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Contents contributed and discussions participated by osichukwuocha

osichukwuocha

Supreme court fight likely as judges rule Trump must turn over tax records | Donald Tru... - 0 views

  • Donald Trump’s accountant must turn over the president’s tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday in a decision that almost certainly sets up a second trip to the US supreme court over the issue.
  • Trump’s lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.
  • Vance is seeking more than eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records,
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  • Vance’s lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.
  • The supreme court in July ruled 7-2 against the president, rejecting Trump’s arguments that he can’t even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office
  • The likelihood that the taxes would be released was unlikely to be resolved before the November election
  • Through his lawyers, Trump argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him
  • former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen saying it was common for the Trump Organization to submit falsified financial records when the company applied for loans.
  • those misstatements could establish crimes including falsifying business records, insurance and tax fraud and scheming to defraud.
  • he paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House and no income tax at all in 11 of 18 years it reviewed
  • At the time, Trump dismissed the report as “fake news” and maintained he has paid taxes, but he provided no specifics
osichukwuocha

Dow falls 375 points as Trump cans stimulus talks in Pelosi showdown | Fox Business - 0 views

  • Stocks sank after President Trump scrapped stimulus talks while blasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's $2.4 trillion ask which is well above the $1.6 trillion Mnuchin was pushing for.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 400 points or 1.3%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.4% and 1.5%, respectively. 
  • The move curbs an effort by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who reiterated the need for more stimulus earlier today while warning of major risks to the economy without it.
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  • On the economic front, the U.S. trade balance was wider than expected, at $67.1 billion for August. Economists were looking for a $66.2 billion deficit, up from a prior reading of $63.6 billion.
osichukwuocha

Trump administration to block FDA guidelines that could delay coronavirus vaccine: repo... - 2 views

  • The White House is looking to potentially block guidelines proposed by the Food and Drug Administration regarding the approval of a coronavirus vaccine for emergency use
  • The moves by the FDA include potentially sending the standards to an outside committee of experts as soon as this week.
  • One of the big points of contention is that – in order for the vaccine to be approved – participants in clinical trials would need to be followed for two months upon completion of their treatment to monitor possible side effects.
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  • the White House has the authority to intervene where this type of guidance is concerned, t
  • Several companies are in the final stages of clinical trials, but that requirement would make it unlikely that a vaccine would receive approval before Nov. 3.
  • The president has repeatedly said a vaccine could be approved by November, including during last week’s presidential debate.
  • The president on Monday cautioned Americans against letting the virus “dominate” them or “take over” their lives, indicating a vaccine was imminent.
  • The novel coronavirus has infected more than 7.4 million Americans and killed at least 210,127.
osichukwuocha

Amazon near tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah - study | Environmen... - 0 views

  • Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisi
  • As much as 40% of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest,
  • Any shift from rainforest to savannah would still take decades to take full effect, but once under way the process is hard to reverse.
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  • Rainforests support a vastly greater range of species than savannah and play a much greater role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
  • Parts of the Amazon are receiving much less rain than they used to because of the changing climate.
  • This year’s fires in the Amazon are the worst in a decade, with a 60% increase in fire hotspots compared with last year.
  • We understand now that rainforests on all continents are very sensitive to global change and can rapidly lose their ability to adapt. Once gone, their recovery will take many decades to return to their original state. And given that rainforests host the majority of all global species, all this will be forever lost.”
osichukwuocha

N.Y.C. Will Close Schools and Businesses in Areas Hard-Hit by Covid - The New York Times - 0 views

