Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.
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Joe is always busy.
Biden Nominates Julie Su as US Labor Secretary
President Biden on Tuesday announced his intention to nominate Julie Su, the deputy labor secretary, to succeed Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, who has said he plans to leave his position in March.
Ms. Su has helped oversee the Department of Labor during an administration that has made strong overtures to organized labor and to workers, both by communicating support for workers who are striking or seeking to unionize and through a series of regulatory, enforcement and legislative actions.
Among those initiatives are a rule that would make it more likely for workers to be considered employees, granting them access to a minimum wage and unemployment insurance, and legislation that provides incentives to owners of clean energy projects to pay wages similar to union rates.
Ms. Su’s contribution to these administration achievements won her widespread backing from labor unions.
Ms. Su, a speaker of Mandarin whose parents were immigrants, served as head of California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency before joining the Biden administration in 2021.
Before entering government, she was known for her work in the 1990s on behalf of several dozen Thai seamstresses who had been forced to work in a Southern California sweatshop for far below the minimum wage until the authorities freed them. Ms. Su helped the workers win compensation from the companies that used the sweatshop as a supplier. The MacArthur Foundation cited her work on behalf of the workers when it awarded her a “genius” grant in 2001. (New York Times).
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The Supreme Court continues to show partisan colors.
Conservative and liberals split at Supreme Court over Biden student loan plan.
A handful of Republican-dominated states seemed on the verge of invalidating President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, with a majority of the court's conservatives indicating great skepticism.
In 2003, after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed a law to ensure that federal student loan borrowers would not be economically hammered in a national emergency. Specifically, the law says that when the president declares such an emergency, the secretary of education has the power to "waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision" governing student loan programs.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations invoked the law to pause student debt payments without penalties during the pandemic. Then last year, President Biden, pressed by some progressives in his own party, went further with a plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief for borrowers with limited earnings.
Estimates of the plan's cost have ranged from $300 billion to $430 billion, but on Tuesday at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts went high. We're talking about "half a trillion" dollars in debt, and 43 million borrowers, he said. If you're going to "give up" that much money and "affect the obligations of that many Americans on a subject that's of great controversy, they would think that's something for Congress to act on," he added.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, replied that Congress had acted when it passed the 2003 law creating special provisions for student loan forgiveness during a declared national emergency.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh observed that when it comes to emergency powers, "some of the biggest mistakes in the court's history were deferring to assertions of executive or emergency power," and, "some of the finest moments in the court's history were pushing back against presidential assertions of emergency power."
Prelogar replied that in this case, the secretary of education made the necessary findings to justify the loan forgiveness. Without relief for debtors, there will be a "wave of default across the country with all of the negative consequences that has for borrowers," she said. Indeed, she argued, the Biden plan "is precisely the type of context where the executive should be able to implement those emergency powers."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor also focused on the borrowers. "They don't have friends or families or others who can help them make these payments," she said, adding that many of them will have to default, worsening their financial situation. "Once you default, the hardship on you is exponentially greater. You can't get credit, you're going to pay higher prices for things. They are going to continue to suffer from this pandemic in a way that the general population doesn't."
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett countered that a provision that gives the education secretary the power to waive and modify the terms of federal student loans is not the same thing as erasing all or part of those loans, wiping the debt off the books. (NPR).
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Chicago will have a new Mayor.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Fails in Re-Election Bid.
Paul Vallas, former head of Chicago’s public schools, campaigned on a tough-on-crime stance.
Brandon Johnson chatting with a supporter on Tuesday.
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In a stunning turnaround for Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who won all 50 wards in her 2019 victory, the incumbent failed in her fight for another term.
The Associated Press declared that Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson have secured a spot in April’s runoff election. Ms. Lightfoot conceded the race shortly before 9 p.m.
CHICAGO—Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her re-election bid by failing to garner enough votes to make a runoff election, a stunning fall for a candidate who had won all 50 of the city’s wards four years ago but had sparred with a powerful teacher’s union and been under fire for her response to rising crime.
The Associated Press declared Tuesday night that Paul Vallas, a more moderate Democrat who had won the support of the city’s police union, and Brandon Johnson, a liberal teacher’s union organizer, secured the two spots in April’s runoff election.
Ms. Lightfoot, who ran in third place, conceded the race shortly before 9 p.m. local time, well before all votes were counted. Ms. Lightfoot told supporters Tuesday that she had called Messrs. Vallas and Johnson to congratulate them and that she appreciated the love her supporters had shown her during the campaign. ( Wall Street Journal).
Chicago’s outgoing mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pauses during her concession speech as her spouse Amy Eshleman applauds during an election night party for the mayoral election Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, in Chicago.
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Jonathan Capehart makes a statement by leaving Washington Post Board.
Scoop: Jonathan Capehart quits WaPo editorial board, leaving no people of color
Jonathan Capehart quit the Washington Post editorial board after a dispute over an editorial about 2024 politics, leaving the paper with an all-white editorial board, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Capehart left the board at a time when the Post — based in a city where nearly half the population is Black — is swirling in internal discontent over the paper's leadership.
By comparison, the New York Times' 14-person editorial board has five people of color.
State of play: Since joining the Post as a member of its editorial board in 2007, Capehart has become one of the paper's most visible and influential faces.
Capehart — who remains a Post columnist, associate editor and podcaster — quit in December as a member of the board, which debates editorials that represent the views of the Post as an institution.
What happened: Capehart, a Black and gay Pulitzer winner, left the board in early December after a disagreement over a Dec. 6. editorial about the runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Herschel Walker.
He turned in his resignation to Post editorial page editor David Shipley shortly after the piece ran.
