program that needed help collecting data to measure its success in grant applications. Employees working at smaller companies could consider partnering with their local Big Brothers Big Sisters of America club. Mentors help high school students plan for post-graduation life by helping fill out college aid forms or choose majors under its “Big Futures” program. The necessary commitment levels come and go, according to Chief Development Officer Deborah Barge. Volunteers might only show up once to a career fair, for example. Others may work with mentees for about six or more hours across several days. BE FLEXIBLE Lower the barrier to entry by creating a variety of programs where newcomers can wet their feet and seasoned volunteers can go all-in. In a corporate world where employees are increasingly working hybrid schedules and spread out geographically, that means providing some remote service opportunities. The beauty brand Shiseido Americas ships volunteer kits out to its employees scattered across its New York headquarters, New Jersey manufacturing facilities, Ohio warehouse and regional offices around the country. Keep America Beautiful, an environmental nonprofit that works to end littering and expand recycling, has cleanup kits used by Shiseido employees to beautify local parks. The company also sends kits with materials so employees can make blankets or decorate bags for foster children. A robust employee engagement program should celebrate the “wholeness” of who they are,” said Melissa MacDonnell, head of the Liberty Mutual Foundation. The insurance company often starts by inviting organizations that have already been the recipient of donations through its employee match program, MacDonnell said, and also solicits suggestions from employees. In addition to monthslong, skills-based opportunities, MacDonnell said Liberty Mutual also offers curated service projects that employees can sign up to join during the first three weeks in May. “If you’re forcing it, it doesn’t feel authentic,” said Julia Haase, the chief operating officer for Liberty Mutual Investments. “If you give people the platform and the choice -- the where and when and how they want to engage -- I think they will feel empowered to pursue those areas that are really meaningful to them.” ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Seeking engagement and purpose, corporate employees turn to workplace volunteering 2024-04-28 12:11:20+00:00 - NEW YORK (AP) — Michelle Barbin’s job does not always fill her bucket. Yes, she likes her nine-to-five helping improve consumer experiences at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. She emphasizes she wouldn’t have spent nearly 19 years working for the health insurance provider otherwise. But her “empathetic heart” gets true satisfaction from the company’s opportunities to apply professional skills toward resource-strapped nonprofits. Routine work — managing projects or organizing slideshows — feels more fulfilling when it involves, say, a new marketing campaign for a Pittsburgh children’s health group. She’s reaped developmental benefits, too; she credits her leadership on a day of service for helping convince her current boss to hire her onto a new team. “This is a huge part of why I stay,” Barbin said. Employees increasingly find that robust workplace volunteer programs meet their desires for in-person connections, professional growth and altruistically inclined employers — career objectives that might be missing in conventional corporate atmospheres. The surge in interest coming out of the pandemic-era shutdowns that forced many Americans to reevaluate their commitments to their communities led to more corporate partners, volunteer hours and active participants in 2023 than ever before, according to Benevity, a platform that helps companies manage such programs. More than 60% of respondents reported increased participation last year in employee volunteer activities, according to an Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals survey of 149 companies. Even employees who don’t volunteer themselves feel better about working somewhere with strong public-spirited cultures. Regardless of their own individual volunteer commitments, they feel proud about their affiliation with a socially conscious company, according to Jessica Rodell, a University of Georgia management professor who studies worker psychology. Companies with robust volunteer programs tend to also have lower turnover rates, she said. “Volunteering can be one tool in a company’s toolbox to help employees invest of themselves enough in the company to perform well, and then want to stay there instead of go somewhere else,” Rodell said. It can be an especially good tool for instilling social purpose among frontline employees who tend to derive a sense of meaning from work but report detachment from their company’s mission. But flexibility is key. Business management experts note that employees must have the freedom to choose their volunteer activities, nonprofit partners and time commitments for fruitful bonds to actually develop. Workplace volunteering was not something that Jesse Weissman knew he wanted from employers when joined Microsoft in May 2021. Three years later, it’s an aspect of professional life that he said would warrant serious consideration if he ever pursued a new job. Searching for a deeper connection to the Seattle community, Weissman began mentoring students of color through Microsoft’s partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and a local nonprofit. Since September 2022, he’s worked with Microsoft’s Black employee affinity group in the Seattle area to arrange speaking and mentorship opportunities for his colleagues. “It filled a hole that I didn’t realize,” Weissman said. Not just any slapdash activity will do, experts say. These service days are not necessarily circled on office-wide calendars as afternoons of matching tees and on-site photo opportunities. Some companies set aside regular work hours for months at a time so employees can build websites or develop business strategies for local charities. Executives might think that a lighthearted, social effort — filling backpacks at a happy hour, for example — is necessary to turn out their fun-loving employees. But Rodell, the management professor, said that more time-intensive, meaningful programs have greater resonance with volunteers. Best practices include following employees’ leads and meeting them where they’re at. Skills-based opportunities at Blue Cross Blue Shield range from one-day, “flash” projects to monthslong partnerships. The company sets aside 15 days annually for associates to spend volunteering, much like vacation and sick time. Affinity groups can co-create service projects. Integrating giving into the volunteer programs is another way to engage busier, seasoned employees with less time to serve but deeper pocketbooks. Liberty Mutual matches employee gifts to more than 11,000 eligible charities. The insurance company’s volunteers are further incentivized by the chance to earn miniature grants for the charity of their choice. Totals reach $2,500 for those who have completed 100 service hours. Some employees recently spent parts of more than six months consulting with More Than Words, a Boston nonprofit that provides work for youth ages 16 to 24 who have cycled through foster care, courts, homeless shelters or other systems. After surveying participants, Liberty Mutual employees identified a lack of front-end support, according to Naomi Parker, the nonprofit’s chief advancement officer. Youth needed help obtaining transportation and food before they could hold down a job. The volunteer commitments are now part of extensive ties that have seen a Liberty Mutual employee join the More Than Words board and more than $3.4 million committed to the nonprofit since 2013. Employees have given more than $85,000 including matches and other incentives. “It doesn’t turn into a LinkedIn post, right?” Parker said. “It’s not a quick hit. It’s real. It’s deep. And it’s not for show.” Volunteering can be a gateway to