April 27, 2024

You are here: Home / 2021 / Archives for August 2021

Archives for August 2021

Mike Richards Is Out as ‘Jeopardy!’ Executive Producer

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

But it was Mr. Richards who won out, despite having virtually no name recognition among viewers and the fact that, as the show’s executive producer, he had overseen elements of the replacement process. Old lawsuits also resurfaced from Mr. Richards’s last job running “The Price Is Right” that included accusations of sexist behavior.

“Jeopardy!” first aired in 1964 and became a beloved TV institution that still draws millions of weekly viewers. The furor surrounding Mr. Richards pierced the show’s above-the-fray reputation, long cultivated by the understated Mr. Trebek, and subjected it to intense debates about diversity, privilege and behavior in the modern workplace.

Sony’s leadership was also facing scrutiny for the mess. “Jeopardy!” had been a reliable jewel in the studio’s television portfolio, quietly earning tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. But its messy succession drama roiled fans and raised questions about why Sony had not discovered Mr. Richards’s past offensive behavior before naming him as the new host.

The report in The Ringer revealed offensive comments Mr. Richards made on a podcast, including a 2013 episode where Mr. Richards called his female co-host a “booth slut” because she once worked as a model at a consumer show in Las Vegas. He described women who wear one-piece swimsuits as looking “really frumpy and overweight” and referred to stereotypes about Jews and large noses, prompting outrage from the Anti-Defamation League.

Mr. Richards, in a memo to the “Jeopardy!” staff on Aug. 20 announcing he would step down as host, wrote that “it pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on ‘Jeopardy!’ as we look to start a new chapter.”

He closed the memo by writing, “I know I have a lot of work to do to regain your trust and confidence.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/media/jeopardy-mike-richards.html

Filed Under: Media Business

Social Security is projected to be insolvent a year earlier than previously forecast.

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Long term, the actuaries said they did not think Covid-19 itself would have substantial influence on Medicare spending on hospital care. On the one hand, the death of many vulnerable, older Americans from the virus may reduce future spending they would otherwise have received. On the other, the actuaries expect that some people may have additional health care needs from the syndrome known as long Covid.

:not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid }#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid }.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:text-decoration-color:}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:-webkit-text-decoration-color:text-decoration-color:}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}]]>

The 2022 fiscal year for the federal government begins on October 1, and President Biden has revealed what he’d like to spend, starting then. But any spending requires approval from both chambers of Congress. Here’s what the plan includes:

    • Ambitious total spending: President Biden would like the federal government to spend $6 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year, and for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031. That would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II, while running deficits above $1.3 trillion through the next decade.
    • Infrastructure plan: The budget outlines the president’s desired first year of investment in his American Jobs Plan, which seeks to fund improvements to roads, bridges, public transit and more with a total of $2.3 trillion over eight years.
    • Families plan: The budget also addresses the other major spending proposal Biden has already rolled out, his American Families Plan, aimed at bolstering the United States’ social safety net by expanding access to education, reducing the cost of child care and supporting women in the work force.
    • Mandatory programs: As usual, mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare make up a significant portion of the proposed budget. They are growing as America’s population ages.
    • Discretionary spending: Funding for the individual budgets of the agencies and programs under the executive branch would reach around $1.5 trillion in 2022, a 16 percent increase from the previous budget.
    • How Biden would pay for it: The president would largely fund his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners, which would begin to shrink budget deficits in the 2030s. Administration officials have said tax increases would fully offset the jobs and families plans over the course of 15 years, which the budget request backs up. In the meantime, the budget deficit would remain above $1.3 trillion each year.

The actuaries declined to make any estimates on the effect of Aduhelm, a very expensive Alzheimer’s treatment that was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The report said that officials were waiting for Medicare to issue guidance on how the drug will be covered before making any calculations. The drug could represent tens of billions of dollars in spending each year.

Democrats in Congress are considering a host of changes to the Medicare program, such as adding new benefits, including coverage for dental, hearing and vision care. While these changes are expected to influence Medicare’s overall finances, none of them are likely to have major effects on the trust fund, which covers only hospital care.

“Medicare trust fund solvency is an incredibly important, longstanding issue, and we are committed to working with Congress to continue building a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable Medicare program,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/economy/social-security-funding.html

Filed Under: Economy News

How Facebook Relies on Accenture to Scrub Toxic Content

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

In 2010, Accenture scored an accounting contract with Facebook. By 2012, that had expanded to include a deal for moderating content, particularly outside the United States.

That year, Facebook sent employees to Manila and Warsaw to train Accenture workers to sort through posts, two former Facebook employees involved with the trip said. Accenture’s workers were taught to use a Facebook software system and the platform’s guidelines for leaving content up, taking it down or escalating it for review.

What started as a few dozen Accenture moderators grew rapidly.

