The starting salary for a new American Airlines flight attendant is low enough to qualify for food stamps in some states

Sunny Nagpaul
Tue, May 21, 2024

New flight attendants—faced with low starting wages, long days with relatively fewer payable hours, and no opportunity to renegotiate wages on their contacts since 2019, even while inflation has been steadily rising—need to weather a lot of turbulence en route to a financially stable career path.

An employment verification letter from American Airlines is circulating on Reddit and collecting attention because of how low starting wages are for some newly hired flight attendants. The letter, which states that a new American Airlines flight attendant will have a projected annual salary of $27,315 before incentives and taxes are collected, has sparked conversations about fair wages for flight attendants and how inflationary price hikes are making life unaffordable for many Americans—even if the economy and labor markets look good on paper.

The union that represents American Airlines workers, called the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, verified the authenticity of the letter, CNN reported, which is issued for potential landlords or other services where flight attendants need to verify their employment and income.

While the salary listed in the letter is above the federal poverty line of $15,060 for a single-person household, that figure doesn’t reflect the true cost of living on a national level, which can be much higher in major metropolitan areas.

The union has also been calling out the low starting pay, which for a single-income household meets the qualification criteria for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food-stamp benefits, in several states including Massachusetts and New York.

The union is also calling attention to a growing issue of “corporate greed” by drawing comparisons between the wages an flight attendant can earn as opposed to what the company’s CEO, Robert Isom, earns.

The starting salary for a new flight attendant is about $27,000 per year, which is just a fraction of the CEO’s $31.4 million earned last year—an amount 1,162 times greater than the earnings of a new attendant.

American Airlines did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

To be sure, a concoction of challenges lie between the union representing American Airlines’ flight attendants and management. Under a federal law called the Railway Labor Act, workers and union members in the airline and railroad industries are not allowed to go on strike without permission from the government. Federal mediator groups, like the National Mediation Board, could authorize such permission by declaring an impasse in negotiations between American Airlines and the union group, or by allowing the union to pursue a potential strike.

The last contract the union negotiated was signed in 2014, according to a November update by the association, and workers have been without a raise since 2019.

“Flight attendants are frontline workers left shouldering the weight of inflation without the compensation needed to keep pace with the industry,” the association wrote in a statement, and added that attendants’ quality of life “could be improved with a new collective bargaining agreement.”

Recently the union has been pushing for a new contract to raise hourly wages, joining flight attendants from other airlines, including United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest, which are making similar demands.

Ensuring flight attendants are properly paid is especially important considering their work model includes many hours of unpaid work. On average, full-time flight attendants only get about 75 hours of hourly pay each month, and pay often only officially begins once the plane’s doors close, rather than compensation that also accounts for hours when they need to be at the airport or on the plane during the boarding process.

“One of the most stressful parts of the flight experience is during the boarding process,” the union wrote in a May 20 summary, adding, “yet we are not paid for this work.”

Securing boarding pay, the union wrote, “is an important step in addressing this historic inequity”; other airlines have notably been making those changes, albeit slowly. In June 2022, Delta Air Lines instituted boarding pay for flight attendants, offering workers half their hourly rate during boarding, after facing threats of a union campaign. Delta, however, is the only major U.S. airline whose flight attendants are not unionized.

The union is now proposing a 33% pay raise with a cap at $91 per hour during the first year of a new contract, with pay raises of 5%, 4%, and 4% for the remaining years of a four-year agreement. It’s also calling for retroactive pay raises based on how much attendants worked during the last five years of negotiations.

American Airlines “refused to budge off a top rate of $76 per hour, plus boarding pay and other improvements,” the union wrote in the summary, but the company included benefits like boarding pay, higher 401K matching contributions, and profit sharing on the same formula as pilots in its most recent contract proposal to the union.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Environmental groups critical of new B.C. government old-growth logging report

CBC
Sun, May 26, 2024 

Advocate Eddie Petryshen walks next to logs that were cut from old-growth trees near Revelstoke, B.C. The B.C. government has released a report on its progress on some recommendations regarding old-growth logging — with environmental advocates saying the government should move quicker.