relationships beyond the otherwise costly, behind-the-scenes help provided by employees. The long-term partnerships in turn introduce budget-constrained nonprofits to new pools of donors. Now is an especially good time to forge those connections given that Gen Z is forecast to overtake Baby Boomers in the workforce this year, said Blackbaud Giving Fund Executive Director Matt Nash. Over three-fifths of charitable donors recently volunteered with the organization they supported, according to a Fidelity Charitable report. As younger employees increase their earnings, Nash said, well-formed bonds can become especially lucrative for nonprofits. Legendary Legacies Executive Director Ron Waddell had no expectations that Blue Cross Blue Shield employees would stay engaged with his nonprofit’s work rehabilitating young gang members. Several IT specialists and data analysts had helped them better capture metrics on the success of their programs — important for both feedback and grant applications. But many months later, one volunteer made a $200 donation in what Waddell considered a testament to their honest motives. It wasn’t “a performative measure to look good,” he said. “You could tell folks were really invested.” —- Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Why Chris Christie’s spiteful Biden comments are so dangerous 2024-04-28 11:57:54+00:00 - Not long ago, I wrote a column about high-profile Republicans not voting for former President Donald Trump, and that we should “let them be” if they wouldn’t commit to voting for President Joe Biden, since at the least they wouldn’t be casting a vote for Trump. I still stand by that. But when a prominent Republican declares that he can’t vote for Trump and then completely trashes Biden by calling him “not qualified to be president,” that’s a different story. And I believe it’s one that should be called out. In spite of stating over and over that he doesn’t want to see Trump elected again, Christie risks sacrificing the future of the country over his obsession with his own relevance. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently brought his straightforward, call-it-as-he-sees-it style in full force during a discussion with Leigh Ann Caldwell from The Washington Post at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. It didn’t take long to see that behind his attempt to project a happy warrior image, he is still bitter over his own failed run for the presidency. Worse yet, in spite of stating over and over that he doesn’t want to see Trump elected again, Christie risks sacrificing the future of the country over his obsession with his own relevance. Christie stated that he would not be voting for Biden, and that Trump is “wholly unfit to be president of the United States, in every way you can think of.” He could have stopped there; but then he commented that Biden is past his “sell-by date,” and that he didn’t believe Biden is up for another term. He also voiced his dismay over the fact that team Biden hasn’t reach out to him. Christie knows full well how these sort of comments can be used against Biden, and worse yet, can help Trump should they be used in a very targeted way. Christie himself was blamed by some people (wrongly, I believe) for hurting Mitt Romney’s campaign when he welcomed then-President Barack Obama with a warm handshake upon his arrival to New Jersey to see the devastating damage from Superstorm Sandy just days before the 2012 presidential election. For years I have generally liked Christie, even though I haven’t always agreed with him. I was disappointed with his choice to endorse Trump in 2016 and even more so after he actively helped Trump in his re-election campaign, when the dangers of a second Trump term were obvious. I thought I was done with him then, but when he rightly called out the former president immediately after the 2020 election, his was a welcome voice in the 2024 Republican primary. Christie had a good run; he talked about the issues and most of all brought the fight directly to Trump. When it turned out Nikki Haley had a better campaign, his decision not to endorse her once he dropped out seemed petty. But it was his “hot mic” moment in January, saying, “She’s going to get smoked — you and I both know it. She’s not up to this,” that showed us exactly how spiteful he could be. Although he called the gaffe a “complete mistake,” it still shows as pretty weak. Clearly, Christie now wants everyone to hear what he’s saying about Haley and Biden, and he wasn’t shy about calling both of them out during his University of Chicago talk. During the conversation with Caldwell, Christie said he didn’t run as an independent because he didn’t see a path to winning, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his run ended up hurting Biden and helping Trump get elected. Christie may deserve some leeway with his initial Biden comments; after all, he has significant policy differences with Biden, and he wanted to be the Republican nominee to run again Biden this fall. But in the question-and-answer portion of the talk, he really unleashed on Biden, saying he was not qualified to be president. (He also took a parting shot at Haley, saying she will run for president in 2028, and “she will stand for just as little as she stood for this time.”) After working with politicians for over 30 years, I have seen just how much it pains many of them not to be relevant in the public square. But Christie should know better than to let his own feelings potentially influence an election in such a dangerous way. It’s OK for Christie not to support Biden, and maybe his feeling are hurt because team Biden hasn’t extended an invitation to him to join in on a run against Trump — all of which comes back to the need to be relevant. What is not OK is for Christie to run off at the mouth, putting his own ego ahead of what is best for the country.
Tesla founder Musk visits China as competitors show off new electric vehicles at Beijing auto show 2024-04-28 10:44:44+00:00 - BEIJING (AP) — Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk met with a top government leader in the Chinese capital Sunday, just as the nation’s carmakers are showing off their latest electric vehicle models at the Beijing auto show. Chinese Premier Li Qiang told Musk that he hopes the U.S. will work more with China on “win-win” cooperation, citing Tesla’s operations in China as a successful example of economic cooperation, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said on its main evening news program. For China, Musk is a welcome antidote to the tough talk from U.S. officials, which played out most recently during a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Li’s remarks also reflect China’s efforts to attract foreign investment to boost its flagging economy. It wasn’t clear whether Musk would visit the auto show, which runs through this week. Chinese automakers and startups have launched a bevy of electric cars in recent years, some going head-to-head with Tesla and undercutting the American maker on price. An earlier CCTV online report said that Musk had come at the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and met with its president, Ren Hongbin, to exchange views on further cooperation and other topics. Tesla has a major manufacturing base in Shanghai for both domestic sales in China and exports to Europe and other regions. It cut prices in China a week ago, dropping the Model 3 to 231,900 yuan ($32,700) and the Model Y to 249,900 yuan ($35,200), following similar reductions in the U.S. The European Union has launched an investigation into Chinese subsidies for the EV industry that could lead to tariffs on electric vehicles made in China, potentially including Tesla cars. The green energy subsidies have helped transform the Chinese auto market, with EVs reaching about a quarter of new car sales last year, eating into demand for gasoline-powered vehicles. Foreign automakers such as Volkswagen and Nissan are scrambling to develop new EV models to hold onto or claw back market share in China, the world’s largest automobile market.