By 2015, Accenture’s office in the San Francisco Bay Area had set up a team, code-named Honey Badger, just for Facebook’s needs, former employees said. Accenture went from providing about 300 workers in 2015 to about 3,000 in 2016. They are a mix of full-time employees and contractors, depending on the location and task.

The firm soon parlayed its work with Facebook into moderation contracts with YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and others, executives said. (The digital content moderation industry is projected to reach $8.8 billion next year, according to Everest Group, roughly double the 2020 total.) Facebook also gave Accenture contracts in areas like checking for fake or duplicate user accounts and monitoring celebrity and brand accounts to ensure they were not flooded with abuse.

After federal authorities discovered in 2016 that Russian operatives had used Facebook to spread divisive posts to American voters for the presidential election, the company ramped up the number of moderators. It said it would hire more than 3,000 people — on top of the 4,500 it already had — to police the platform.

“If we’re going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a 2017 post.

The next year, Facebook hired Arun Chandra, a former Hewlett Packard Enterprise executive, as vice president of scaled operations to help oversee the relationship with Accenture and others. His division is overseen by Ms. Sandberg.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/technology/facebook-accenture-content-moderation.html

Filed Under: Media Business

India’s Economy, Slammed by Covid-19, Needs Its Lost Growth

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The lockdowns in 2021 were nowhere near as severe as the nationwide curbs last year, which pushed millions of people out of cities and into rural areas, often on foot because rail and other transportation had been suspended.

Throughout the second wave, core infrastructure projects across the country, which employ millions of domestic migrant workers, were exempted from restrictions. More than 15,000 miles of Indian highway projects, along with rail and city metro improvements, continued.

On Tuesday, Dr. Pant said India’s growth estimates of 20.1 percent for the April-through-June period were nothing but an “illusion.” Growth contracted so sharply around the same period last year, by a record 24 percent, that even double-digit gains this year would leave the economy behind where it was two years ago.

Economists say India needs to spend, even splurge, to unlock the full potential of its huge low-skilled work force. “There is a need for very simple primary health facilities, primary services to deliver nutrition to children,” Mr. Vyas said. “All these are highly labor intensive jobs, and these are government services largely.”

One of the reasons Indian governments typically have not spent in those areas, Mr. Vyas said, is that it has been considered “not a sexy thing to do.” Another is the governments’ “dogmatic fixation” with keeping fiscal deficits in control, he said. The government simply can’t rely on private sector alone for creating jobs, Mr. Vyas said.

The “only solution,” he said, is for the government to spend and spur private investment. “You have a de-motivated private sector because there isn’t enough demand. That’s what’s holding India back.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/economy/india-economy-covid.html

Filed Under: Economy News

South Korea becomes the first nation to stop Google & Apple charging commissions on in-app purchases

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The final vote was 180 in favor out of 188 attending to pass the amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act, dubbed the “Anti-Google law.”

The approved amendment is aimed at stopping the technology majors from charging commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases. The bill, which will come into force after being signed by President Moon Jae-in, also bans app-store operators with dominant market positions from “inappropriately” delaying the review of, or deleting of, mobile content from app markets. 

Also on rt.com Germany’s anti-monopoly watchdog opens probe against Apple

“It’s a model that keeps device costs low for consumers and enables both platforms and developers to succeed financially. And, just as it costs developers money to build an app, it costs us money to build and maintain an operating system and app store,” a Google spokesperson told Reuters, adding that Google Play provides far more than payment processing, and its service fee helps keep Android free.

In March, Google said it would cut Google Play Store fees from 30% to 15% for the first million dollars a developer makes on the platform per year. Apple said in November it will halve charges from 30% to 15% for software developers with less than $1 million in annual net sales on the App Store. 

Also on rt.com More than half of US states sue Google for ‘extravagant’ fees in company’s app store

“We believe user trust in App Store purchases will decrease as a result of this proposal – leading to fewer opportunities for the over 482,000 registered developers in Korea who have earned more than KRW8.55 trillion [$7.4 billion] to date with Apple,” Apple said, commenting on the latest move.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/533547-south-korea-apple-google-ban/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

China’s refinery crackdown leaves oil tankers with nowhere to go

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Approximately a quarter of the nation’s mammoth refining capacity comes from these independent refineries, known as “teapots.”

Beijing allowed these private refiners with their most limited crude import quota since 2015, when teapots were first able to directly buy their own oil. This blow to a significant portion of the nation’s refining capacity is currently causing major disruption to the supply chain of crude oil in the region. This is not only a problem for China’s oil supply and voracious demand, but for all of the many countries that supply petroleum to the world’s largest crude oil importer. Because of the crackdown, oil tankers are currently piling up off the shores of key Asian ports.