 (Camille Vernet/Radio-Canada - image credit)


The B.C. government has released a report on its progress protecting old-growth forests, but some First Nations and environmental groups say the plan released Friday falls short.

The report comes three years after the B.C. government committed to policies to conserve old-growth trees, and includes updated timelines on protections for old growth.

Now, environmental groups are urging the government to accelerate its protections and issue emergency logging bans in old-growth forests.


Sarah Korpan, B.C. government campaign specialist with non-profit Ecojustice, said she was disappointed to see the province change its timeline for implementing enhanced old-growth protection.

"This highlights a pattern of behaviour from this government of delaying the action required to meaningfully protect at-risk species and ecosystems, including old growth forests," she said.

The remains of a cut block is seen near Port Renfrew in 2021. Canada's forest carbon accounting system is a complex model that estimates the carbon in harvested trees, along with the carbon removals from the replanted trees and many other sources to get an accurate picture of forest emissions.

The province committed to deliver on 14 recommendations, including enhanced mapping and monitoring of old-growth forests. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

Old-growth trees, according to the province, are those trees that are at least 140 years old in B.C.'s Interior, and 250 years old on the coast.

In 2020, the province committed to a three-year action plan to protect old-growth forests which included protecting at-risk old-growth forests and policies to protect biodiversity and ecosystems.

The province committed to deliver on 14 recommendations, including enhancing mapping and monitoring of old-growth forests, consulting Indigenous leaders and deferring development in old forests.

More than three years later, the province says in its new report it has implemented eight recommendations, and has extended deadlines to deliver on the remaining six recommendations.

Now, the province has committed to finalizing its framework for stewarding land and water by 2025, along with producing a plan to address the ecological risks of forest service and other resource roads.

It will also run a compliance program until 2029 to ensure its orders on old-growth areas are followed.

First Nations urging faster action

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said in a press release the action plan is a "welcome step," but the B.C. government must accelerate its timeline.

"We are pleased that this government shares our concern for old-growth trees," he said. "We must take immediate steps to stop the logging of at-risk old-growth on the ground."

In its report, the B.C. government said after consulting with First Nations, it has temporarily protected 2.4 million hectares of old forest by designating it as what's known as a deferral area.

Indigenous leaders in British Columbia say opposition political leaders derailed a plan that would have cleared the way for shared decision-making between the province and First Nations about the use of public land in their territories. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, says they are "disgusted" that the leaders of BC United and the B.C. Conservatives "leveraged" the province's plan "as a shameless opportunity for partisan political gain." Phillip speaks during a news conference in Vancouver, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.More

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said in a statement that the government should accelerate its timeline for protecting old-growth forests. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press)

The process, which the province introduced in 2021, prevents logging in an area for two to four years. Korpan said what happens to the trees in these deferral areas once that period ends is unclear.

Tegan Hansen, senior forest campaigner for Stand.Earth, said the government's plan lacks a commitment to bring a long-term end to logging in old-growth forests.

"What we can't do is let these really vulnerable, irreplaceable stands of old-growth be cut down," Hansen said. "We really need to look at the urgency from the province and ask our elected officials to take a stand."

Jens Wieting, the senior policy and science adviser for Sierra Club B.C., says that the last time the province collected data on rates of old-growth logging was in 2022.

"We need more transparency. We need more up-to-date information," he said. "The last data available for 2022 shows over 160 soccer fields' [worth] of old growth forests getting logged every day."


B.C. misses the mark with old growth update, critics claim

Local Journalism Initiative
Fri, May 24, 2024 



The B.C. government continues to move at a glacial pace to meet an overdue promise to transform the logging industry and protect endangered old growth forests and ecosystems, say B.C. conservation groups.