How Trump trial witness David Pecker ended up in a New York courtroom 2024-04-28 10:00:00+00:00 - In late January 2019, Jennifer Ash Rudick, a documentary film producer, was granted an in-person meeting at the Manhattan offices of American Media Inc. with Dylan Howard, then editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer. Rudick had been following up on a monthslong email trail of requests seeking the participation of Howard’s boss, AMI CEO David Pecker, for a feature-length documentary on the origin, evolution and impact of his most infamous publication. The meeting was brief, and as Rudick would recall to our team afterward, centered on a single question: “How much of the film will be focused on Donald Trump?” (In true Enquirer fashion, readers will be “shocked” to learn that AMI declined all requests to have any of its staff participate in the film, in order to “protect” the “confidential investigative reporting process of our journalists and editors.”) Why would Trump care about the editorial stratagems of a trashy supermarket tabloid in the first place? At the time of that reply, our team had already spent months researching the outlet, interviewing two former Enquirer editors-in chief, a former Los Angeles bureau chief, a former senior photo editor, and over a dozen former editors and reporters, all of whom willingly and in great detail shared many specific practices and tactics of their former employer’s “reporting process.” Those processes were put under a microscope this past week as part of the alluring reality show unfolding in a lower Manhattan courtroom, the People of the State of New York v. Donald Trump. For multiple days, David Pecker testified about his tabloid’s habit of buying stories and sometimes burying them. But putting aside why Stormy Daniels might need to be paid hush money, why would Trump care about the editorial stratagems of a trashy supermarket tabloid in the first place? This was a magazine whose arguably biggest claim had been scoring the only photo of a dead Elvis lying in his coffin, which sold millions of papers in 1977. Trump and the AMI CEO were indeed symbiotic bedfellows. But before there was David Pecker, there was Generoso Pope Jr. Pope fashioned the National Enquirer back in the late 1950s as a gore rag featuring block headlines that barked “news” items like “MAN DRILLS HOLE IN HIS HEAD FOR KICKS,” with full-page, blood-soaked photos designed to grab attention and drive newsstand sales. But by the late 1960s, those newsstands were gone, and Pope did a full editorial makeover on his paper so he could sell it in the one place where he knew millions of Americans go: the supermarket. By the early 1970s, Pope had brokered deals to place racks he had designed at the front end of checkout lines in thousands of grocery stores across America, effectively guaranteeing that the covers of his tabloid would be seen by millions of “enquiring minds” every week. Pope’s former employees told us that his real genius was a keen understanding of the mind of the typical Enquirer reader, a fictional archetype he called “Missy Smith from Kansas City.” Pope and his editorial team closely monitored which stories drove the most sales, and ascertained that Missy Smith preferred a perfect blend of celebrity gossip, health tips, UFO encounters, predictions, human interest stories, and photos of adorable puppies. Iain Calder, who worked for the Enquirer from 1964 to 2000, largely as editor-in-chief, put it this way in our film: “We were Missy Smith in Kansas City, we were Missy Smith in Yonkers. We were Missy Smith in California. We were Missy Smith everywhere.” This is relevant to why David Pecker and Donald Trump are sitting in the same lower Manhattan courtroom last week. When Pecker took charge of the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, in 1999, he inherited that precious, eye-level, front-of-the-checkout-line real estate that Pope had secured years earlier. Pecker also inherited a tradition of having a vast spy network of unconventional, paid sources across Hollywood, Manhattan, Vegas, D.C., London, Monte Carlo and points beyond, whom his reporters would rely on for salacious information about celebrities and politicians. According to several former Enquirer employees we talked to for our film, one of the best sources for gossip that the paper had in the 1990s, long before he was a political candidate, was Donald Trump. And a reporter named Larry Haley was assigned to be the full-time “Trump editor.” As Haley pointed out in our documentary, “Trump was a New York guy that the Enquirer wanted salacious stories from, because they sold a lot of papers.” And, Haley says, “Trump saw the National Enquirer as a megaphone to an audience that he did not have.” Pecker also had a pattern of aligning himself with powerful politicians on the rise, regardless of party affiliation. This is the man who, in 1995, as president of a division of Hachette Filipacchi, cozied up to John F. Kennedy Jr. to announce the launch of George, a celebrity-driven glossy magazine with a “fresh, non-partisan” perspective. This is also the man who in 2002, as CEO of AMI, would acquire Weider Publications, publisher of the nation’s most widely read muscle and fitness magazines. Pecker would forge a valuable alliance with Weider’s most prominent board member, Arnold Schwarzenegger and enthusiastically back him in a successful 2003 bid to become the Republican governor of California. Unless you stared at the ceiling or down at your feet it was impossible to miss the perfectly placed Enquirer cover in its new role as political advertisement. Standing in grocery checkout lines in the months leading up to the 2016 election, I often felt like I was in a scene from “The Manchurian Candidate.” Unless you stared at the ceiling or down at your feet it was impossible to miss the perfectly placed Enquirer cover in its new role as political advertisement. One week Hillary Clinton was “IN JAIL!” A trip for milk would reveal she had “SIX MONTHS TO LIVE!” with a photo of her on death’s door. Other weeks the covers were bright, with headlines as big and bold as the ones about the guy who drilled a hole in his head. One standout issue promised to tell me and everyone else in line that day all about “THE DONALD TRUMP NOBODY KNOWS!” We did not know at that time any of the details of the deal-making that had transpired between Trump and Pecker. We did not know then that information potentially damaging to the Trump campaign would be acquired by Enquirer staffers, doing what Enquirer staffers have done for years as de rigueur for the job, and buried so as never to reach the public. What we did discover was that Pecker had successfully test-driven his skill for catching and killing negative stories on powerful allies with political aspirations years before he and Trump would go into business together. For more on that you might watch a documentary about the National Enquirer.
Why Joe Biden should not be Morehouse College's commencement speaker 2024-04-28 10:00:00+00:00 - Amid growing discontent about America funding Israel’s bombing of Gaza, President Joe Biden is set to give the commencement speech at Morehouse College on May 19. Morehouse, a 157-year-old historically Black college in Atlanta, extended the invitation to Biden in September, the month before Hamas launched a deadly attack in Israel and took hostages. But news of the president’s scheduled address wasn’t announced until last week, when anti-war protesters on college campuses across the country were demonstrating against Israel’s brutal response in Gaza. Morehouse’s announcement that Biden would be giving the school’s commencement address justifiably ignited anger among students, staff and alumni. Morehouse’s announcement that Biden would be giving the school’s commencement address justifiably ignited anger among students, staff and alumni. During an April 23 town hall with Morehouse President David Thomas, students expressed concern about Biden not only being the speaker, but also receiving an honorary degree from the institution. “How are you going to justify what you’re going to bestow on [Biden] on our behalf when he’s basically a war criminal at this point?” one student asked in reference to the honorary degree. “I want to know if you’ve been paid to provide Biden a platform to address the student body,” another student asked, a claim Thomas forcefully denied. “I have not been paid. I have not been bought,” Thomas responded. “That question is an insult, but because you are a student here, I owe you the opportunity to do it. But I’m going to call it out.” This country’s historically Black colleges and universities have long been bastions of protest. For decades, HBCU students have risked everything from expulsion to incarceration to fight for social justice and to stand for the oppressed. Many Black Americans, these Morehouse students included, see a clear connection between Black people’s plight in the United States and the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza. That makes Thomas’ vow not to replace Biden as the commencement speaker even more upsetting. “I’ve spoken with several faculty members who say under no conditions are they going to sit on a stage with Joe Biden,” Andrew Douglas, a political science professor at Morehouse, told NBC News. “It’s on everybody’s mind,” he said. Douglas, who’s been at Morehouse for 13 years, joined 14 other members of the faculty council in writing a letter to Thomas expressing their disappointment at the school’s choice to bring Biden to campus at such a fraught moment. In a separate letter to Thomas, obtained by The Associated Press, some Morehouse alumni refer to Martin Luther King Jr., a Nobel Peace Prize-winning alumnus of Morehouse. “In inviting President Biden to campus,” those alumni wrote, “the college affirms a cruel standard that complicity in genocide merits no sanction from the institution that produced one of the towering advocates for nonviolence of the twentieth century.” King, who embraced nonviolence as a political strategy, won the award in 1964 for his civil rights advocacy, but he said winning the peace prize was “a commission” that compelled him to oppose the Vietnam War in particular and “militarism” generally. “If the college cannot affirm this noble tradition of justice by rescinding its