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Thousands ‘fuming’ after tickets cancelled for Co-op Live arena show in Manchester 2024-04-21 14:28:00+00:00 - Thousands of people due to attend the first event at the UK’s biggest indoor arena had their tickets cancelled at the last minute on Saturday. Rick Astley took to the stage at the new 23,500-capacity Co-op Live arena, which opens officially on Tuesday, to perform to 11,000 arena workers, VIPs and press at a free test event. However, it is thought as many as 4,000 tickets were cancelled, some just one hour before the show, leaving people “fuming”. One gig-goer, Byron Edwards, posted on X: “Invitational tickets to the test event tonight cancelled just 90 minutes before doors open. What kind of shit show is this?” Alison Stafford-Bentley said: “Thanks for cancelling tickets for tonight less than an hour before event is due to start. Absolutely fuming.” Other teething problems included long queues for food, rows of seats not being ready and problems moving the crowds around the venue. A Co-op Live spokesperson said: “We’re busy putting the finishing touches on Co-op Live, and we are looking forward to Co-op Live becoming the pre-eminent arena in the UK upon opening. “As a part of the opening process, we are in the midst of an extensive protocol of testing critical procedures. To enable us to test the spaces effectively, we have made the difficult decision to reduce overall capacity for today’s test event. We apologise to affected guests and look forward to welcoming them to the Black Keys.” Sited on the Etihad Campus next to the Manchester City football ground, the £365m venue will officially open on Tuesday with two shows by the comedian Peter Kay, for which there are still tickets available. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to The Guide Free weekly newsletter Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Take That, the Killers, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow and Olivia Rodrigo are all due to perform in the coming weeks, with plans to hold the MTV Europe music awards there in November. Construction began in 2021 on the new venue, which is financed by the City Football Group – owned by the billionaire Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour – and the US sports and commercial real estate giant Oak View Group. Harry Styles, who grew up 30 miles away, has a minor stake and advised on aspects of the design, which features four stacked black boxes with a similarly black interior. The arena was welcomed by Manchester council, its leader, Bev Craig, saying the venue would “deliver a huge boost for our local economy and result in significant commercial and wider benefits for the city”. However, questions were raised over whether there was a need for another large-scale music venue just two miles from the 21,000-capacity Manchester AO arena. The two venues came to blows during the planning process, when the AO arena objected numerous times to Co-op Live proposals, including to what it described as a “simply unlawful” licensing application that would allow the new arena to serve alcohol until 2am at weekends and 24/7 on 25 occasions every year. Co-op Live’s lawyers argued it was a “ludicrous and disingenuous” objection, at the meeting at Manchester town hall in February. Co-op Live also faced criticism from the Music Venue Trust (MVT) for its potential impact on live music in Manchester. The venue had previously “declined” to sign up to a £1-per-ticket levy that funds the MVT’s “pipeline investment fund” for grassroots venues. The MVT recently warned of the crisis facing grassroots music and arts venues, telling the Guardian “the whole ecosystem is collapsing”.
Regulators leave Royal Mail vulnerable to ‘corporate predators’, says investor 2024-04-21 14:09:00+00:00 - One of the top investors in Royal Mail’s owner has said it is vulnerable to “corporate predators”, arguing that a recent takeover bid by a Czech billionaire significantly undervalues the company. Redwheel called for regulators to water down the UK postal service’s legal obligations after Daniel Křetínský’s failed takeover attempt of its parent company International Distributions Services (IDS). It emerged last week that the IDS board had unanimously rejected a £3.1bn bid by Křetínský’s EP Group earlier this month, calling it “opportunistic”. Křetínský is considering making an improved offer for IDS, according to reports, and has until 15 May to make a fresh bid under UK takeover rules. Royal Mail has been under pressure for years as the volume of letters continues to decline. The UK regulator, Ofcom, is considering options for the future of the service, including letting it cut the number of days it must deliver letters under its universal service obligations (USO). The USO was well known to the investors who bought shares in Royal Mail when it was privatised in 2013. However, many of the investors now argue that the legal requirement to deliver post across the country at a fixed price every day bar Sunday is unsustainable. Rishi Sunak has said the government will oppose any cuts to the six-day service but Royal Mail has asked Ofcom to allow it to reduce second-class letter deliveries to two or three days a week, cutting almost 1,000 jobs and saving £300m a year. Redwheel is the third-largest shareholder in IDS, behind Křetínský’s investment vehicle Vesa and Schroders. Ian Lance, a co-head of Redwheel’s value and income team, said in a statement first reported by the Sunday Times that it believed Royal Mail was “vulnerable to corporate predators” because of enforced costs caused by its legal obligations. “Letter volumes have declined from 20bn at their peak in 2004-5 to 7bn in the last financial year and are likely to continue to fall,” Lance said. “The USO means Royal Mail must maintain a high fixed-cost network without the revenue to sustain it. “We would urge that change to the USO needs to be meaningful, provide long-term relief from the material and unreasonable cost burden and be implemented rapidly.” skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Křetínský’s wealth came from his investments in coal power stations, and is known as the “Czech Sphinx” of his low profile and inscrutable approach. However, he has gained increasing prominence by buying stakes in Le Monde newspaper, Sainsbury’s supermarket and the French counterpart Casino, and then Royal Mail. He also has a stake in West Ham football club. EP Group was approached for comment.
You can buy a home in France or Italy for 'the price of a new truck'—but take these 3 steps before retiring abroad 2024-04-21 13:56:00+00:00 - What started as a fun side project for Tommy Sikes has become a big part of his business. With the youngest of his three children about to enter law school, Sikes began thinking about the next chapter for him and his wife — namely, the ever-more popular possibility of spending at least part of their retirement in Europe. "We had this looming empty nest. We love Italy and France and started thinking, 'What's our next step?'" he tells CNBC Make It. "How can we make this more of a reality?" Sikes started researching properties across the Atlantic, focusing on inexpensive locales away from the major cities where he and his wife could pursue their outdoorsy hobbies, such as hiking and kayaking. When he began sharing the properties he found online, Sikes, a certified financial planner, found a new base of potential clients who were excited about the prospect of owning property abroad but unaware of how to go about it. These days, Sikes sends properties to some 25,000 followers and subscribers across X, YouTube and via a weekly newsletter. He understands the allure of the lifestyle such homes can afford people. "I started discovering these incredible properties that were for sale in smaller towns and villages for $50,000, $75,000, $100,000. And I was I was shocked," he says. "Some of them are fixer uppers, but that's the price of a new truck here in the United States." Still, Sikes is careful to warn subscribers and clients against buying such a property on a whim — even if they think they can afford it. "There seems to be a gap in this kind of planning — specifically for Americans who need to do financial planning upfront to make sure this is feasible." Here are three steps Sikes says you need to take before you buy a property abroad. 1. Make a financial inventory Sikes works with a wealth of clients who, like him, are thinking about what retirement could look like. And for them, life abroad can hold major financial appeal. "I could run a simple financial plan for someone in the U.S. and run the same plan for one of those spots in France, and the cost of living is literally 50%," he says. "That means, for the same planned assets and income, you could upgrade your lifestyle … or potentially retire years earlier." Before you begin dreaming about a fabulous Mediterranean retirement, though, you'll need to take total stock of your financial life, says Sikes. "You'll need an inventory of your assets, your incomes. What's your Social Security going to be? Do you have pensions? Are you maximizing your investments for retirement income? Those are the kind of traditional numbers," he says. You'd also be wise to work with a tax professional to determine how living on a retirement income might look in your country of choice. "France and Italy both have tax treaties with the U.S., so you avoid double taxation," Sikes says. "But they're quite different as far as the way they treat retirement accounts like 401(k)s and Roth IRAs." 2. Prepare for the homebuying process The good news for those who want to snap up one of the properties that Sikes posts: There's not much stopping you from doing it. "There are zero restrictions on Americans buying property in Italy or France," Sikes says. "You don't have to be a citizen. You don't even have to be a resident. You can literally buy something remotely." But even if that's true about a country you're looking at, you likely still have considerable work to do before you consider putting in an offer. For one, you may have to be willing to put aside enough money to pay in cash. In France and Italy, for instance, mortgages for American citizens are rare unless they've lived in the country and established a relationship with a local lender, Sikes says. And even if you're willing to put in a cash offer, don't expect a seamless process. "The biggest issue I see is people trying to do it on their own. They don't speak the language, and all the documents are going to be in Italian or French," Sikes says. "People need to temper their expectations. A lot of times, you have to be able to call [the seller or agent.] I've had people tell me they've had to email the agent five times over three weeks and haven't heard back." That's why it pays, Sikes says, to partner with a planner who specializes in these areas and works with people on the ground. Short of that, start taking language lessons, he says. "Not like 10 minutes a day on an app on your phone. Starting listening to music and news reports in French or Italian." 3. Take a 'test drive'