On Monday, the province issued its latest progress report on transforming forestry practices to preserve ancient forests and vital ecosystems and meet 14 calls to action from the old-growth strategic review (OGSR) completed in spring of 2020.

The From Review to Action plan is a lackluster effort that fails to include any new steps, specific details, or deadlines urgently needed to preserve what little old growth remains, said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s senior policy and science advisor.

“I’m disappointed. Without ambitious timelines and milestones, the newly-released update does not guarantee the necessary forestry reforms nor timely interim and long-term protection of at-risk old-growth,” said Wieting.

It’s been four years since the review was completed. The plan included immediate, short and long-term targets for industry changes over a three year period, he noted.

The most urgent review recommendations called for the immediate deferral of logging in diverse forests facing the greatest risk of irreversible biodiversity loss, protecting more massive trees, partnering with First Nations to include communities’ input in forestry decisions and developing public transparency and reporting in the industry.

“Now we’re seeing the province say, ‘It will take years to achieve the full intent of some of the recommendations,’” Wieting said.

In the old growth update, the province cited progress on forestry reforms and biodiversity protection, highlighting a $1.1-billion three-way agreement between British Columbia, Indigenous leaders, and Ottawa to protect 30 per cent of B.C.'s land and oceans by 2030.

The province is also improving on-the-ground understanding on the state of old growth forests through better mapping, data and knowledge sharing, and aims to create more local forestry jobs, the update said.

"Aligned with the Old Growth Strategic Review, we are supporting local decision-making in forest landscape planning, getting fibre that was previously considered waste to mills and boosting made-in-B.C. wood manufacturing that provides more local jobs for every tree harvested," said Forestry Minister Bruce Ralston in an emailed statement.

“By working together, we will make sure our forests are healthy and continue to benefit communities and people for the long term.”

The province’s ongoing commitment and work with First Nations to implement the strategy’s goals is commendable, Wieting said.

However, most notably, the province has secured logging deferrals in less than half of the 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth areas sheltering the biggest, oldest trees, or the rarest or most ecologically important habitat prioritized by the technical advisory panel (TAP) in 2021, he stressed.

That still leaves 1.3 million hectares of the most critical stands without any apparent protection from logging, Wieting said. The government is working to improve mapping and data on old growth forests, but has more than enough existing information to take interim measures to secure deferrals in the highest priority areas, he added.

Ralston's office did not provide comment or respond to questions by Canada's National Observer about what the plan is for the unprotected priority deferral areas moving forward and what level of protection, if any, they can expect.

To date, the province and First Nations have temporarily deferred logging in 2.4 million hectares of old growth in 11 areas throughout B.C., including some parts of the Fairy Creek watershed and central Walbran area, where a number of tense and protracted logging blockades took place.

However, it's not clear to what extent those announced deferrals are a result of new protection measures, or if they include previously existing provincial forestry protection measures already in place, such as the old growth or wildlife management areas protected from logging set up in the Fairy Creek region.

Further, there's also little clarity about where the TAP’s prioritized deferrals areas are located and how long the temporary protections are in place, said Tobyn Neame, forest campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, in a statement.

The old growth update states the immediate recommendations in the review such as the urgent TAP deferrals are in “advanced” stages of completion, an assessment the Wilderness Committee categorically disputes, said Neame.

However, in tandem with the report, the forestry ministry website did release some data that gave a partial breakdown of the current inventory of old growth forests in B.C. — such as how much old growth is deferred overall, the amount of prioritized TAP areas deferred or not and what TAP areas have been harvested since 2021.

To date, only three per cent of the total TAP prioritized areas, or 77,847 hectares, fall inside timber harvest areas with existing cutting permits. Nearly a third of that amount — predominantly big tree old growth — has been logged, according to the ministry. The minister's office did not clarify if additional cutting permits will be issued moving forward in other unprotected TAP priority areas.