  • For many weeks, public health officials had expressed concern that a second wave of the coronavirus would hit New York City, which until recently had achieved striking success in beating back the outbreak after a devastating spring that left more than 20,000 residents dead.
  • under the new restrictions, Mr. de Blasio would close all schools — public and private — in nine of the city’s 146 ZIP codes
  • as well as all nonessential businesses. Indoor and outdoor dining in restaurants in those areas will not be allowed.
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  • Those areas all have had positivity rates in recent days of more than 3 percent — and some as high as 8 percent — in contrast to the city’s overall rate of about 1.5 percent.
  • The new restrictions come just days after the city’s system, which has about 1,800 public schools, fully reopened.
  • And last month, the city ordered two yeshivas to close after coronavirus cases were detected. Some people in the Orthodox community, which includes several Hasidic groups, have privately raised concerns about social distancing and mask compliance in yeshiva buildings.
  • The restrictions would last for two to four weeks, if not longer, depending on the success of efforts to curb the virus, the mayor said.
  • We’re obviously going to watch carefully to see if people moving around from community to community is having an effect,”
  • “Shutdowns are tricky, and targeted ones have shown both pros and cons,” Dr. Popescu said. “The hard part is really communicating with people so that you’re not pushing them to seek resources outside that affected area and potentially just pushing that ring further.”
  • Local governments have not done an effective job of enforcement in these hot spot ZIP codes,” Mr. Cuomo said.
  • Local leaders said that surge was driven by denialism, wishful thinking around herd immunity and misinformation spread by President Trump, who in 2016 carried some precincts in these neighborhoods with more than 80 percent of the vote.
  • This is a community where a lot of people believe they have already had the virus, a lot of people believe they have herd immunity, so they really believe they don’t need to get tested,” Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein of Brooklyn said last month. “That is why it is so important to communicate with people on the ground.”
  • I don’t want to stay home, I have bills to take care of,” Ms. Camara said. “How am I going to pay my rent or afford food?
osichukwuocha

New Layoffs Add to Worries Over U.S. Economic Slowdown - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Companies including Disney, the insurance giant Allstate and two major airlines announced plans to fire or furlough more than 60,000 workers in recent days,
  • Democrats are pushing a $2.2 trillion proposal, while the White House has floated a $1.6 trillion plan.
  • the economy rebounded in May and June with the help of stimulus money and rock-bottom interest rates. But the loss of momentum since then, coupled with fears of a second wave of coronavirus cases this fall
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  • said 787,000 people filed new applications for state jobless benefits last week
  • When you combine the layoffs with fiscal aid drying up, it points to very soft momentum in the final quarter of the year.
  • . A $50 billion bailout in March obligated the carriers to hold off on job cuts through Oct. 1.
  • For those like Ms. Perez who lost work earlier in the year, the end of the $600 federal unemployment supplement has added to financial hardships.
  • Consumer spending on goods — whether for immediate consumption, like food, or used over a longer term, like appliances — now exceeds levels preceding the pandemic. But outlays for services, which account for roughly two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity, remain down about 8 percent.
  • The economic picture is not completely bleak. Personal spending was up 1 percent last month, and readings of consumer confidence have been gaining.
  • When she was furloughed in mid-March after the pandemic hit, she thought she would be out of work for just a few weeks. But on Tuesday, a text message from her union representative told her that her job would not be coming back.“I was just in shock,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
  • Ms. Perez said she could pay her rent and utilities on the roughly $250 a week she receives in state unemployment benefits, but could not afford any extra expenses, like the car she needs after hers broke down in March.
  • Travel, entertainment, and leisure and hospitality employers have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, and they continue to lag even as other areas of the economy have reopened. The American Hotel & Lodging Association, a trade group, said that without new stimulus legislation, 74 percent of hotels would lay off additional employees and two-thirds would be out of business in six months.
  • I will have to go to every church around me and ask for help,” she said. “I will stand in food lines with the kids, because I cannot leave them at home. I will apply anywhere that I can for help, because there’s no way that I can allow us to be homeless.”
osichukwuocha

Global coronavirus deaths pass 1m with no sign rate is slowing | Coronavirus outbreak |... - 0 views