Earth Day: How one grocery shopper takes steps to avoid ‘pointless plastic’ 2024-04-21 13:32:27+00:00 - ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Nature wraps bananas and oranges in peels. But in some modern supermarkets, they’re bagged or wrapped in plastic too. For Judith Enck, that’s the epitome of pointless plastic. The baby food aisle is similarly distressing for her, with its rows and rows of blended fruits, vegetables and meat in single-use pouches that have replaced glass jars. Less than 10% of plastic is recycled. Most is buried, burned or dumped. Recycling rates for glass, aluminum and cardboard are far higher. And cardboard or paper packaging is biodegradable. The global theme for Earth Day on Monday is planet vs. plastic. Plastic production continues to ramp up globally and is projected to triple by 2050 if nothing changes. Most of it is made from fossil fuels and chemicals. As the world transitions away from using fossil fuels for electricity and transportation, plastics offer a lifeboat for oil and gas companies as a market that can grow. Bottled water in plastic bottles line the shelves at a grocery store in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) The Earth Day environmental movement is calling for “the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health.” People are increasingly breathing, eating and drinking tiny particles of plastic, though researchers say more work is necessary to determine its effect on human health. Millions of tons of plastic wind up in the ocean each year. This week, thousands of negotiators and observers representing most of the world’s nations are gathering in Ottawa to craft a treaty to try to end the rapidly escalating levels of plastic pollution. Plastic is everywhere in modern society. That’s evident whenever you go grocery shopping, said Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator who now heads up the advocacy group Beyond Plastics. There are things shoppers can do if they want to use less plastic. On a recent trip to the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, Enck bought almond butter and yogurt in glass containers. She asked that her fish be wrapped in paper and not placed in a plastic bag. She steered clear of bagged carrots and breezed past the lettuce packed in what she calls “plastic coffins.” She keeps reusable shopping bags in her car, a common practice in New York since the state banned plastic carryout bags several years ago. “Even small steps make a difference because big supermarkets notice when people ask for less packaged material. Also, our kids pay attention. If they’re shopping with us and you talk about why you’re reaching for the glass jar rather than the plastic jar, it’s an opportunity for education,” she said. Cheese products in plastic packaging line the cooler at a grocery store in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Dairy products in plastic packaging line the cooler at a grocery store in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. AP: How do you avoid plastic packaging and products at the grocery store? I tell everyone you’re not going to be perfect, but do the best you can and focus on things you buy most often. I just could not keep buying those plastic orange juice jugs. So what I did on the juice was, I bought a really nice glass pitcher with a lid on it. And for juices and lemonade, I only buy the frozen concentrate. You avoid the plastic altogether. It takes a little bit of time to melt it and add three cans of water. But most people can manage that. AP: Many shoppers start in the produce aisle. What are some tips? I bring reusable cloth produce bags because I don’t want to use those thin plastic bags. So if I need a couple of apples, a couple of avocados, I’ll put them right into my reusable produce bag. I try to buy loose carrots rather than carved carrots in little plastic bags. I will never, ever buy bananas if they’re in a plastic bag, which in my store they usually are not, but I have seen that sometimes. It’s pretty easy to buy loose peppers. I never put broccoli into a plastic bag. You know, you don’t need a lot of those produce bags. The real dilemma is the fresh berries. Now they do come in number two plastic, which is supposed to be recyclable. I know that Driscoll’s is starting to sell strawberries in a little cardboard box, which I am waiting for. AP: What do you do when plastic is unavoidable? For crackers, you can recycle the outside box if it’s cardboard, but then there’s usually a plastic bag inside or a waxy bag that you can’t recycle. But you can use that waxy bag or those little plastic bags if you have pets. I don’t have a pet, but my friends use bread bags and chip bags when they pick up pet poop. So why buy pet poop bags, you can just save those. I do use regular trash bags. I don’t knock myself out on that. I try not to fill it up. If you can reduce your waste generation, you’re not buying as many bags. I think it’s very important to compost at home if you have the space. AP: Where have you seen improvement? The household goods aisle. I am excited about the changes. For detergent you can get concentrates. I only use powder in the dishwasher. I strongly recommend that people avoid the plastic pods. And you can recycle the cardboard boxes from the powdered soaps. You don’t have to get it in plastic. I also think the beverage aisle has some real opportunities for recycling. Better than most other aisles. AP: What could be done so shoppers have more options? The nice thing about paper, cardboard, glass and metal is it can be easily made from recycled content. And it actually is recyclable. You can put it in your recycling bin. And if it gets littered, the paper in the cardboard, in particular, doesn’t stick around for centuries. If we were to pass a strong packaging law to reduce plastic packaging at the state or national level, you would have packaging engineers thinking about what happens after the packaging is used. New York is considering a law right now that would reduce plastic packaging. Unless we adopt new laws, it’s not going to change because the voluntary pledges by companies are falling short across the board. That’s the only way to solve this. Tortillas in plastic packaging are seen near glass and plastic bottles at a grocery store in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) ___ McDermott reported from Providence, R.I. ___ The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. 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.
Zelenskyy: ‘We will have a chance at victory’ thanks to weapons provided to Ukraine in new U.S. aid package 2024-04-21 13:07:00+00:00 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked U.S. political leaders Sunday for approving an aid package to Ukraine over the weekend, saying the new aid will give the country a chance at "victory" as it defends itself from Russia. “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces, I pray, and we will have a chance at victory if Ukraine really gets the weapons system, which we need so much, which thousands of soldiers need so much,” Zelenskyy, who spoke through an interpreter, said on NBC News' "Meet the Press." The House passed a bill Saturday to provide Ukraine with $60.8 billion of aid weeks after the Senate passed a massive bill with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as funding for increased border security. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted not to put that bill bundling aid for the three countries on the floor, instead choosing to pass three separate aid bills. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday. Kay Nietfeld / dpa / picture alliance via Getty Images The House bills are expected to pass the Senate this week, which Zelenskyy specifically urged. “We really need to get this to the final point. We need to get approved by the Senate,” he said Sunday. “Then we want to help get things as fast as possible so that we get some tangible assistance for the soldiers on the front line as soon as possible — not in another six months — so that they would be able to move ahead,” he added. In a statement after the House passed the bills, President Joe Biden said, “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.” Zelenskyy spoke about those urgent needs Sunday, telling moderator Kristen Welker: “We need long-range weapons to not lose people on the front line, because we have, we have casualties because we cannot reach that far. Our weapons are not that long-range. “We need [that] and air defense. Those are our priorities right now,” he added. Asked whether the aid will help Ukraine win the war or just prolong it, Zelenskyy told Welker: “It depends on when we actually get weapons on the ground. As you said it, Kristen, if we get it in half a year — well, we’ve had the process stalled for half a year and we’ve had losses in several directions. Losses in men, in equipment. “Now we have the chance to stabilize the situation and to overtake the initiative, and that’s why we need to actually have the weapons systems,” he added. “Giving the U.S. a specific timeline of the war, well, it depends how soon they get this aid. There are so many variables, so many factors.” Zelenskyy also responded to recent reporting that former President Donald Trump, if elected, would pressure Ukraine to give up some territory to Russia in exchange for ending the war, saying, "Rumors and different hearsay, I don't believe that." He also expressed doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin would ever agree to and abide by such a settlement, telling Welker, "You can never trust Putin." "The strategy of ending the war should be based not on the words which Putin says or some other people from his entourage say, but on something very specific, something very tangible in Ukraine that is independent and democratic," he said. "I’m confident that everyone is interested in that," he added. "All the political leaders, they are also interested to have Ukraine independent and sovereign and democratic. It’s of interest for both the Republicans and the Democrats." For weeks, Zelenskyy has expressed the urgent need for weapons and supplies to continue defending Ukraine from Russian attacks. In the months since U.S. aid to Ukraine lapsed, Ukraine’s military supplied grew depleted and the military was forced to withdraw from a key eastern city — Avdiivka — in February. Earlier this month, Russia was firing five artillery shells for every one fired by Ukrainian forces, Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of U.S. European Command, told NBC News. He warned that the disparity could increase in the near future without more aid. On Sunday, Zelenskyy pushed back against complaints that the U.S. has sunk too much money into the war and will continue to have to do so, telling Welker, “[Americans] first and foremost are protecting freedom and democracy all over Europe.” “The U.S. Army now does not have to fight protecting NATO countries. Ukrainians are doing that. And it’s only ammo that the civilized world is providing, and I think it’s a good decision,” he said.