The report also postpones the spring roll-out of B.C.’s new blueprint to protect biodiversity until 2025 after the provincial election, said Neame. The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework plan aims to develop wildlife recovery plans, research and laws that value nature over resource extraction and collaboratively steward B.C.'s lands and waters with First Nations.

The Nature Agreement and attached funding is a critical and immediate tool the province could employ, said Wieting. It would allow First Nations to consider old growth logging deferrals in their territories. Securing the immediate and long-term protection of the most ecologically valuable old growth stands could pay a double dividend by helping B.C. meet its commitment to protect 30 per cent of its most valuable forests and lands, Wieting noted.

“It will take generations for industrially degraded forests to recover,” he said.

“But we don’t need many years to protect what's left of the last endangered old growth forests, to implement the paradigm shift in forest stewardship and move away from destructive logging and ongoing loss of biodiversity.”

Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Biden overtime pay rule challenged by US business groups

Updated Thu, May 23, 2024
By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) -A coalition of U.S. business groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Biden administration rule that would extend mandatory overtime pay to 4 million workers, saying it goes too far.

The groups filed a complaint in Sherman, Texas federal court late on Wednesday claiming the U.S. Department of Labor lacked the power to adopt the rule and that it would force businesses to cut jobs and limit workers' hours.

The rule would require employers to pay overtime premiums to workers who earn a salary of less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week.


The current threshold of about $35,500 per year was set by the Trump administration in a 2020 rule that advocacy groups and many Democrats have said does not cover enough workers.

The business groups in the lawsuit said the costs of complying with the new rule "will force many smaller employers and non-profits operating on fixed budgets to cut critical programming, staffing, and services to the public."

The Labor Department declined to comment. In adopting the rule, the agency said that lower-paid salaried workers often do the same jobs as their hourly counterparts, but work more hours for no additional pay.

The groups involved in the lawsuit include the National Federation of Independent Business, the International Franchise Association and the National Retail Federation.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump.

The only other judge in Sherman, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant, in 2017 blocked a rule that would have raised the overtime salary threshold to about $47,000.

Mazzant said the cutoff was so high that it would sweep in some management employees who are not entitled to overtime pay under federal wage law.

"The Department’s 2024 Overtime Rule largely repeats the errors of the 2016 Rule and fails to address the flaws previously identified by this Court," the business groups said in their lawsuit.

Under the new rule, the salary threshold will increase to $43,888 on July 1 and to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. And starting in 2027, the threshold will automatically increase every three years to reflect changes in average earnings.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, William Maclean)

HSBC’s Americas Chief Says He Won’t Compel 5 Days in the Office

Todd Gillespie and Manus Cranny
Thu, May 23, 2024 


(Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc won’t force US staffers back to the office five days a week unless new regulations from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority require it.

“We will adjust to the Finra rules, we will make sure whoever needs to be here five days a week will be here five days a week, but I don’t want to decree people coming back,” Michael Roberts, chief executive officer for the US and Americas, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “I want them to come back because they want to come back and they feel productive and they feel good about it.”

Finra is preparing to sunset pandemic-era accommodations for monitoring brokers, traders and other staff. Banks are weighing how many workers they’ll force to return to the office full-time, while the regulator itself has said tighter attendance policies aren’t necessarily required, depending on how banks respond to the rules.

Even without new requirements, HSBC’s New York office attendance has doubled to 80% after the company opened its new building to employees, Roberts said at the offices in New York’s Hudson Yards neighborhood.

Read More: Wall Street’s Five-Day Office Rules Aren’t Our Fault, Finra Says

“Today, our overall attendance levels are 80%,” he added. “Before we moved? Less than 40%. We’re running out of space very quickly, and in fact we just took some additional space in this building.”