invitation to President Biden, then the college should reconsider its attachment to Dr. King,” those alumni wrote. Some current students agree, with one telling The Guardian it’s “absolutely unacceptable” for an HBCU that “prides itself on social justice” to invite a president whose administration supports, to an extent, the war in Gaza, to their campus. However, Provost Kendrick Brown told NBC News that having Biden speak “is something that is in line with Morehouse’s mission and also with this objective of being a place that allows for engagement of social justice issues and moral concerns.” Morehouse’s attempt to connect this invitation to the college’s storied history of encouraging protest is both bewildering and disingenuous. He added, “We certainly encourage our students, our faculty, our staff, to form strong opinions and to come together peacefully and engage in that. So the way I see this is, this is certainly an opportunity … for our community to engage with the president to express the range of views that exist on the present issues, certainly in Israel and Gaza.” One hopes Biden will be open to hearing concerns about Gaza from Black students, a constituency essential to his re-election campaign. But Morehouse’s attempt to connect this invitation to the college’s storied history of encouraging protest is both bewildering and disingenuous. Holding on to the choice of Biden as speaker also defies the will of some students — many of whom attend college to better understand their place in the world — and some faculty, who are tasked with guiding those students toward that understanding and toward their purpose. In the 1960s, students at multiple HBCUs, including Morehouse, were integral to the fight to desegregate public and private facilities and increase access to the ballot box. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a historic collective of activists, was formed at a conference at Shaw University, while students from Bennett College (my HBCU) and North Carolina A&T were the architects of a sit-in movement that spread to colleges across the country. That spirit of protest hasn’t died; in fact, as multiple social issues have presented themselves, HBCU students have risen to the occasion. As the #MeToo movement gained prominence, students at Spelman College, which shares the Atlanta University Center campus with Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse, protested the school’s treatment of sexual assault survivors, leading to the formation of an anti-assault task force. After a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in 2014, HBCU students across the country, Atlanta students included, protested the killing and a grand jury’s decision not to indict that officer. Of course HBCU students, who believe it is important to face injustice head on, would be organizing pro-Palestinian marches. In fact, doing so aligns with what HBCU students, myself included, have been taught: You don’t just need to find a career, as the late Howard University graduate Chadwick Boseman said during his commencement speech there in 2018; you should find a purpose, one that transcends a paycheck. If that purpose includes fighting for social justice — as it should and as so many HBCU students and alumni pride themselves on — then why would Morehouse students stay quiet when their school’s administration invites Biden to step into their sacred space and deliver a commencement speech right now? Why would Morehouse students stay quiet when their school’s administration invites Biden to step into their sacred space and deliver a commencement speech right now? Ziora Ajeroh, a student at North Carolina A&T who started the school’s first chapter of Dissenters, an anti-war youth organization, told Reckon, “As Black people, we aren’t new to violence. We’ve experienced violence our whole lives and for generations. So when other people are experiencing violence, we feel it’s our duty to stand in solidarity with them and not because they have also stood in solidarity with us, but because it’s the right thing to do.” There are Dissenters chapters on other HBCU campuses, including Hampton University and Xavier University of Louisiana, demanding that their college presidents issue statements calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. Thus far, no HBCU has risen to that challenge, but with a tradition that includes training activists to change the literal course of history, I am hopeful that Morehouse and other colleges will heed that call. While the aggrieved Morehouse students, faculty and alumni have not made such a public demand — the goal is that the invitation to Biden be rescinded — may the president respond to their discontent by standing up for innocent people in Gaza and refusing to fund the bombs that are killing them.
Nepal hosts an investment summit in hopes of attracting foreign money for hydropower projects 2024-04-28 09:52:53+00:00 - KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal hosted an investment summit Sunday in hopes of attracting much-needed foreign investment, especially in developing hydropower projects to produce more electricity that it can sell to neighboring countries. Several foreign investors were attending the two-day meetings in the capital, Kathmandu, where Nepali officials urged investment in developing hydropower projects and in other areas like tourism and industry. Nepal is home to eight of the tallest mountain peaks in the world and has several rivers flowing down from them, bringing huge hydropower potential. But only a few projects have been built in the poor south Asian nation. “Our hydropower potential holds the promise of abundant renewable and clean energy supply,” Nepal’s prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, told the delegates. However, he said, “only 3,200 megawatts have been harnessed so far and only about 5,568 megawatt large-scale projects are under construction or in the pipeline.” “This explicitly shows the enormous opportunities to invest in the hydropower sector in Nepal,” Dahal said, adding that the existing and planned cross-border transmission line with India and China aids energy exchange within the region. He said Nepal has signed agreements or memoranda of understanding with China, India and Bangladesh for power trade or cooperation. Nepali officials are also hoping to attract more investment in the tourism sector in the Himalayan nation, where the industry is struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. “This summit will provide a platform for networking opportunities among the policy makers, investors, experts and stakeholders to share ideas and views as well as encourage joint ventures in areas such as industry and infrastructure development,” said Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun. Nepal has said the main objective is to project the country as an emerging destination for private sector investment and to highlight recent reforms in enhancing the investment climate and ensuring regulatory frameworks and support for foreign as well as domestic investment.
A $275 Bus Ticket to the Hamptons 2024-04-28 09:02:33.355000+00:00 - Blade, the helicopter charter company, was founded 10 years ago as a way for commuters going between New York and the Hamptons to avoid vehicle traffic. This May it is introducing a new service, the Hamptons Streamliner, that, starting at $195 a ticket, will take passengers to destinations on eastern Long Island aboard … a bus. Like Blade’s helicopters, seats on which start at $1,025, its buses are marketed as a luxurious option for Hamptons-goers. Seats can recline up to 45 degrees and passengers will be offered free refreshments like espresso martinis, PopUp Bagels and Sweetgreen salads as they make their way from Manhattan to stops in Southampton, Bridgehampton and East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway.
After Period of Chastity, Hollywood Movies Embrace Sex Again 2024-04-28 09:02:22+00:00 - Zendaya, clad in a skintight dress, gyrates on a dance floor in “Challengers,” a $56 million sports drama that arrived in multiplexes on Friday. “It’s getting hot in here,” the hip-hop soundtrack intones, as she closes her eyes and runs her hands through her hair, lost in fantasy. “So take off all your clothes.” The story continues at a motel, where Zendaya, playing a tennis prodigy, begins a ménage à trois with two guys; it fizzles after they become more interested in each other. The plot moves on — to sultry interplay on the hood of a car, in a dorm room, in the back seat of a car, on the wooden slats of a sauna. There is erotic churro eating. “Sex is back!” shouted an apparently elated man at the conclusion of a prerelease “Challengers” screening in West Hollywood, Calif., this month. Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Think about how many times the rom-com has been declared dead — and alive — and dead. (No, wait, alive.) But this much can be said with surety: Hollywood is hornier than it has been in years.
Even With Gaza Under Siege, Some Are Imagining Its Reconstruction 2024-04-28 09:01:48+00:00 - On a December morning in central London, more than two dozen people drawn from influential institutions across the Middle East, Europe and the United States gathered in a conference room to pursue an aspiration that, at that moment, verged on preposterous. They were there to plan for the reconstruction and long-term economic development of Gaza. Gaza was under relentless bombardment by Israeli military forces in response to terrorist attacks launched by Hamas in October. Communities throughout the territory were being reduced to rubble, and tens of thousands of people had been killed. Families confronted the immediacy of hunger, fear and grief. Yet at the meeting in London, members of the international establishment discussed how to eventually transform Gaza from a place defined by isolation and poverty into a Mediterranean commercial hub centered on trade, tourism and innovation, yielding a middle class. The group included senior officials from American and European economic development agencies, executives from Middle Eastern finance and construction companies and two partners from the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Officially, they were attending only as individuals, not as representatives of their institutions.