BBC to invest £6m in AI to help transform its education services 2024-04-21 13:01:00+00:00 - The BBC plans to use a multimillion investment in artificial intelligence to transform its educational offering and attract the licence-fee payers of the future. After being heavily relied upon by desperate parents during the pandemic lockdowns, the BBC is to announce a new £6m investment in BBC Bitesize to make learning more personalised and interactive for students from primary school onwards. The money is part of an effort to lock in young users’ relationship with the public service broadcaster. Helen Foulkes, the BBC’s head of education, said: “It’s a significant investment in BBC Bitesize to turn it from a really brilliant, trusted digital textbook, to a much more personalised learning platform. We’re taking our education service and making it fit for the digital age, so the learning adapts to the user.” Marking 100 years since the broadcast of its first educational programme – an experimental schools radio programme heard only by Garnetbank school in Glasgow in February 1924 – there will be a special Live Lesson on CBBC and BBC iPlayer on Monday, giving young viewers tips on how to produce their own report for the channel’s Hacker T Dog radio show. Foulkes said the move would build on the BBC’s trusted educational brand. “When you use the BBC you know it’s safe, you know it’s trusted, you know it’s right and that does help as a parent,” she said. But in an acknowledgement that the BBC is in danger of being left behind by more fleet-footed digital content providers, the home of Newsround and the magic pencil is taking a leaf out of the book of AI-powered learning tools such as Duolingo to better use its vast database of educational content. New tools, which are under development, are likely to provide personalised testing and identify holes in learning, while, like a “spinach version” of YouTube, users are also likely to find suggestions for follow-on content to deepen understanding of a subject. The BBC is also testing out a new service for A-level students, providing content to help them widen their knowledge around a subject. Piloted around English literature, students studying Jane Austen could find they are offered a BBC adaption of Pride and Prejudice. “We’ll test it with students and teachers to see if that is a useful supplementary offer,” Foulkes said. In the context of £700m annual savings the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, has said need to be found to ensure the broadcaster’s survival, £6m is something of a drop in the ocean. But the move appeared to be a nod to a promise he explored in a landmark speech at the Royal Television Society last month: that while the broadcaster ruled out the use of AI in its journalism, it was developing “unique ethical algorithms” to increase personalisation for users. Davie said the BBC would proactively deploy AI on “our terms” to create tools that helped it build relevance”. It also spoke directly to the broadcaster’s founding Reithian purpose to “inform, educate, entertain”, said Foulkes. “Education is the jammy bit in the middle – it’s really important,” she said. Foulkes pointed to the role the BBC played during the pandemic, when Bitesize had 3.8 million weekly users during the first term. “Only the BBC could have provided that pandemic response, because it’s got 100 years of education behind it,” she said. “It was great that the general public really understood that’s what the BBC can do as a public service … It’s something the team is really proud of.” But there may also be a little benign self-interest involved. Last year, the BBC annual report revealed the broadcaster was struggling to attract younger audiences. Its reach among 16- to 34-year-olds had slipped from 81% using any BBC service in a normal week to 76% over the course of a year. The figure was worse for the under-16s, with 72% using BBC services in an average week, well behind YouTube. “I think what the BBC wants is for people to value the BBC and use the BBC, whatever their age,” said Foulkes. “And any touch points that you’ve got with that younger audience, it’s really important to make sure we’re both supporting them both on the children’s entertainment side and ... on that educational side, and then introducing them to the rest of the BBC.” View image in fullscreen John Craven presents BBC Newsround, which was first broadcast in April 1972. Photograph: BBC February 1924 The first experimental schools radio programme, heard only by Garnetbank school, Glasgow, in broadcast. October 1930 Broadcast of Here and There, the first regular news programme for children, presented by the playwright and naval commander Stephen King-Hall. June 1940 Broadcast of Kitchen Front, a BBC national programme to help children with cooking skills while improving morale during wartime September 1957 BBC Television for Schools broadcasts its first programme, Living in the Commonwealth, looking at life beyond the classroom. April 1964 Play School brings play and structured learning for three- to five-year-olds on air, and will run for 20 years. April 1972 John Craven presents the first Newsround, with short news reports for a younger audience. September 1982 Adult education series Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, brings the prospect of homemade English curries into UK homes. May 1997 Adrian Chiles and Carol Vorderman promise to demystify words such as CD-rom, ram, megabytes and floppy disks in the six-part series Computers Don’t Bite. April 2009 Horrible Histories is broadcast for the first time on BBC Two. February 2016 Launch of school video resources BBC Teach and Live Lessons, whereby pupils and teachers take part in real time. April 2020 First broadcast of Bitesize Daily, a virtual school experience providing lessons during the pandemic.