  • The number of people who have died from Covid-19 has exceeded 1 million, according to a tally of cases maintained by Johns Hopkins University
  • no sign the global death rate is slowing and infections on the rise again in countries that were thought to be controlling their outbreaks months ago.
  • But the official figure probably underestimates the true total, a senior World Health Organization official said on Monday.
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  • “If anything, the numbers currently reported probably represent an underestimate of those individuals who have either contracted Covid-19 or died as a cause of it,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert
  • The million figure is indicating a tragedy, it tells us a lot of people have died. But what’s crucial is not so much the actual number.
  • More than one-fifth of the tallied deaths have occurred in the US, the most of any country in the world
  • “To some extent the quest for the true number of Covid-19 deaths is impossible,” said Gianluca Baio, a professor of statistics and health economics at University College London.
  • ome countries report anyone who died with Covid-19 as a death from the virus, even if it is not thought to have been the direct cause,
  • Despite its imperfections, the recorded death count still paints a picture of a pandemic that escalated with astonishing speed from February and has not relented.
  • and throughout April an average of 6,400 deaths were being recorded around the world every day.
osichukwuocha

Election Live Updates: Republicans Insist There Will Be a Peaceful Transition of Power ... - 1 views

  • “The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th,” Mr. McConnell wrote on Twitter. “There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.”
  • Mr. Trump went on to question the integrity of “the ballots” — apparently referring to mail-in voting
  • The peaceful transfer of power and accepting election results are fundamentals of democracy.
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  • The most important thing, she said, was for Americans to vote and insist their ballots are counted.
  • Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable,”
  • It may take longer than usual to know the outcome, but it will be a valid one
  • “I don’t know what his thinking was, but we have always had a controlled transition between administrations.”
  • That promise comes as Mr. Graham and other Republicans face sharp criticism for changing their positions on their past vow not to fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year.
  • The comments by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York were made in a message to progressives as a rallying cry after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and were not a call to contest or resist the election results.
  • Democratic lawmakers warned Americans on Thursday to take deadly seriously President Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the results of November’s election
  • Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said that he “has participated in a peaceful transition of power before. He certainly will this time around as well.”
  • r. Trump’s vulnerability even in conservative-leaning states underscores just how precarious his political position i
  • “Donald Trump is trying to distract from his catastrophic failures as president of the United States in order to talk about something that frankly, you know, spins up the press corps,
  • Calling Mr. Trump “the greatest threat to democracy,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the party leader in the Senate, demanded that Republicans join Democrats in insisting Mr. Trump accept the election results
  • everal prominent Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, insisted Thursday that there would be a peaceful transition, but they stopped short of criticizing the president directly for his remarks.
  • Earlier Wednesday, he flatly predicted that the presidential election would end up in the Supreme Court and said that was why he wanted a full slate of justices, barely concealing his hope for a friendly majority on the court.
  • The night before that, at another rally, Mr. Trump said the coronavirus “affects virtually nobody” — never mind that the country’s death toll from the virus just crossed 200,000.
  • The F.B.I. has not seen evidence of a “coordinated national voter fraud effort,”
  • Any fraud would have to be widespread and well coordinated to change the election outcome, and carrying it out would be a “major challenge for an adversary,”
  • President Trump paid his respects to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday morning, standing silently by her coffin at the top of the Supreme Court steps as he was jeered by protesters on the street below.
  • Mr. Trump continues to face a wall of opposition from women
  • “Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus
  • Mr. Trump’s large advantage among men in Texas is enough to give him a small advantage there, 46 percent to 43 percent. Men prefer the president to his Democratic challenger by 16 points, while women favor Mr. Biden by an eight-point margin.
osichukwuocha

Walmart cuts workers' hours but increases workload as sales rise amid pandemic | Walmar... - 0 views