U.S. Lags Behind Other Countries in Hepatitis-C Treatment 2024-04-28 09:00:50.850000+00:00 - In the 10 years since the drugmaker Gilead debuted a revolutionary treatment for hepatitis C, a wave of new therapies have been used to cure millions of people around the world of the blood-borne virus. Today, 15 countries, including Egypt, Canada and Australia, are on track to eliminate hepatitis C during this decade, according to the Center for Disease Analysis Foundation, a nonprofit. Each has pursued a dogged national screening and treatment campaign. But the arsenal of drugs, which have generated tens of billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies, has not brought the United States any closer to eradicating the disease. Spread through the blood including IV drug use, hepatitis C causes liver inflammation, though people may not display symptoms for years. Only a fraction of Americans with the virus are aware of the infection, even as many develop the fatal disease.
Biden administration faces pressure to step up its response to antisemitic incidents on college campuses 2024-04-28 09:00:00+00:00 - As antisemitic incidents mushroom on college campuses, some Jewish leaders and lawmakers from both parties are accusing President Joe Biden’s administration of taking a lax approach toward enforcement of civil rights laws, exposing Jewish students to continued harassment. They point to a surge of complaints filed with the Education Department that have yet to be resolved, creating a backlog that effectively eases pressure on school administrators to take action needed to protect Jewish students amid protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, sent a letter Thursday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona objecting to the “speed of these investigations, delayed conclusions, and lack of adequate resources allocated to these investigations.” The congressman asked Cardona for an update on the pending investigations into antisemitism on college campuses, noting that at Columbia University in New York, “the eruption of antisemitism … has created a particularly hostile environment for Jewish students.” Neither Columbia nor the New York Police Department has released data on the number of antisemitic incidents at the school. The tumult spreading through college campuses is especially tricky for Biden as he works to rebuild the voting coalition from the 2020 presidential race. Many of the students protesting the war in Gaza say they are unhappy with him for not bringing about a cease-fire. At the same time, some Jewish students and their defenders are displeased that the Biden administration isn’t showing more resolve in stamping out antisemitic harassment on campus. The breakdown in support is not so tidy, though. Plenty of Jewish Americans across the country oppose Israel’s conduct of the war and have joined with protesters in demanding a cease-fire and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. At Columbia last week, one Jewish student stood near an encampment that has cropped up in the shadow of Butler Library and told NBC News he had quietly celebrated Passover inside the tents with other protesters. In this volatile atmosphere, any position Biden takes is bound to alienate someone — and has. “They want to get re-elected, and they’re afraid of what’s going to happen in the swing states,” Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said of team Biden. “The joke is that the two-state solution is Michigan and Pennsylvania.” Herbie Ziskend, White House deputy communications director, said that electoral considerations don’t drive the president’s actions. “Politics doesn’t enter in,” he said. Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing Israel counteroffensive touched off a wave of antisemitic incidents around the country and turned college campuses into flashpoints of anger. In the two and a half months between the start of the war and the end of 2023, the Anti-Defamation League tallied more than 5,200 antisemitic incidents nationwide, exceeding the total for all of 2022 — though the group said that number includes 1,317 rallies that were marked by “antisemitic rhetoric, expressions of support for terrorism against the state of Israel and/or anti-Zionism,” which weren’t “necessarily” counted in prior tallies. What followed was a rash of complaints filed with the Education Department’s civil rights office — an arm of the Biden administration that enforces Title VI, a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination in programs receiving federal aid. Since the war began, the office opened 93 investigations into cases of discrimination against members of ethno-religious groups — about seven times the number begun in a comparable period before Hamas’ attack. The complaints involve both secondary schools and some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Yale. “While the evidence is often clear and convincing, many Title VI investigations have remained unresolved for months, and even years,” Gottheimer wrote. “The proliferation of attacks and threats on Jewish and pro-Israel students demands immediate action,” he added. Starting an inquiry is meaningless unless the department moves swiftly to resolve the complaint and hold schools accountable, others said. “Something needs to give,” said Brian Cohen of the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life at Columbia/Barnard Hillel. “The universities aren’t acting fast enough. I don’t think the Department of Education is working fast enough. Universities around the country are spiraling out of control and that’s not good for anybody connected to higher education.” The Education Department did not make Cardona available for comment. In a prepared statement, he said: “As the nation’s secretary of education, I am incredibly concerned by the reports we are hearing about antisemitic hate being directed at students. The Department’s Office for Civil Rights is committed to actively investigating complaints from those who feel their institution is not protecting their civil rights.” Said Ziskend: “The president has forcefully condemned antisemitism and hate. He has spoken out with moral clarity on the need to condemn antisemitism. The whole administration has done that and continues to do that.” Last week, Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke to Cohen by phone. Emhoff, who is Jewish, “wanted to check in on me and our Jewish students and offer his support,” Cohen said. “He ended the call by reminding me that the work we’re doing is incredibly important and not to forget Jewish joy, as well.” A longtime supporter of Israeli statehood, Biden has an affinity for the Jewish community, advisers say, and has taken myriad steps to combat antisemitism. Last May, he released a 60-page national strategy to counter antisemitism, billing it as the first of its kind. “This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country,” Biden said in a recent statement. A month into the war in Gaza, the Education Department’s civil rights office sent a letter to schools reminding them that they are legally obligated to prevent discrimination against students, be they Jewish, Israeli, Muslim or Palestinian. But such gestures aren’t keeping students safe as pro-Palestinian protests spread to other campuses, lawmakers and Jewish rights groups say. Kenneth Marcus, who headed the Education Department’s civil rights office in the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, said, “The department’s office of civil rights should be seizing the moment and taking charge of this situation. It’s not enough merely to wait passively for complaints to come in and log them and indicate that investigations have been opened.” “They should be proactively opening investigations rather than waiting,” added Marcus, who chairs the Brandeis Center, which promotes civil and human rights for Jews. In a visit to Columbia on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met privately with Jewish students who, he said, showed him flyers appearing on campus that “looked like Nazi propaganda from the 1930s.” Johnson’s staff showed one to NBC News: a drawing of a skunk with a Jewish star on its side. “Skunk on Campus,” the caption read. Some Jewish students at Columbia said that they have felt threatened walking on school grounds. After meeting with Johnson, one told NBC News that he has spotted Hamas flags on campus. Another said that he’s heard chants of “Go back to Europe.” “It’s time to say, ‘Enough,’” said Ben Solomon, 22, who is studying economics and political science. “This isn’t speech. This is disruption. This is intimidation.” As he left the university, Johnson told NBC News that he planned to call Cardona with a message: He would tell him “what I saw here and encourage him to come and make a visit himself.”