RFK Jr. candidacy hurts Trump more than Biden, NBC News poll finds 2024-04-21 13:00:00+00:00 - The latest national NBC News poll finds the third-party vote — and especially independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — cutting deeper into former President Donald Trump’s support than President Joe Biden’s, though the movement the other candidates create is within the poll’s margin of error. Trump leads Biden by 2 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, 46% to 44%, in the new NBC News poll. Yet when the ballot is expanded to five named candidates, Biden is the one with a 2-point advantage: Biden 39%, Trump 37%, Kennedy 13%, Jill Stein 3% and Cornel West 2%. The big reason is that the poll finds a greater share of Trump voters in the head-to-head matchup backing Kennedy in the expanded ballot. Fifteen percent of respondents who picked Trump the first time pick Kennedy in the five-way ballot, compared with 7% of those who initially picked Biden. In addition, Republican voters view Kennedy much more favorably (40% positive, 15% negative) than Democratic voters do (16% positive, 53% negative). “At this stage, [Kennedy’s] appeal looks to be more with Trump than Biden voters,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the NBC News poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. That finding, however, contrasts with the conventional political wisdom — as well as the results of other national polls — suggesting that a bigger third-party vote hurts Biden more. The NBC News poll results on Kennedy’s impact are “different than other surveys,” said McInturff, the GOP pollster. “So there’s always two possibilities: One, it’s an outlier. … Or two, we’re going to be seeing more of this, and our survey is a harbinger of what’s to come.” The Biden campaign has actively tried to peel support away from Kennedy. Most recently, Biden held an event Thursday with members of the Kennedy family who are endorsing him over their relative. Overall, the party is paying much closer attention to Kennedy than it has to past third-party candidates, mobilizing new super PACs and an arm of the Democratic National Committee focused on reducing the pull of his candidacy. The NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters nationwide — 891 contacted via cellphone — was conducted April 12-16 and has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
World Bank official calls for shake-up of G20 debt relief scheme 2024-04-21 12:50:00+00:00 - The mechanism for providing debt relief to the world’s poorest countries is failing to produce results and requires a major rethink, a senior official at the World Bank has said. Indermit Gill, the bank’s chief economist, said that after four years the G20’s common framework – designed to speed up and simplify debt restructuring – had not provided a single dollar of new money. More than half the 75 countries deemed poor enough to be eligible for concessional finance from the World Bank are either in distress or close to it, and Gill said cripplingly high repayments were entrenching poverty. Interviewed by the Guardian at the bank’s spring meetings in Washington, Gill said: “We have to recognise the problems. The common framework won’t deliver what leaders say it will. They are saying: ‘This horse is not dead yet, so let’s just keep whipping it.’” He said a key weakness of the common framework was that private bondholders – an increasingly important group of creditors – were only brought in at the end of debt negotiations. He said lessons should be learned from the blueprint drawn up in the 1980s by the then US treasury secretary, Nicholas Brady, to deal with a previous debt crisis. The Brady plan provided a systematic approach to debt relief, ensured private creditors were part of the process from the start, and involved creditors accepting losses in return for assurances about the ability of debtor countries’ capacity to repay. So far, only a handful of countries – including Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia – have applied for debt relief through the common framework, and Gill was withering in his criticism of the flagship initiative created in 2020 by the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries. “The common framework is not working. If the money from debt relief was coming in dribs and drabs, I would say OK, but there hasn’t been a single dollar of debt relief from the common framework.” Gill said another weakness of the common framework was that its secretariat was the Paris Club – a group of 20-plus creditor countries mostly in the developed west. China – which has become a major creditor – is not a member and has refused to be forced into accepting terms agreed by the Paris Club. “You can’t have the Paris Club playing in the casino with Chinese money,” Gill said. Failure to come up with a workable debt framework was putting back development by years, the bank’s chief economist added. “Countries are deterred from going through the common framework because they won’t get access to financial markets and they won’t get debt relief.” Although the IMF said last week that the global economy was on course for a “soft landing”, Gill said he did not accept the argument that the world had “dodged a bullet”. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion A few countries – the US, China, India and Indonesia – were doing well but other G7 countries were struggling, he said. “For low-income countries, things are terrible.” Gill said the problems of heavy indebtedness would not go away, and expressed scepticism that burdens would ease as interest rates came down in the US. “Tightening cycles last years, not months. These countries will continue to face very high debt-servicing costs.” He said debt payments were forcing low-income countries to cut back on spending on health, education and investment. “That’s not sustainable according to me.” The IMF takes a more positive view of the common framework, and thinks debt problems would be even worse had it not been set up. Its Africa director, Abebe Selassie, said at a press briefing last week that debt restructuring was a painful and lengthy process. “Without the common framework we wouldn’t have made the progress we have in helping Zambia and Ghana towards debt sustainability.”
Public school enrollment is falling nationwide. See the numbers by state. 2024-04-21 12:30:00+00:00 - More and more, parents are opting America’s children out of public school. The share of children ages 5 to 17 enrolled in public schools fell by almost 4 percentage points from 2012 to 2022, an NBC News analysis of Census Bureau data found, even as the overall population grew. NBC News’ analysis found: 87.0% of children were enrolled in public school in 2022, compared to 90.7% in 2012. In Kentucky, the share of school-age children in public schools decreased by almost 8 percentage points. In South Carolina, the share of children enrolled in public schools decreased by 7.4 percentage points. In Alaska, enrollment decreased by nearly 7 percentage points. During the same period, the share of 5 to 17 year-olds enrolled in private schools increased by 2 percentage points, the Census Bureau data showed. Charter schools saw a similar increase, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit group dedicated to advancing charter schools. Educators and researchers say the swing has been caused in part by laws that have targeted public schools while propping up alternatives. “[The rise in charter schools] is a thread of the larger campaign of privatization,” said Abbie Cohen, a Ph.D. candidate in UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies. “Those two things are happening at the same time, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” Policies that make private, charter and homeschooling options more available to families — dubbed “school choice” by advocates — have expanded rapidly since 2022. Such policies grant families public funds for alternative schooling in the form of vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, refundable tax credits and more. In 2023, at least 146 school choice bills were introduced across 43 states, according to FutureEd, an education-focused think tank at Georgetown University. Nineteen school choice laws were enacted last year in 17 states, including South Carolina and Florida, which have seen some of the most dramatic declines of students enrolled in public schools. As part of the push for school choice, states are eliminating income limits and other eligibility requirements, allowing higher-income families to receive benefits. Eight states passed such laws or created such programs in 2023, FutureEd’s data shows, bringing the total number of states with these programs — commonly referred to as “universal school choice” — to 10. Though Kentucky has seen the most students leave public schools, it is one of 18 states without a school choice program, and the state doesn’t fund charters. Homeschooling and “microschooling,” where students are homeschooled together and may be supervised by someone other than their own parents, are increasingly popular alternatives. An EdChoice/Morning Consult poll reported that 15% of parents in Kentucky prefer homeschooling, compared to 9% of parents nationwide. Robert Enlow, the CEO of the nonprofit school choice advocacy group EdChoice, said he is “agnostic” to which options are chosen, but believes the money should follow each student wherever they go. “Families are saying, ‘Let me have the resources that are due to me, that I get through taxes that are set aside for my kid, and then let me choose,’” Enlow said. At the same time that states are pushing school choice programs, public schools — already dealing with declining enrollment — have faced budget cuts, teacher shortages, and laws and fights over what is taught in the classroom. More than 20 states have considered bills since 2022 that would give parents more control over the curriculum in public schools, from granting parents access to course materials prior to classes, to banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender and allowing parents to opt their children out of any classes. One state that has pushed such laws is Florida. The state has passed several parent rights laws since 2020, including changes to make it easier for parents to ban books from classes, a ban against discussing sexuality and gender identity in younger grades and a ban on teaching critical race theory in classes. Florida’s 5 to 17-year-old population has grown 9% since 2012, but NBC News’ analysis found that its public school enrollment fell 7% during that span. Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said new laws have unclear directions and handcuff teachers’ ability to instruct without fear of retaliation for what’s discussed in class. “In Florida, there’s so much micromanaging of our public schools, so many bureaucratic rules and laws that get in the way, that it becomes increasingly difficult for us to do our jobs,” Spar said. “Teachers are vilified; they can’t do their jobs.” Cohen, from UCLA, said parents are unenrolling students from public schools when they either feel the curriculum is not teaching accurate history, or hope for more conservative changes in school policies and curricula. Her research found that funding cuts are among the policies “fueling mistrust” in public schools and could be leading families to alternatives. The states with the largest declines in public school enrollment also have the lowest per-pupil spending, Census Bureau data shows. Educators and researchers question whether public schools will bounce back from recent enrollment declines as districts experience a wave of financial struggles and closures. “Who is hurting the most are the students who have been most historically marginalized in society,” Cohen said. “When more kids are leaving the public schools, that’s less funding for the public schools and those who are left, are left with less.”