  • The retailer has emerged as one of the biggest winners of the pandemic. In August, Walmart announced a 9.3% rise in store sales and a 97% rise in e-commerce.
  • Walmart began rolling out the plan – called the Great Workplace program in 2019 – but its introduction to several stores was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic
  • Just 165,000 employees out of Walmart’s 1.5m workforce are expected to receive pay raises.
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  • Recently, Walmart released a restructuring program it said is similar to the Great Workplace program, touting the increased wages for those accepted into new management positions and pay raises in October for associates in some departments, although Walmart’s minimum wage of $11 an hour remains unchanged for front end associates
  • Walmart said in its press release that associates in eliminated roles will maintain their current pay until October 2021, but it would not comment on what impact the changes will have on scheduled hours or workloads
  • restructuring
  • If I’m lucky I will only lose $2.05 an hour. It is possible that I could lose much more.”
  • who quit on 28 February 2020 after her schedule was reduced from around 35 hours a week on average to less than 20 hours this year.
  • “My coworkers and I feel like we are being put against each other with this whole process because we feel like we are having to fight for these positions,”
  • A cashier in California explained they’ve recently been given extra workloads, including being given tasks of restocking and front end inventory, which used to be handled by a manager
  • Anderson said store departments were consolidated, while workloads increased and no new hires were made to replace workers who left.
  • When I saw how this company treated loyal long time employees, I decided I was done.”
  • Walmart is estimated to save around $2.2bn annually from the tax cut bill.
  • Gary Stevens worked as a maintenance supervisor at a Walmart in Ticonderoga, New York, for eight years before he quit on 23 February 2020 after the Great Workplace program rollout reduced his staff by nearly 50%.
osichukwuocha

This Misinformation Was Coming From Inside the House - The New York Times - 0 views

  • that wearing masks has “little to no medical value” and could do more “harm” than wearing no mask at all.
  • But it was especially remarkable given the source. Published on the right-wing website RedState, it turned out to have been written under a pseudonym by William B. Crews, a public affairs officer at the National Institutes of Health,
  • Mr. Crews had published a slew of incorrect claims about this virus this year
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  • Mr. Crews was especially focused on undermining efforts to persuade the public to wear masks, saying that “math tells you the diameter of the virus is orders of magnitude smaller than the smallest opening between mask fibers.”
  • Numerous studies have shown that while the virus itself is small enough to pass through cloth, it travels within particles and respiratory droplets that masks can catch, helping to reduce community spread.
  • writing that lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed in other countries had severe economic consequences without any public health benefit.
  • “While we are assured that it is essential to bring our lives to a screeching halt in order to prevent the spread of Wuhan virus, there is actually no real evidence of the measurable kind that backs up that supposition,” he wrote.
  • delays in imposing lockdowns in the United States most likely resulted in tens of thousands of preventable deaths
  • Misleading and even maliciously false narratives about the coronavirus have been shared widely across online networks
osichukwuocha

Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate | Environment ... - 0 views

  • “I guess, yeah, it’d be marginally better if Biden was president, but I don’t think Biden being president is more important than the Green party growing in the next couple of years,”
  • If we continue on our current track, he predicts food shortages, global economic instability, refugee crises, populist reactionary movements: all the forces that are already plaguing humanity, intensified.
  • ‘I don’t know what to do,’” says Namachivayam, a college junior in California.
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  • Generation Z – the cohort born after 1996 – has the most at stake in the effort to save the environment. They’re often championed as Earth’s great hope, the young people whose optimism and activism will help reverse catastrophic climate change
  • ind it difficult to believe that the world will actually rise to the occasion.
  • You’re not seeing people who are planning for the future, because the future seems so precarious and so unpredictable,”
  • The doomist argument largely relies on an unsubstantiated premise around “unstoppable tipping point-like responses” and a “runaway greenhouse effect”
  • the existing approach to climate policy is not going to work,” writes Hickel, an economic anthropologist. “But that is absolutely no reason for doom. It just means we have to be smarter about how we tackle the problem.
  • Plenty of Gen Zers are still optimistic about the climate crisis and recognize an inherent fallacy within doomism.
  • individual action makes little difference, and unscrupulous corporations are at fault for climate change.
  • “If we do nothing, the worst is gonna happen,” he says. “If we at least do something, there might be a chance – maybe not now, but later down the line – for us to save as many people as we can.”
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