Also on rt.com China discovers massive shale deposit at its largest oil field

“Vessels off Singapore, Malaysia and China had about 62 million barrels last week after hitting a near three-month high earlier this month,” Bloomberg reported earlier this week.

Some of these stranded ships are carrying oil from Iran and Venezuela, countries which are currently under sanction from the United States, and which will therefore have a very hard time finding another buyer for their oil if the Chinese market dries up. 

“These barrels sitting off Southeast Asia are distressed,” Braemar ACM Shipbroking’s tanker researcher Anoop Singh told Bloomberg. “They’re going to have a tough time finding homes other than China, unless the situation surrounding the US sanctions changes dramatically, or China’s clampdown on its independents is eased.”

Also on rt.com China’s commodity stockpiles remain a complete mystery

The sticky situation for the sanctioned oil is compounded by a Chinese consumption tax that Beijing rolled out in June as part of its extended crackdown. With the stated purpose of addressing pollution, the tax impacts bitumen blends used for road-making, which have historically served as a cover for the comings and goings of Iranian and Venezuelan crude. The tax has hit imports hard, with bitumen imports shrinking by a massive 80 percent since their peak in May.

Read more on Oilprice.com: Fujairah oil terminal to upgrade as crude trade is expected to surge

In the last five years, China’s teapots have gained significant power in China’s energy sector. The current crackdown serves a dual purpose. According to Chinese officials, the goal is to shore up oversight, ensure legal compliance, and cut back on widespread bad behaviors such as tax evasion, fuel smuggling, and violations of environmental and emissions standards. Unofficially, however, the crackdown serves to re-establish state control over private-sector entities who have gotten a little big for their britches in the eyes of Beijing. 

While the politics of the oil pileup are complex and especially fraught for Venezuela and Iran, whose suffering economies will be hit hard by their trickle of oil trade drying up, the move is a popular one among environmentalists and climate activists. Earlier this month the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sounded a “code red for humanity” in a damning report announcing that the world has reached a point of no return for global warming. Any amount of oil that remains unused can be seen as a win for the climate, even if that oil is doomed to float off Asian shores for the foreseeable future. 

Also on rt.com China’s first independent deepwater oil gas project starts operating ahead of schedule

Arguably, no nation is as instrumental in the fight against climate change as China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter and its second-largest economy. President Xi Jinping has committed to lofty climate pledges, promising that China will reach peak oil demand by just 2030 and go completely carbon neutral by 2060, but it’s also clear that China’s primary goal is energy security at any cost. For example, Beijing has ramped up coal production overseas at the same time it promises to limit its domestic capacity.

Whether or not China’s private refinery crackdown is aimed at compliance with environmental regulations or with re-establishing the state’s chokehold on the sector, however, refining and burning less oil in China stands to have some very good consequences for all of us.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/533536-chinas-refinery-crackdown-tankers-stranded/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Russia to start year-round sailing on its Arctic sea route within 5 years – minister

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

“The range of work of the NSR is constantly growing. I think we will sail all year round within a horizon of five years. The icebreaker ‘Leader’ and other new ice-class vessels should help us in this,” the minister said in an interview with Russian business daily RBK.

Also on rt.com Russia building most powerful icebreaker fleet, aims for year-round sailing on its Arctic sea route – Putin

He added that the Arctic Route will succeed as the world’s new traffic lane only when a regular container line from the Far East to Murmansk or St. Petersburg is launched. According to Chekunov, the strategic objective is to maximize cargo operations by ramping up and boosting the efficiency of Russian shipping along the route.

“In that case, we will create a real alternative to the southern route,” he said.

The NSR runs along the Russian Arctic coast and Siberia from the Kara Sea east of Novaya Zemlya to the Bering Strait. The transport lane falls inside Russia’s exclusive economic zone in the Arctic region. The 5.5 thousand kilometre NSR is one of three transportation routes linking Russia’s Far East with the European part of the country.

Also on rt.com Russia wants to open its Arctic seas to international shipping

Earlier, authorities announced plans to renovate Russia’s entire system of transport corridors by 2030 – including the operating railway route, which includes the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian Railways, and a motorway connecting Russia’s border with Finland to western Siberia.Under the ambitious plan, the Arctic route is expected to become a major trade artery.

The cargo being shipped through the lane is projected to exceed 80 million tons as soon as 2024. While it is the shortest passage between Europe and Asia, it is usually closed for several months due to the thick ice, but the fleet of new icebreakers escorting other ships could solve the problem of navigating it year-round.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/533518-arctic-route-year-round-navigation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

The Economy Is Booming but Far From Normal, Posing a Challenge for Biden

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Compounding the problem, employment in the biggest cities fell further than in smaller cities and rural areas, and it has rebounded more slowly. Employment among workers without a college degree living in the biggest cities is down more than 5 percent since February 2020, compared with about 2 percent for workers without a college degree in other parts of the country.