The self-storage boom: lifestyle choice or indictment of UK housing crisis? 2024-04-21 12:24:00+00:00 - Forget the gym membership and juicing regime: the new must-have to boost personal wellbeing is a self-storage unit. At least, that is the call from a new company urging space-squeezed thirtysomething renters to accept that they cannot afford a home with enough cupboards in today’s housing system and instead sweep their clutter into a rented lock-up. Hold, which is opening five storage sites in London, is trying to persuade householders that spending £270 a month on a lock-up is a lifestyle choice with the potential to “promote feelings of calm and relaxation” and even boost mental health. The marketing gambit comes as figures show more than 100 storage complexes have opened in British towns and cities in the past three years, and that the sector now generates £1bn a year in revenue. Increasingly, the facilities offer communal areas, hot desking and creative studios to make them a more palatable extension of home. But the Generation Rent campaign group has now warned that far from being a lifestyle choice that could boost wellbeing, the storage boom should be seen an “indictment of our housing crisis”. “Self-storage warehouses sprouting everywhere … won’t come close to solving our problems,” said Ben Twomey, Generation Rent’s chief executive. “Homes are the foundations of our lives, so a storage container might be the perfect metaphor for how government inaction is leaving renters out of sight and out of mind.” New self-storage space equivalent to more than three Canary Wharf towers – or about 6,000 two-bedroom flats – has been opened in the UK in the past year, according to an industry report from the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. The sight of storage complexes opening close to small newbuild flats is fast becoming one of the darker ironies of Britain’s struggle to supply enough housing. This growth in storage sites is being driven by record rises in private rents and increasingly cramped housing; more than 500,000 rented households in England lived in officially overcrowded homes in 2022. The average UK rent increased by 9.2% in the past year, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, the equivalent of an extra £1,300 a year on the average rent in England. Overcrowding often means children sharing bedrooms with adults, and sometimes beds with one another; more family arguments; teenagers struggling to do their homework; and damage to physical and mental health, a survey by the National Housing Federation found. View image in fullscreen A hold self-storage facility in north London. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian “People are living on top of each other and it’s fundamentally unhealthy,” said the founder of Hold, Frederic de Ryckman de Betz, who said he had previously found homeless people trying to live in units. “Separation is very important.” Hold tells potential customers: “The system has let us down; leaving many of us feeling trapped as we get outpriced and squeezed out. It’s a fact: less space leads to a lower quality of life. How we feel about our personal and work space is deeply connected to our wellbeing. We all need more room to breathe, live, and grow.” The location of Hold’s first branch, on a north London street that has been described as the “golden mile” of self-storage owing to the large number of new sites, embodies that system failure. It stands on the boundary of the boroughs of Camden and Islington, where average monthly rents are £2,672 and £2,384 respectively, about double the UK average. View image in fullscreen A person from the Little Library stores some books at Hold in north London. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian On a visit to its first branch this week, the Guardian found Vincent, a professional drummer, practising in a soundproofed tiny unit because he cannot play in his flat. There was also a woman organising a charity library that had grown too large to store at home. Hold’s approach appears to be to try to build on the decluttering movement pioneered by Marie Kondo, who argues that tidying up possessions can “reset your life”. It is also fitting hotdesk spaces, wifi and rentable music studios, as customers spend more time at the storage. Renters at other complexes have previously told the Guardian they are using units as a workshop for a woodworking hobby, as a makeshift library, to run an eBay business, as well as for the standard stashing of surplus clothes and furniture. Some said they got a “punch” of satisfaction from seeing all their possessions in one place, while others said it enabled them to “live tiny” – in a van or even a car. View image in fullscreen Average monthly rents for homes in north London, where the first Hold unit is located, are between £2,672 and £2,384. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Despite the push to attract younger customers, most self-storage users are between 50 and 70 and often start because of a need to store inherited furniture and possessions after a family bereavement. Philip Macauley, the head of self-storage at Cushman & Wakefield, said: “It’s still a middle-aged customer, but [operators] are trying to drive it to millennials. It’s the age-old London problem. Flats are getting smaller and with interest rate inflation you can’t afford a two-bed, you have to get a one-bed, and the flip side of that is [renting] self-storage.” His report predicted “more lifestyle customers … long-term residential customers who genuinely use their self-storage unit as their room away from home, storing different items at different periods of their life”. But self-storage is not the solution to the housing crisis, said Twomey. He called on the government to “build more homes, fund councils properly to crack down on landlords profiting from overcrowded rentals, and act to slam the brakes on soaring rents”.
Yes, inflation has slowed, but business is still paying the price – and so are you 2024-04-21 12:01:00+00:00 - Consumer prices ticked up again in March, rising to anywhere from 3.2% to 3.8% year-over-year, depending on the rate you’re tracking. Of course, that’s way down from what it was back in 2022. But don’t tell that to any of my clients – or people running businesses in just about every industry across the country. For them, prices are not only rising but are significantly – significantly! – higher than they were when Joe Biden took office. Want some examples? My clients in the food manufacturing and service industries are also feeling the pain. Food manufacturing costs have risen 24% since 2021, the cost of fertilizer is up 34% and animal feeds are up 10%. Now do you understand why restaurant owners are struggling to stay in business and have resorted to adding surcharges for credit card and other fees? Once you make any of your products, you’ll be paying 8% more for domestic freight and a whopping 49% more to ship or receive stuff overseas. Packaging all your products with paperboard boxes and other components will also cost you 38% more than it did three years ago. Since 2021, hourly wages are up 16% and health and property insurance rates are up 8% to 10%. And interest costs have quadrupled, with most of my clients paying two to three points over the 8.5% prime rate. This didn’t happen overnight. It’s taken a few years. For businesses around the country, today’s inflation isn’t the problem. The dramatic rise in just about every core material and overhead cost that it takes to make and deliver products and services? Yeah, that’s the real problem. None of this is news to anyone running a business. I share this information with associations and business groups representing industries from all over and the audience just nods their heads in solemn agreement (before heading to the bar). All you have to do is look at the most recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which places small business optimism at an 11-year low, to realize how deep this problem goes. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion So what can businesses do about this? Of course they raise prices (although my smartest clients are doing this discriminately by looking closely at customer profitability and targeting price increases where they can). Businesses are also investing more in technology and capital improvements, although many are being hindered by the much higher costs of capital. Other tactics you’ve probably seen: shrinkflation, where businesses charge the same for less (what? only two meatballs instead of three with my spaghetti?), tougher negotiations, pushing back on added goodies (I haven’t seen a chocolate on my hotel pillow since well before Covid) and a pullback on hiring, with job openings now at a pre-Covid level. Inflation is still a major problem. Consumers are getting pinched with higher prices and stagnant incomes. Meanwhile, small businesses – which employ half of the country’s workers – are dealing with significantly higher costs. All of this has happened since Biden took office. Is this his fault? History will decide. Regardless, it explains why the president’s approval ratings are so low. And it doesn’t bode well for him this election year.