Dubai plans to move its busy international airport to a $35 billion new facility within 10 years 2024-04-28 08:49:34+00:00 - Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, will move its operations to the city-state’s second, sprawling airfield in its southern desert reaches “within the next 10 years” in a project worth nearly $35 billion, its ruler said Sunday. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s announcement marks the latest chapter in the rebound of its long-haul carrier Emirates after the coronavirus pandemic grounded international travel. Plans have been on the books for years to move the operations of the airport known as DXB to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central which had also been delayed by the repercussions of the sheikhdom’s 2009 economic crisis. “We are building a new project for future generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children and their children in turn,” Sheikh Mohammed said in an online statement. “Dubai will be the world’s airport, its port, its urban hub and its new global center.” The announcement included computer-rendered images of curving, white terminal reminiscent of the traditional Bedouin tents of the Arabian Peninsula. The airport will include five parallel runways and 400 aircraft gates, the announcement said. The airport now has just two runways, like Dubai International Airport. The financial health of the carrier Emirates has served as a barometer for the aviation industry worldwide and the wider economic health of this city-state. Dubai and the airline rebounded quickly from the pandemic by pushing forward with tourism even as some countries more slowly came out of their pandemic crouch. The number of passengers flying through DXB surged last year beyond its total for 2019 with 86.9 million passengers. Its 2019 annual traffic was 86.3 million passengers. The airport had 89.1 million passengers in 2018 — its busiest-ever year before the pandemic, while 66 million passengers passed through in 2022. Earlier in February, Dubai announced its best-ever tourism numbers, saying it hosted 17.15 million international overnight visitors in 2023. Average hotel occupancy stood at around 77%. Its boom-and-bust real estate market remains on a hot streak, nearing all-time high valuations. But as those passenger numbers skyrocketed, it again put new pressure on the capacity of DXB, which remains constrained on all sides by residential neighborhoods and two major highways. Al Maktoum International Airport, some 45 kilometers (28 miles) away from DXB, opened in 2010 with one terminal. It served as a parking lot for Emirates’ double-decker Airbus A380s and other aircraft during the pandemic and slowly has come back to life with cargo and private flights in the time since. It also hosts the biennial Dubai Air Show and has a vast, empty desert in which to expand. The announcement by Sheikh Mohammed noted Dubai’s plans to expand further south. Already, its nearby Expo 2020 site has been offering homes for buyers. “As we build an entire city around the airport in Dubai South, demand for housing for a million people will follow,” Dubai’s ruler said. “It will host the world’s leading companies in the logistics and air transport sectors.” However, financial pressures have halted the move in the past. Dubai’s 2009 financial crisis, brought on by the Great Recession, forced Abu Dhabi to provide the city-state with a $20 billion bailout. Meanwhile, the city-state is still trying to recover after the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the UAE, which disrupted flights and commerce for days.
This Ship Is Sinking. Can I Jump to a Client’s? 2024-04-28 07:00:48+00:00 - Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. Ethics of Self-Preservation I am in a senior position with a marketing agency that is in bad shape. Employees are on reduced hours and pay because our work has slowed substantially. The owners pledged to get new work but have not made any moves in that direction. I’m looking for a new job, and I’ve seen some very appealing openings with current clients. I’d be a great candidate, because I know many of the players, and they know and like my work. We don’t have a noncompete, but I am worried I would further harm my employer if I applied for a job with its clients. Will the clients take it as a red flag? Will I accelerate the demise of my current company if I jump ship to a client? — Anonymous You will not harm your employer by taking a new job with one of its clients. You are not responsible for your employer’s demise. If the roles were reversed, it would not offer you a fraction of the consideration you are offering. It is a job, and maybe you love it, but as I have said many times before, it will not and cannot love you back. If there are no noncompete issues (which may not matter anyway, as the Federal Trade Commission banned noncompetes last week), by all means, take a job with a client. If the client asks why you’re leaving your agency, you’re welcome to offer a diplomatic answer — or you can tell the truth. This is not an ethical quandary. It would be unethical only if, for example, you took a position with a client and then shared proprietary information about your former employer or its other clients. The Overly Conscientious Boss I manage a small, stellar team at a nonprofit. After annual reviews last year, I reached out to my supervisor to request raises for each member of my team and myself, factoring in both the annual cost-of-living raise and the merit raises I would like to see. I then shared what I was hoping to get each individual with that person, so they would know they had someone advocating for them. This seemed like a good decision at the time, to show I valued their hard work. However, we recently received our raise notifications, and, while everyone did get a salary bump, we didn’t quite hit the numbers I was hoping for. Now, based on some reactions, I’m worried that they’re disappointed because expectations were set too high. Did I make a mistake in giving them the specific salary increases I was hoping for? How should I follow up? Should I follow up at all? — Anonymous Though you meant well, you did make a mistake. In the future, you can certainly tell members of your team you are going to push for raises, but don’t give them exact numbers until you know what those numbers are. In this instance, you set your team up for disappointment, and that’s what you’re seeing right now. I’m not sure if you should follow up. It may just deepen any resentment they’re feeling — a bit of salt in the wound. They probably don’t care about your good intentions right now. The best path forward is to learn from this misstep. And don’t be too hard on yourself. You were acting from a good place. I’d also think of some other ways you can show your team how much you value its hard work.
A Wealth Shift That Could Leave Some Younger Americans Behind 2024-04-28 07:00:36.150000+00:00 - Alainta Alcin has heard about the huge transfer of wealth from baby boomers to their millennial children that is underway — a move that has been called the largest shift of assets in history. But Ms. Alcin, an analyst for hospital systems, says it bears little resemblance to her own family’s experience. “Unfortunately, my mom is one paycheck away from being unable to pay for anything,” said Ms. Alcin, a 34-year-old resident of West Palm Beach, Fla. “There’s nothing to transfer.” Baby boomers have trillions of dollars in wealth that some economists predict will have a significant impact on their millennial-aged children when they inherit the cash, homes, stock portfolios and other assets their elders hold. But experts say that the narrative of millennials’ paying off debts and wielding greater spending power over the next two to three decades is complex — and leaves out families without enough assets to pass along. As a first-generation American, Ms. Alcin saw her mother struggle to raise herself and five siblings after her father died. The elder Ms. Alcin had menial agricultural jobs — work that, at the age of 67, has become more difficult to do, even as she tries to make higher payments on her home’s adjustable-rate mortgage.