Even as millions of people remain out of work, businesses across the country are struggling to fill a record number of job openings. Many businesses have blamed expanded unemployment benefits for the labor shortage. If they are right, a flood of workers should be returning to the job market when the benefits end after Labor Day. But recent research has suggested that the benefits are playing at most a small role in keeping people out of the work force. That suggests that other factors are holding potential workers back, such as health concerns and child care issues, which might not ease quickly.

The Michigan sentiment data and the fade-out of stimulus benefits suggest consumers may be set to pull back spending further. But other data shows Americans increased their savings during the pandemic, in part by banking previous rounds of government support, and could draw on those funds to maintain spending for months to come.

Administration officials hope to buck up consumers and workers by pushing Congress to pass the two halves of Mr. Biden’s longer-term economic agenda: a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger spending bill that could extend expanded tax credits for parents, subsidize child care and reduce prescription drug costs, among other initiatives.

“Our hope is that the new normal coming out of this crisis is not simply a return to the status quo and the economy, which was one that was not working for most working families,” Mr. Deese said.

The virus remains the biggest wild card for the outlook. There is little evidence in government data that the spread of the Delta variant has suppressed spending in retail stores. But air travel, as measured by the number of people screened at airport security checkpoints, has tailed off in recent days after returning to about 80 percent of where it was during the same week in 2019.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/business/economy/biden-economy.html

Filed Under: Economy News

PayPal to offer stock-trading platform to American users – reports

August 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The online payment operator hired brokerage industry veteran Rich Hagen, who co-founded online brokerage TradeKing, to “explore opportunities” for the move, according to unnamed sources familiar with the issue, as quoted by CNBC.

Also on rt.com PayPal to allow users to move cryptocurrency to third-party wallets

PayPal will reportedly cooperate with a brokerage or purchase a broker-dealer. People close to the matter told the agency that the California-based firm is in talks with potential partners. The PayPal trading service is not likely to be rolled out in 2021.

The move comes amid a retail trading boom that reportedly brought over 10 million new individual investors into the stock market in the first six months of the current year. Robinhood, which went public this summer, has reportedly recorded explosive growth accumulating more than 22.5 million customers. The financial service reportedly doubled its revenue in the most recent quarter compared to a year ago.

The growing interest in the stock market from amateur investors has been boosted by a perfect combo of government stimulus checks, people reluctantly staying in due to the pandemic-related restrictions, along with speculative buying fever that hit Wall Street in January after users of Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum managed to coordinate massive short squeezes.

Also on rt.com GameStop short-sellers losing BILLIONS as wildly popular meme stock soars

The latest news comes nearly a year after PayPal expanded its business into the cryptocurrency market. Last October, the financial service provider said it would let US users buy, sell and hold bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin.
Shares in PayPal grew by more than 3% after reports emerged of its trading platform plans, while Robinhood shares dropped by around 3%.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/533509-paypal-stock-trading-platform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Schemer or Naïf? Elizabeth Holmes Is Going to Trial.

August 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Her high profile presents a challenge in finding jurors who have not formed opinions about her or the case. Jury members filled out a 28-page questionnaire outlining their media consumption, medical experiences and whether they have heard of Ms. Holmes or seen her TED Talk. About half of the more than 200 potential jurors had consumed media related to the case, according to a court filing last week.

It is unclear whether Ms. Holmes will take the stand to defend herself. As Theranos’s chief executive and chairwoman, she was persuasive and inspiring. She fiercely defended Theranos and dismissed any criticism as a sign that the company was changing the world.

But if Ms. Holmes takes the stand, prosecutors could use past statements to hurt her credibility. In a Securities and Exchange Commission deposition in 2017, she responded to questions by saying “I don’t know” at least 600 times.

“It will be hard for her to say, ‘I remember it this way,’ when she said ‘I don’t know’ so many times,” said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School who is not involved in the case. “That is the most damaging evidence against her.”

By the time the United States indicted Ms. Holmes in 2018, the once high-flying Theranos was all but dead.

Ms. Holmes founded the start-up at age 19 in 2003 and dropped out of Stanford soon after. She hired Mr. Balwani in 2009 and raised more than $700 million from investors, valuing Theranos at $9 billion. The Palo Alto, Calif., company struck deals with Walgreens and Safeway to offer its blood testing in their stores. It also attracted dignitaries, senators and generals — including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Frist and James Mattis — to its board of directors.

“We’ve reinvented the traditional laboratory infrastructure,” Ms. Holmes said at a 2014 conference. “It eliminates the need for people to have needles stuck in their arm.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/technology/trial-elizabeth-holmes-theranos.html

Filed Under: Small Business
Next Page »