Biden sees a $35 price cap for insulin as a pivotal campaign issue. It’s not that clear-cut 2024-04-21 11:41:23+00:00 - WASHINGTON (AP) — Rarely a day goes without President Joe Biden mentioning insulin prices. He promotes a $35 price cap for the medication for Americans on Medicare — in White House speeches, campaign stops and even at non-health care events around the country. His reelection team has flooded swing-state airwaves with ads mentioning it, in English and Spanish. All that would seemingly add up to a sweeping political and economic impact. The reality is more complicated. As his campaign tries to emphasize what it sees as an advantage over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, Biden often overstates what those people who are eligible for the price cap once paid for insulin. It’s also not clear whether the number of Americans being helped will be enough to help sway November’s election, even in the most closely contested states that could come down to a few thousand votes. “It is about political signaling in a campaign much more than it is about demonstrating for people that they benefit from the insulin cap,” said Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues. “It is a way to make concrete the fact that you are the health care candidate.” Many who are benefiting from the price cap were already getting insulin at reduced prices, were already Biden supporters, or both. Others who need reduced-price insulin, meanwhile, cannot get it because they do not have Medicare or private health insurance. Biden’s campaign is emphasizing the president’s successful efforts to reduce insulin prices and contrasting that with Trump, who first ran for president promising to lower drug prices but took limited action in office. “It’s a powerful and tangible contrast,” said Biden campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak. “And it’s one we are campaigning on early, aggressively, and across our coalition.” PRICE REDUCTIONS ACROSS THE BOARD Roughly 8.4 million people in the United States control their blood sugar levels with insulin, and more than 1 million have Type 1 diabetes and could die without regular access to it. The White House says nearly 4 million older people qualify for the new, lower price. The price cap for Medicare recipients was part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which originally sought to cap insulin at $35 for all those with health insurance. When it passed in 2022, it was scaled back by congressional Republicans to apply only to older adults. The Biden administration has also announced agreements with drugmakers Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, to cap insulin co-payments at $35 for those with private insurance. They account for more than 90% of the U.S. insulin market. But Biden says constantly that many people used to pay up to $400 monthly, which is an overstatement. A Department of Health and Human Services study released in December 2022 found that people with diabetes who were enrolled in Medicare or had private insurance paid an average of $452 annually, not monthly. The high prices the president cites mostly affected people without health insurance. But the rates of the uninsured have fallen to record lows because of the Obama administration’s signature health care law and the Biden White House’s aggressive efforts to ensure those eligible to enroll are doing so more frequently. So, in effect, one of the administration’s policy initiatives is undermining the economic argument for another. That effort has not reached everyone, though. Yanet Martinez who lives in Phoenix and supports Biden. She does not work or have health insurance, but gets insulin for around $16 per month thanks to steep discounts at her local clinic. The lower prices only apply if her husband, a landscaper, does not make enough to exceed the monthly income limit. If he does, her insulin can jump to $500-plus, she said. “I’ve heard people talk about the price of insulin going down. I’ve not seen it,” said Martinez, 42. “It should be uniform. There are a lot of people who don’t have any way to afford it and it makes things very difficult.” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is sponsoring bipartisan legislation to make the $35 insulin cap universal, even for people without health insurance. In the meantime, he said, what’s been accomplished with Medicare recipients and drugmakers agreeing to reduce their prices is “literally saving lives and saving people money.” “This is good policy because it centers the people rather than the politics,” Warnock said. He said that as he travels Georgia, a pivotal swing state in November, people say “thank you for doing this for me, or for someone in my family.” That includes people like Tommy Marshall, a 56-year-old financial services consultant in Atlanta, who has health insurance. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 45 and injects fast-acting insulin several times daily. He paid about $250 for four weeks to eight weeks worth of medication last November, but saw the price fall by half in February, after Novo Nordisk agreed to cut prices. “If I was his political consultant, I’d be telling (Biden) to talk about it constantly,” said Marshall, a lifelong Democrat and longtime public advocate for cutting insulin prices, including for the advocacy group Protect Our Care Georgia. Marshall said the price caps “have meaningful emotional resonance” and could sway a close election but also conceded, “You’re talking about 18- to 65-year-olds. I can just imagine there’s probably two or three other issues that are in front of this one.” “Maybe someone sort of on-the-fence, he added “this could maybe sway them.” ONE OF BIDEN’S KEY ISSUES Geoff Garin, a pollster for Biden’s reelection campaign, said the insulin cap is one of the president’s highest performing issues. He said the data was “clear, consistent and overwhelming.” Rich Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, which has endorsed Biden, called the insulin cap a strong issue for the president among older voters. “For the persuadables — and there are some still out there, believe it or not — drug costs are a very important factor,” said Fiesta, whose group has 4.4-million members and advocates for health and economic security for older people. Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions. But Theo Merkel, senior fellow at the conservative Paragon Health Institute, countered that the insulin price cut an example of “policies written to fit the talking points other than the other way around.” Merkel, who was a Trump White House adviser on health policy, said manufacturers that have long made insulin prefer caps on how much the insured pay because it gives them more leverage to secure higher prices from insurance companies. The president’s approval ratings on health care are among his highest on a range of issues, but still only 42% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s handling of health care while 55% disapprove, according to a February poll from The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. KFF found in its own poll in December that that 59% of U.S. adults trust the Democratic Party to do a better job addressing health care affordability issues compared to 39% for Republicans, even if only 26% of respondents in the same poll said they knew about the insulin price cap. “In political terms, the Democrats and Biden have an advantage on health care,” Altman said. “They’re pressing it.”
In Latest Gambling Scandal, Some See Glimpse of Sports’ Future 2024-04-21 09:01:03+00:00 - Bill Bradley, the basketball Hall of Famer and former United States senator known as a staunch opponent of legalized sports betting, was speaking about the topic back in January. But he might as well have been predicting the future. “Well there hasn’t been a scandal, yet,” he said, discussing how professional sports have become ever more entwined with the gambling industry in recent years. “So the worst has been avoided, but all of the conditions are there for the untoward to occur.” On Wednesday, the National Basketball Association confirmed the untoward had occurred, issuing a lifetime ban to Jontay Porter, a seldom-used backup forward for the Toronto Raptors. The league said Mr. Porter wagered money on his own team to lose, pretended to be hurt for betting purposes and shared confidential information with gamblers. “There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of N.B.A. competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport,” Adam Silver, the league’s commissioner, said in announcing Porter’s punishment.
Golden Visa Programs, Once a Boon, Lose Their Luster 2024-04-21 09:00:49.689000+00:00 - When Ana Jimena Barba, a young doctor, began working at a hospital in Madrid last year, she moved in with her parents half an hour outside the city until she could save enough to buy her own home. But when she started looking at houses in the same village, almost everything was priced at more than 500,000 euros. The amount — nearly 20 times more than the average annual salary in Spain — happens to correspond to the cost of the country’s “golden visa,” a program that offers residency to wealthy foreigners who buy real estate there. After a decade, the program has reeled in billions of euros in investments, but it has also helped fuel a wrenching housing crisis for its own citizens. “There’s nothing I can afford,” said Dr. Barba, an allergist who has been working 100 hours overtime every month to save up a nest egg. “If foreigners inflate the prices for those of us who live here, it’s an injustice,” she said. Faced with growing pressure to address its housing crunch, Spain said this month that it would scrap its golden visas, the latest in a wider withdrawal from the program by governments around Europe.
Saturday Mornings With the ‘Voice of Problem Gambling’ 2024-04-21 09:00:30.233000+00:00 - “Hello, my name is Craig Carton, with you for another 30 minutes for a frank, open conversation about gambling addiction.” Seated alone in the WFAN radio studio in Lower Manhattan where he rose to fame, collapsed in ignominy and later rose again, Mr. Carton began his weekly show the same way he has in the three years since he got out of prison. On the line this morning in January was Rob D., a 61-year-old recovering gambling addict who got his start flipping cards in school before he went broke betting on basketball as an adult. Within minutes, Rob was weeping. Tears are not unusual in this quiet enclave within the nation’s most famous sports-talk network. Like most of the rest of the sports industry, WFAN has been subsumed by advertisements and promotional tie-ins related to gambling. But from 9:30 to 10 every Saturday morning, a new guest enters Mr. Carton’s somber confessional to share his or her tale of addiction.
Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of ‘further ruin’ 2024-04-21 08:57:10+00:00 - KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian and Western leaders on Sunday welcomed a desperately needed aid package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, as the Kremlin warned that passage of the bill would “further ruin” Ukraine and cause more deaths. Ukrainian commanders and analysts say the long-awaited $61 billion military aid package — including $13.8 billion for Ukraine to buy weapons — will help slow Russia’s incremental advances in the war’s third year — but that more will likely be needed for Kyiv to regain the offensive. The House swiftly approved $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies in a rare Saturday session as Democrats and Republicans banded together after months of hard-right resistance over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had warned that his country would lose the war without U.S. funding, said that he was grateful for U.S. lawmaker’ decision. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Zelenskyy said that the aid package would “send the Kremlin a powerful signal that (Ukraine) will not be the second Afghanistan.” Zelenskyy said Ukraine would prioritize long-range weapons and air defenses to “break the plans of Russia” in an expected “full-scale offensive,” for which Ukrainian forces are preparing. The aid package will go to the U.S. Senate, which could pass it as soon as Tuesday. U.S. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately. It still could take weeks for it to reach the front line, where it is desperately needed. “With this we can stop (Russian troops) and reduce our losses,” said infantry soldier Oleksandr. He has been fighting around Avdiivka, the city in the Donetsk region that Ukraine lost to Russia in February after months of intense combat. Ammunition shortages linked to the aid holdup over the past six months have led Ukrainian military commanders to ration shells, a disadvantage that Russia seized on this year — taking the city of Avdiivka and currently inching towards the town of Chasiv Yar, also in Donetsk. “The Russians come at us in waves — we become exhausted, we have to leave our positions. This is repeated many times,” Oleksandr told The Associated Press. He didn’t give his full name for security reasons. “Not having enough ammunition means we can’t cover the area that is our responsibility to hold when they are assaulting us.” In Kyiv, many welcomed the U.S. vote as a piece of good news after a tough period that has seen Russia grind out gains along the front line, and step up attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and other infrastructure. “I heard our president officially say that we can lose the war without this help. Thanks very much and yesterday was a great event,” said Kateryna Ruda, 43. Tatyana Ryavchenuk, the wife of a Ukrainian soldier, noted the need for more weapons, lamenting that soldiers “have nothing to protect us.” “They need weapons, they need gear, they need it. We always need help. Because without help, our enemy can advance further and can be in the center of our city,” the 26-year-old said. Other Western leaders, who have been scrambling to come up with ways to fill the gap left by stalled U.S. military aid, also lauded Congress’ decision. “Ukraine is using the weapons provided by NATO Allies to destroy Russian combat capabilities. This makes us all safer, in Europe & North America,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg posted on X. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “Ukraine deserves all the support it can get against Russia,” and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the vote it “a strong signal in these times.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk thanked House Speaker Mike Johnson, while also noting the holdup in Congress. “Better late than too late. And I hope it is not too late for Ukraine,” he wrote on X. In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday called the approval of aid to Ukraine “expected and predictable.” The decision “will make the United States of America richer, further ruin Ukraine and result in the deaths of even more Ukrainians, the fault of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Ria Novosti. “The new aid package will not save, but, on the contrary, will kill thousands and thousands more people, prolong the conflict, and bring even more grief and devastation,” Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, wrote on Telegram. Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said the logistics of getting U.S. assistance to the front line would mean that “Ukrainian forces may suffer additional setbacks” while waiting for it to arrive. “But they will likely be able to blunt the current Russian offensive assuming the resumed U.S. assistance arrives promptly,” it said in its latest assessment of the conflict. Olexiy Haran, professor of comparative politics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohlya Academy, said that Ukraine was grateful for aid from the U.S. and other Western countries, “but the problem is, frankly speaking, it’s too late and it’s not enough.” “This is the third year of the war and we still don’t have aviation, new aviation. We don’t have enough missiles, so we cannot close the skies. Moreover, recently we didn’t have even artillery shells,” he said. “That’s why the situation was very, very difficult and the Russians used it to start their offensive. So that’s why it is so important for us. And definitely if we’d received it half a year before, we would have saved the lives of many Ukrainians, civilians included.” Matthew Savill, military sciences director at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said that the aid, while welcome, “can probably only help stabilize the Ukrainian position for this year and begin preparations for operations in 2025.” “Predictability of funding through 2024 and into 2025 will help the Ukrainians plan the defense this year, especially if European supplies of ammunition also come through, but further planning and funds will be required for 2025, and we have a U.S. election between now and then,” he said. Responding to a question on NBC about how long Ukraine will still need aid packages, Zelenskyy said “it depends on when we actually get weapons on the ground.” “The decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, we had it a year ago,” he said. “We still don’t have the jets in Ukraine.” In other developments: — On the ground, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its troops had taken control of the village of Bohdanivka in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian officials haven’t yet commented. — One person was killed and four others were wounded in Russian shelling in Ukrainsk on Sunday, according to the prosecutor’s office in Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region. In the Odesa region, four people were wounded in a missile attack, Gov. Oleh Kiper said. — Two suspects were detained Sunday after two Ukrainian soldiers killed a police officer at a checkpoint in the Vinnytsia region. The soldiers opened fire on Maksym Zaretskyi, 20, early Saturday after he stopped their car for a routine inspection. Zaretskyi’s partner was wounded but survived. The head of Ukraine’s National Police, Ivan Vyhovsky, said the suspects, a father and son aged 52 and 26, were detained in Ukraine’s Odesa region. ___ Elise Morton reported from London. Vasilisa Stepanenko and Jill Lawless contributed to this report from Kyiv. ___ Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
House passes legislation that could ban TikTok in the US 2024-04-21 04:38:00+00:00 - The House passed legislation Saturday that would ban TikTok in the United States if the popular social media platform's China-based owner doesn't sell its stake within a year, but don't expect the app to go away anytime soon. The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden with broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a six-month selling deadline passed the House in March by an overwhelming bipartisan vote as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app's owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd. The modified measure, passed by a 360-58 vote, now goes to the Senate after negotiations that produced a compromise. Even if the legislation becomes law, though, the company would have up to a year to find a buyer and would likely try to challenge the law in court, arguing it would deprive the app's millions of users of their First Amendment rights. Court challenges could significantly delay the timeline set out by Congress or block the law from going into effect. The company lobbied hard against the legislation, pushing the app's 170 million U.S. users — many of whom are young — to call Congress and voice opposition. But the ferocity of the pushback angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where there is broad concern about Chinese threats to the U.S. and where few members use the platform themselves. TikTok. CBS News "We will not stop fighting and advocating for you," TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video that was posted on the platform last month and directed toward the app's users. "We will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform that we have built with you." The bill's quick path through Congress is extraordinary because it targets one company and because Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for decades. Lawmakers have failed to act despite efforts to protect children online, safeguard users' privacy and make companies more liable for content posted on their platforms, among other measures. The TikTok ban reflects widespread concerns from lawmakers about China. Members of both parties, along with intelligence officials, have worried that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over American user data or direct the company to suppress or boost TikTok content favorable to its interests. TikTok has denied assertions that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government and has said it has not shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities. The U.S. government has not publicly provided evidence that shows TikTok shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or tinkered with the company's popular algorithm, which influences what Americans see. The company has good reason to think a legal challenge could be successful, having seen some success in previous legal fights over its operations in the U.S.. In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok use across the state after the company and five content creators who use the platform sued. In 2020, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights. His administration brokered a deal that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok. The sale never went through for a number of reasons; one was China, which imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers. Dozens of states and the federal government have put in place TikTok bans on government devices. Texas' ban was challenged last year by The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy was impeding academic freedom because it extended to public universities. In December, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have backed the app. "Congress cannot take away the rights of over 170 million Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, engage in political advocacy, and access information from around the world," said Jenna Leventoff, a lawyer for the group. Since mid-March, TikTok has spent $5 million on TV ads opposing the legislation, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm. The ads have included a range of content creators, including a nun, extolling the positive impacts of the platform on their lives and arguing a ban would trample on the First Amendment. The company has also encouraged its users to contact Congress, and some lawmakers have received profanity-laced calls. "It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually," said Alex Haurek, a spokesman for the company. Nadya Okamoto, a content creator who has roughly 4 million followers on TikTok, said she has been having conversations with other creators who are experiencing "so much anger and anxiety" about the bill and how it's going to impact their lives. The 26-year-old, whose company "August" sells menstrual products and is known for her advocacy around destigmatizing menstrual periods, makes most of her income from TikTok. "This is going to have real repercussions," she said.