African farmers look to the past and the future to address climate change 2024-04-28 05:06:04+00:00 - HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — From ancient fertilizer methods in Zimbabwe to new greenhouse technology in Somalia, farmers across the heavily agriculture-reliant African continent are looking to the past and future to respond to climate change. Africa, with the world’s youngest population, faces the worst effects of a warming planet while contributing the least to the problem. Farmers are scrambling to make sure the booming population is fed. With over 60% of the world’s uncultivated land, Africa should be able to feed itself, some experts say. And yet three in four people across the continent cannot afford a healthy diet, according to a report last year by the African Union and United Nations agencies. Reasons include conflict and lack of investment. In Zimbabwe, where the El Nino phenomenon has worsened a drought, small-scale farmer James Tshuma has lost hope of harvesting anything from his fields. It’s a familiar story in much of the country, where the government has declared a $2 billion state of emergency and millions of people face hunger. But a patch of green vegetables is thriving in a small garden the 65-year-old Tshuma is keeping alive with homemade organic manure and fertilizer. Previously discarded items have again become priceless. James Tshuma, a small scale farmer, shows some of his vegetables he planted in a small garden at his home, in Mangwe district in Zimbabwe, on Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) “This is how our fathers and forefathers used to feed the earth and themselves before the introduction of chemicals and inorganic fertilizers,” Tshuma said. He applies livestock droppings, grass, plant residue, remains of small animals, tree leaves and bark, food scraps and other biodegradable items like paper. Even the bones of animals that are dying in increasing numbers due to the drought are burned before being crushed into ash for their calcium. Climate change is compounding much of sub-Saharan Africa’s longstanding problem of poor soil fertility, said Wonder Ngezimana, an associate professor of crop science at Zimbabwe’s Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology. “The combination is forcing people to re-look at how things were done in the past like nutrient recycling, but also blending these with modern methods,” said Ngezimana, whose institution is researching the combination of traditional practices with new technologies. James Tshuma, a small scale farmer, holds some of the plant residue he uses to take care of his garden in Mangwe district in Zimbabwe, Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Apart from being rich in nitrogen, organic fertilizers help increase the soil’s carbon and ability to retain moisture, Ngezimana said. “Even if a farmer puts synthetic fertilizer into the soil, they are likely to suffer the consequences of poor moisture as long as there is a drought,” he said. Other moves to traditional practices are under way. Drought-resistant millets, sorghum and legumes, staples until the early 20th century when they were overtaken by exotic white corn, have been taking up more land space in recent years. Leaves of drought-resistant plants that were once a regular dish before being cast off as weeds are returning to dinner tables. They even appear on elite supermarket shelves and are served at classy restaurants, as are millet and sorghum. This could create markets for the crops even beyond drought years, Ngezimana said. A GREENHOUSE REVOLUTION IN SOMALIA In conflict-prone Somalia in East Africa, greenhouses are changing the way some people live, with shoppers filling up carts with locally produced vegetables and traditionally nomadic pastoralists under pressure to settle down and grow crops. “They are organic, fresh and healthy,” shopper Sucdi Hassan said in the capital, Mogadishu. “Knowing that they come from our local farms makes us feel secure.” Her new shopping experience is a sign of relative calm after three decades of conflict and the climate shocks of drought and flooding. Urban customers are now assured of year-round supplies, with more than 250 greenhouses dotted across Mogadishu and its outskirts producing fruit and vegetables. It is a huge leap. “In the past, even basic vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes were imported, causing logistical problems and added expenses,” said Somalia’s minister of youth and sports, Mohamed Barre. The greenhouses also create employment in a country where about 75% of the population is people under 30 years old, many of them jobless. About 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the capital, Mohamed Mahdi, an agriculture graduate, inspected produce in a greenhouse where he works. “Given the high unemployment rate, we are grateful for the chance to work in our chosen field of expertise,” the 25-year-old said. Meanwhile, some pastoralist herders are being forced to change their traditional ways after watching livestock die by the thousands. “Transitioning to greenhouse farming provides pastoralists with a more resilient and sustainable livelihood option,” said Mohamed Okash, director of the Institute of Climate and Environment at SIMAD University in Mogadishu. He called for larger investments in smart farming to combat food insecurity. A MORE RESILIENT BEAN IN KENYA In Kenya, a new climate-smart bean variety is bringing hope to farmers in a region that had recorded reduced rainfall in six consecutive rainy seasons. Farmers sort out climate-smart beans in Machakos, Kenya, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku) Farmers sort out climate-smart beans in Machakos, Kenya, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku) The variety, called “Nyota” or “star” in Swahili, is the result of a collaboration between scientists from the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, the Alliance of Bioversity International and research organization International Center for Tropical Agriculture. The new bean variety is tailored for Kenya’s diverse climatic conditions. One focus is to make sure drought doesn’t kill them off before they have time to flourish. The bean variety flowers and matures so quickly that it is ready for harvesting by the time rains disappear, said David Karanja, a bean breeder and national coordinator for grains and legumes at KALRO. Hopes are that these varieties could bolster national bean production. The annual production of 600,000 metric tons falls short of meeting annual demand of 755,000 metric tons, Karanja said. Farmers process climate-smart beans in Machakos, Kenya, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku) Farmer Benson Gitonga said his yield and profits are increasing because of the new bean variety. He harvests between nine and 12 bags from an acre of land, up from the previous five to seven bags. One side benefit of the variety is a breath of fresh air. “Customers particularly appreciate its qualities, as it boasts low flatulence levels, making it an appealing choice,” Gitonga said. ___ Tiro reported from Nairobi, Kenya and Faruk reported from Mogadishu, Somalia. ___ The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. ___ AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
California Disney characters are unionizing decades after Florida peers. Hollywood plays a role 2024-04-28 04:11:10+00:00 - ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — During three years of working as a parade performer at the Disneyland Resort in Southern California, Zach Elefante always has had a second or third job to help him earn a living. Unlike the experiences of his peers at Disney’s parks in Orlando, Florida, where there is a much smaller talent pool, the performers who play Mickey Mouse, Goofy and other beloved Disney characters at the California parks aren’t always provided a consistent work schedule by the company. It’s among the reasons the California performers are organizing to be represented by a union now, more than four decades after their Florida counterparts did so. While Disney asks character performers to be available to work at any time, that demand isn’t always rewarded with scheduled work hours, the California performers said. “A lot of performers get the sense that if they don’t give their full availability, we won’t be in shows … and that will impact other jobs we need to sustain a living in this area,” said Elefante, who lives in Santa Ana, California. Earlier this month, the California character performers and the union organizing them, Actors’ Equity Association, said they had filed a petition for union recognition. It’s a different era and a different union doing the organizing this time around, so the California character and parade performers likely will avoid some of the bad blood that the Disney performers in Florida have experienced with their union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. It has been a rocky four-decade marriage in Florida between the performers who put the “magic” in the Magic Kingdom and the Teamsters, a union historically formed for transportation and warehouse workers which had deep ties to organized crime until the late 1980s. Why now for the California character performers, so many decades after their Florida counterparts organized? Unlike in Florida where performing as a character often is a full-time job, many of the character performers in Southern California have multiple other gigs, often in Hollywood movies and TV. Elefante performs at rival Universal Studios Hollywood and works as a tour guide for the movie studios. In addition to performing in the “Fantasmic!” show at Disneyland, Chase Thomas works as the director of operations for a theater festival and previously has had jobs as a visual effects coordinator and entertainment licensing agent. Angela Nichols moved to California to be a TV writer and often works as a writer in addition to her job as an entertainment host at Disneyland, where she assists the character performers when they’re