A Post spokesperson told Axios that the Post's Opinion section "is committed to diverse representation in all its pages" and that the section "plans to further expand the range of voices in the months to come."
"Writers like Keith Richburg and Mili Mitra regularly contribute editorials. In recent months, the section also announced the addition of several contributing columnists including Theodore Johnson, Natasha Sarin and Bina Venkataraman, among several others," the spokesperson said.
The big picture: The run-in between Capehart and the Post underscores the yearslong tensions at the paper over cultural issues.
Wesley Lowery, a Black, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Post reporter, suggested in a 2020 tweet after announcing his departure from the paper that his job had been threatened "for speaking out about mainstream media failures to properly cover and contextualize issues of race."
What to watch: The Washington Post continues to face business pressure as competitors like the New York Times grow.
The Post did not break even last year, thanks to heavy investments in new editorial verticals meant to expand its national footprint.
Top-level executives from the Post's newsroom and business side participated in an offsite retreat two weeks ago to discuss the paper's strategy and focus, one month after the paper cut 20 newsroom jobs and shut down its gaming section. (Axios).
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What kind of world do we want? That is what this fight 👇 is all about.
How Environmentally Conscious Investing Became a Target of Conservatives.
It’s been a widely accepted trend in financial circles for nearly two decades. But suddenly, Republicans have launched an assault on a philosophy that says that companies should be concerned with not just profits but also how their businesses affect the environment and society.
More than $18 trillion is held in investment funds that follow the investing principle known as E.S.G. — shorthand for prioritizing environmental, social and governance factors — a strategy that has been adopted by major corporations around the globe.
Now, Republicans around the country say Wall Street has taken a sharp left turn, attacking what they term “woke capitalism” and dragging businesses, their onetime allies, into the culture wars.
The rancor escalated on Tuesday as Republicans in Congress used their new majority in the House to vote by a margin of 216 to 204 to repeal a Department of Labor rule that allows retirement funds to consider climate change and other factors when choosing companies in which to invest. In the Senate, Republicans are lining up behind a similar effort and have been joined by Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia.
The Capitol Hill strategy has pulled President Biden into the fray, with the White House saying Mr. Biden will veto any bill to overturn the rule. (New York Times).
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Paternity Leave. America is behind.
Majority of countries guarantee paid paternity leave — but not the U.S.
Sixty-three percent of countries around the world provide guaranteed paid parental leave for fathers, according to a report out Tuesday morning from the World Policy Analysis Center.
Why it matters: Though support is growing for paternity leave, there's still a stigma attached to men who take time off to care for their children. Yet, studies find numerous benefits for the economy, for fathers, and for their partners.
"There is widespread recognition that we don't solve gender equality without dads getting leave," says Jody Heymann, founding director of the policy center and a UCLA distinguished professor of public health and public affairs.
The big picture: Back in the 1990s, only 46 countries had a paid leave policy for fathers, largely high-income nations, per the policy center's data. Now the number is nearly three times as high.
Conspicuously absent from the list: The U.S.
Worth noting: The U.S. is also one of just seven countries in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave.
The other countries are the small island nations Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga. (Axios).
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More on the origins of Covid.
FBI director says China trying to thwart Covid origin probe.
FBI Director Chris Wray said Tuesday that Beijing has stymied effortsby the U.S. and others to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.
In an interview with Fox News, Wray said the FBI believes that Covid probably originated from a "potential lab incident" in Wuhan but that the Chinese government has essentially interfered with the its ongoing probe.
"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News host Bret Baier.
“I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing, and that's unfortunate for everybody,” he added.
A report on the origins of Covid, commissioned by President Joe Biden and released by the National Intelligence Director’s Office in August 2021, showed that one U.S. intelligence agency had assessed with moderate confidence that the virus infected humans after a lab-associated incident; four other agencies assessed with low confidence that the virus emerged naturally. The report did not name the agencies, but intelligence officials have said the FBI was the agency with moderate confidence.
Sources have said the CIA is one of two intelligence agencies that are undecided about the virus's origins.
(NBC News).
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How was the weather near you?
Snow hits Mallorca, Spanish holiday island known for sun year round.
Mallorca, a popular Spanish holiday destination best known for its beaches and turquoise sea, was blanketed in snow as Arctic winds brought freezing conditions to its shores. Storm Juliette caused snowfall across the island Sunday, the Spanish meteorological agency AEMET said. Mountainous areas, particularly in the north of the island, were particularly affected, with roads blocked in some areas. Photos showed snow across the island — a marked change in a place famous, according to its tourism board, for having more than 300 days of sunshine per year.
Climate change is expected to have other effects on the Balearic Islands, with one study into the impacts of climate change projecting changes including higher temperatures, heat waves, a reduction in average precipitation and an increase in sea levels.
Other parts of the world also have experienced extreme weather in recent months — including Europe’s warmest summer on record last year, wildfires in Chile and snow in Southern California. (Washington Post).
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2 Pilots took time to smell the roses, or whatever is the metaphoric equivalent for going off course to see some special lights.
Northern lights: 2 flights made unscheduled loops in the sky.
(CNN) — A most welcome flight diversion. That’s a rarity for commercial airline passengers, but it’s what travelers on at least two flights got this week when their planes looped around to give everyone a good view of the northern lights.
Also known as the aurora borealis, the natural phenomenon is something travelers often make pricey trips to high latitudes just to witness.
Those on easyJet flight 1806 from Reykjavik to Manchester and Finnair flight 488 from Kuusamo to Helsinki all got a light show for the price of their airfare. Flight tracking sites show both planes made small loops mid-flight.
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