IMF's Gopinath says high U.S. deficits fueling growth, higher interest rates 2024-04-21 02:34:00+00:00 - By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States needs to raise revenues to bring down high budget deficits even though they are helping to fuel global growth by stoking domestic U.S. demand, International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said on Saturday. Gopinath told a fiscal forum at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings that U.S. deficits are projected to rise for years with one of the world's steepest curves for debt. "The high levels of deficits are also supporting growth and demand in the U.S. that have positive spillover to the rest of the world," Gopinath said. "But along with that growth, you're getting higher interest rates and a stronger dollar and the second two are creating more complications for the world." The IMF's fiscal monitor estimates that the U.S. deficit for 2024 will reach 6.67% of GDP, rising to 7.06% in 2025 - double the 3.5% in 2015. Gopinath said that the IMF's annual "Article IV" review of U.S. economic policies in coming weeks will again recommend that the U.S. raise tax revenues and reform its costly Social Security and Medicare programs for older Americans to bring down deficits. The review will largely repeat its U.S. policy prescriptions from last year, when the U.S. Congress was in the throes of a standoff over raising the federal debt ceiling, which threatened a potential default that would have roiled global financial markets. Gopinath said the IMF would again recommend that the U.S. find a way to approve government funding without debt ceiling brinkmanship. "It is certainly a risk nobody needs to have to deal with," Gopinath said. "This happens every year. There has to be a way to resolve this brinkmanship." Asked about the prospects for a widespread debt crisis in developing countries, Gopinath said: "We don't see a systemic debt crisis happening any time soon." Although there are still a number of low-income countries that are facing debt distress, she said financial market conditions have improved somewhat, with some frontier market countries recently returning to markets to borrow. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Volkswagen workers vote for union in Tennessee — a major win for organized labor 2024-04-21 01:31:00+00:00 - Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers, becoming the first Southern autoworkers outside of the Big Three to do so in a region long resistant to unionization. Almost three-quarters of 3,613 workers voted for UAW representation in the three-day election, the National Labor Relations Board confirmed late Friday, after announcements by the union and Volkswagen. The outcome is huge win for the UAW, which had twice previously failed to unionize the Chattanooga facility and which has for decades faced an uphill climb organizing workers in Southern states. The vote also gives the UAW added momentum in its campaign to unionize a dozen, mostly foreign automakers in the South. The initiative follows a historic six-week strike last fall against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis that led to major wage gains. "The real fight begins now. The real fight is getting your fair share, the real fight is the fight to get more time with your family, the real fight is to fight for our union contract," UAW President Shawn Fain told VW workers celebrating their victory at a union hall in Chattanooga. With the victory, the Volkswagen factory becomes the only unionized foreign commercial carmaker in the U.S. It's also the first auto plant to join the UAW since its action targeting the Big Three automakers in Detroit. "This election is big," VW worker Kelcey Smith said in a statement distributed by the UAW. "People in high places told us good things can't happen here in Chattanooga. They told us this isn't the time to stand up, this isn't the place. But we did stand up and we won. This is the time, this is the place. Southern workers are ready to stand up and win a better life." The UAW declared victory as votes continued to be tallied, with the NLRB confirming 2,628 for and 985 opposed, or 73% to 27%. The ballot required a simple majority to pass. The results will be certified if no objections are filed within five days. VW thanked its workers for voting in the "democratic election," the company said in a brief statement. "Congratulations to the workers at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on their historic vote for union representation with the United Auto Workers," President Biden said in a statement late Friday. "Pivotal moment" Despite the obstacles to organizing labor in the South, "The UAW showed last night we need to go and rethink all those negative statements that we've been telling workers that it can't be done," Sharon Block, professor and executive director the Center for Labor and a Just Economy, Harvard University Law School, said on Saturday in a call organized by the Economic Speakers Bureau. "Companies like VW have a long legacy of going to the South to chase those lower wages. I've interviewed workers who thought it was illegal to unionize in the South," said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. "This is a pivotal moment for the workers in Chattanooga, but much more broadly for workers in the South and for organized labor more generally," Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, told CBS MoneyWatch. The chances for a UAW win were seen as high, given that about 70% of the plant's workers pledged to vote in favor of unionization before it requested the vote, according to the union. Voting that began on Wednesday concluded Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. "We are going to win this, with the support we've gotten over the past week from our co-workers, from people who were on the fence," Victor Vaughn, an employee at the plant for nearly two years and a member of the organizing committee, said before the ballots were counted. "We are very intelligent, hard workers, family-oriented and we care about our jobs. That is what we're doing throughout the South." People celebrate while watching the vote tally at a United Auto Workers (UAW) vote watch party on April 19, 2024, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images Job safety and health care costs are two of the primary issues that workers at the plant hope to address, Vaughn added. At the time VW proposed an 11% wage increase late last year, workers were unaware the company planned to hike health insurance premiums 15%, Vaughn said. "That was a shock to a lot of us," he said. "If they can't organize at Volkswagen, you'd have to question their ability to organize at any of these Southern auto plants," John Logan, chair of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, told CBS MoneyWatch. A regional foothold? The UAW for decades has unsuccessfully attempted to organize at auto factories in the South, making progress only at a few heavy truck and bus plants in the region. The vote is the UAW's third try at the plant, where workers narrowly spurned union membership in both 2014 and 2019. The UAW was also defeated in a 2017 vote at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. The UAW win gives the union a key foothold in the region, where organizing usually means fighting not only the company but the entire community, including the political and business establishment, Logan said. "When we secure our contract with the UAW, I think it is going to open the door for so many other plants, Mercedes-Benz included," said Vaughn, referencing an upcoming election next month by autoworkers at Mercedes plant in Vance and Woodstock, Alabama. Earlier in the week, the governors of six states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — decried the unionization effort, saying it jeopardized jobs. "Interest in the UAW has been fueled by spectacular gains in the Detroit Three contract talks last year. Almost all 13 of the non-union automakers have boosted wages to diminish interest in organizing and these gains are widely referred to as the 'UAW bump,' Shaiken said. "Paradoxically, automakers are confirming the UAW does deliver." In the case of Germany's Volkswagen, which has unionized workers around the globe, the opposition to the UAW's efforts has been less fierce than those seen with other corporate entities, Logan noted. In fact, the Chattanooga plant is Volkswagen's sole facility of about 120 globally that does not have some form of employee representation. Fain thanked a VW German works council — an elected group of employees who collaborate with a company's management on behalf of workers — for going to bat for the UAW in its campaign in Chattanooga. "That's what a global movement looks like, these companies are global, they take us on globally, and we have to stand together and fight back globally, and that's what we are doing now," he said.
Martin Wygod, a Winner on Wall Street and the Racetrack, Dies at 84 2024-04-20 18:52:39+00:00 - Martin J. Wygod, a Wall Street whiz who graduated from walking horses after races to owning and breeding championship thoroughbreds when he made millions from investing in online companies that sold pharmaceuticals by mail and pruned medical paperwork, died on April 12 in San Diego. He was 84. His daughter, Emily Bushnell, said he died in a hospital from complications of lung disease. Raised near two racetracks in suburban New York and mentored by a software pioneer, an investor and a gambler, Mr. Wygod was said to have been the youngest managing partner of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage in the 1960s. He became a millionaire before he was 30, and in 1993 he sold Medco Containment Services to Merck for $6 billion after building it into the nation’s largest mail-order prescription drug company and benefit manager in less than a decade. The sale netted Mr. Wygod $250 million. “The name of the game in the future is going to be information,” Jan Buck, chairman of Princeton Group International, a pharmaceutical industry consulting firm, commented on the sale to The New York Times in 1994. “Marty Wygod made $6 billion for himself because he developed a data base.”