interacting with guests. “Disney really is a cornerstone of the stories we grow up with in our culture. Being able to watch people immersed in these stories and live it out is magical,” Nichols said. “And when we’re being supported as cast members and performers, we’re able to make that happen. We’re just not being set up for success in the way we need to be at this time.” When many of their Hollywood gigs dried up because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent actors’ and writers’ strikes, the character performers wanted more consistent scheduling at Disneyland once it reopened after a yearlong, pandemic-related closure. The pandemic also made them more alert to health and safety concerns concerning things like hugging guests or having sanitary costumes. Most of the more than 35,000 workers at the Disneyland Resort in Southern California already were unionized, and the parades and character department members were among the holdovers. “A lot of cast members want to do this fulltime and make it work,” Thomas said. Unlike their Florida counterparts, the character performers in California are being organized by a union devoted to performers. As such, Actors’ Equity Association officials understand the unique needs of the theme park performers in ways that would be difficult for other unions to grasp. When there is a new stage show, the shoes of the costumes need to be tested to make sure the performers won’t trip or slip on stage. Union representatives make sure “face performers,” whose faces are visible, such as Cinderella, have the right makeup and double check that parade dancers have ice packs available to nurse sore knees. Unclean costumes are a perennial problem, and it was a top reason for the Florida performers wanting to organize with the Teamsters in the early 1980s. The other reasons included kids kicking Disney villains like Captain Hook in the shins and adults grabbing at the chests of performers playing Mickey Mouse to see if there was a man or woman underneath. Clean costumes were so important to the Florida character performers that more than two decades ago the Teamsters succesfully inserted a contract clause to assign individual undergarments that the performers could take home to wash after pubic lice and scabies were shared via the garments. There always existed a culture clash in Florida between the costumed character performers and the traditional Teamsters union leaders of truck drivers and warehouse workers. The drivers often viewed the performers as living charmed lives, paid to dress up every day as if it were Halloween. Those tensions came to a head in the late 2010s as a new leader of the local Teamsters affiliate in Orlando began targeting the costumed character performers for harassment. The character performers pushed back and the fight went up to James Hoffa, then-head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who intervened. In California, Elefante is hopeful union representation will give performers a voice in decisions about issues including the larger-than-life costumes, which can cause long-term injuries when ill-fitted, and the safety of performing in parades during rain. “It’s about having a seat at the table and being a part of the conversation from the performers’ perspective,” Elefante said. ___ Associated Press reporter Amy Taxin in Orange County, California, contributed to this report. ___ Mike Schneider’s book, “Mickey and the Teamsters: A Fight for Fair Unions at Disney,” was published in October by the University Press of Florida. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.
Biden swipes at Trump at White House correspondents' dinner 2024-04-28 02:57:00+00:00 - WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Saturday used his White House Correspondents' Association dinner speech to swipe at former President Donald Trump, taking shots at the presumptive GOP nominee while highlighting the stakes of the election. Biden cracked jokes at his political rival's expense and tackled age head-on, saying that he was “a grown man running against a 6-year-old.” The president said later that age was the only thing he and Trump had in common, adding, “My vice president actually endorses me,” a reference to former Vice President Mike Pence's refusal to say he'll back his former running mate in 2024. But Biden's speech took a serious turn when he discussed the stakes of November's presidential election, echoing themes of his campaign speeches as he highlighted what he called Trump's “attack on our democracy.” The president urged the press to “rise up to the seriousness of the moment.” “Move past the horse race numbers and the 'gotcha' moments and the distractions and the sideshows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what’s actually at stake,” Biden said. “I think in your hearts, you know what's at stake.” Biden also highlighted the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for more than a year on espionage charges that he and his employer deny. His case has been classified as a wrongful detention by the U.S. The president called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release Gershkovich immediately, adding that the White House was also doing everything it could to bring home freelance journalist Austin Tice and businessman Paul Whelan. Gershkovich’s parents and Tice’s mother were among the approximately 2,600 guests at the dinner, an estimate provided by NBC News political correspondent Steve Kornacki in a video that played at the event. “I give you my word as a Biden: We're not going to give up until we get them home,” Biden said. “All of them.” Biden also highlighted the wrongful detention of Americans abroad, including Gershkovich, at last year's dinner. The president emphasized during last year’s remarks that “journalism is not a crime,” noting that a free press is a “pillar” of a “free society.” Host Colin Jost, left, President Joe Biden and Kelly O'Donnell, WHCA president and senior White House correspondent for NBC News, listen as “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played on Saturday. Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Celebrities who went to Saturday's event included Scarlett Johansson, who is married to Jost, as well as Rachel Brosnahan and Quavo. High-profile politicians and administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., attended as well. First lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff also attended the event, which took place at the Washington Hilton. NBC News senior White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell is serving as the White House Correspondents’ Association’s 2023-24 president and presided over the dinner. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Colin Jost was the dinner’s featured entertainer. He co-anchors the NBC show’s “Weekend Update” segment. Like Biden, Jost cracked several jokes at the former president's expense, including about Trump's criminal trial, starting his remarks by saying “how refreshing it is to see a president of the United States at an event that doesn't begin with a bailiff saying, ‘All rise.’” Jost also targeted Biden at times, comparing the economy to the president ascending Air Force One's steps: “It feels like it's stumbling, but there's somehow upward progress.” The comedian also told the president that his now-deceased grandfather voted for Biden in the last election because he thought Biden was “a decent man.” While the dinner, a tradition dating back 100 years, played out inside the ballroom, hundreds of protesters mobilized outside the venue to call for a cease-fire and criticize Biden's response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The protesters chanted, “Shame on you!” as attendees passed them to enter the hotel. They also yelled criticism of the media, and a large sign read, “Stop media complicity in genocide.” A Palestinian flag hands out a window at the Washington Hilton hotel during a protest over the Israel-Hamas war, at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday. Terrance Williams / AP “Every time the media lies, journalists in Gaza die,” the crowd chanted, echoing the leader's bullhorn. Later, protesters called for the fall of Western media, chanting, “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Western media will fall.” U.S. Secret Service chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that “attendees can expect layered security and screening at the dinner,” adding that there would be “intermittent” road closures near the venue. “In reference to the publicized demonstration, we are working closely with the Metropolitan Washington Police Department to protect individuals' rights to assemble but we will remain intolerant to unlawful behavior,” Guglielmi added. After the dinner concluded, two protesters holding a sign saying “Stop Israel's genocide” entered the hotel's red carpet area as guests were departing. They heckled attendees and were removed by security. Demonstrators protest the Israel-Hamas war outside the Washington Hilton hotel before the start of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday. Kevin Wolf / AP The president has had to contend with protesters demonstrating outside of his official events, with protesters sometimes interrupting his speeches. In response, Biden's team has worked to make the president's events smaller and has withheld their exact locations longer than usual in hopes of cutting back on potential interruptions. Earlier this month, Palestinian journalists wrote an open letter calling on others to boycott the White House correspondents' dinner “as an act of solidarity with us — your fellow journalists — as well as with the millions of Palestinians currently being starved in Gaza,” pointing to the Biden administration's support for Israel. CORRECTION (April 28, 2024, 9:49 a.m. ET): A caption in a previous version of this article included an incorrect title for NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell. She is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, not vice president.