The London-based company is looking to establish more of a footprint in the US, where many of its wealthiest corporate and individual clients have a significant presence. HSBC officially opens its local office on Thursday, where about 400 traders are working and the bank recently opened a new flagship wealth hub. It has about 214,000 employees worldwide.

The bank is also on the hunt for its next chief executive officer after Noel Quinn’s surprise announcement last month that he’ll be stepping down. The board is leaning toward appointing an internal candidate, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.

There “clearly is an advantage for someone who knows the institution” to take the top job, Roberts said, declining to say if he will put himself up for it. The bank is talking to both internal and external candidates, he added.

More than two-thirds of bosses are ‘accidental managers’—and their requests for proper training are being ignored

Eleanor Pringle
Thu, May 23, 2024 


Getty

You're not alone if you ever feel like your boss isn't cut out to be a manager. But it's not just peers who might feel their superior is underqualified—bosses themselves increasingly say they're not equipped for the task.

Management is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge.

Bosses are still trying to manage conversations about hybrid and in-office working patterns and integrate a new generation—Gen Z—into the workforce. Managers are also having to race to keep up with what AI means for their teams and ensure employees are suitably skilled for the tasks ahead.

So it's perhaps no wonder that a new survey has found a significant proportion of bosses feel "overwhelmed" and "underequipped."


66% of managers have had no formal training for their roles and are thus defined as "accidental managers"'" by global recruitment agency Robert Walters.

The business conducted a survey with 2,000 white-collar professionals in the U.K. last month, and found individuals are increasingly being promoted up the ranks without adequate preparation for the move.

In addition to the more than two-thirds of managers who are "accidental," a further 22% said they were "quietly promoted," which entailed being given responsibility for other people without formal acknowledgment, a pay increase, or a title change.

This means a total of more than eight in 10 managers have found themselves in their roles without the clear intention of preparing to become a team leader—hence the perhaps unsurprising figure that 35% of bosses have repeatedly asked their employers for training.

Almost half of those who have asked for support multiple times said they felt "overwhelmed" and "underequipped" for their role.

Gerrit Bouckaert, CEO of the recruitment specialists that work in 31 countries, said the trend of accidental management has become more "pronounced" in recent years.

He added: “Modern-day managers need to cope with remote management, a greater focus on mental health, and the emergence of Gen Zs in the workplace—how do you train someone to handle all of that? In the past, a manager’s primary role was to keep employees motivated and productive—in today’s world they are required to drive the culture and inclusion in the team, lead on digital adoption, possess an innate ability to know if a member of their team is struggling mentally, and also be the bearer of bad news—be it delayed promotions, or muted pay rises.

“New research is even emerging that today’s managers are at risk of ‘empathy burnout’—whereby too much is being asked of them from an emotional perspective."

While the training industry in the U.S. alone is worth more than $100 billion, a one-size-fits-all approach to bring all managers up to speed may not be the silver bullet employers are hoping for.

"It would be amiss of me to say that a standardized management training program will fix the problem—not everyone is the same, and nor should we encourage that," Bouckaert added.

"One thing that is vital but often overlooked is ‘transition’ coaching or mentoring—preparing a professional over a period of time to genuinely be able to ‘step into’ a management position.”
Losing talent

A survey conducted last year of 4,500 British workers had similar results to Robert Walters's—finding that 82% of bosses had no formal management or leadership training.

However, a study conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and YouGov also found that businesses were losing talent because of the problem.

Only 27% of staffers said their managers were "highly effective," with half of those who didn't rate their boss saying they planned to leave the company in the next year.

Furthermore, just a third of people said they felt motivated to do a good job.

“Promotions based on technical competence that ignore behavior and other key leadership traits are proving—time and time again—to lead to failings that cause damage to individuals and their employers, not to mention the wider economy’s performance," said Ann Francke, the CEO of CMI.

She added: “On a very practical level, skilled managers should be seen as a reputational insurance policy—they will help prevent toxic behaviors, they will call out wrongdoing, and they will get the best out of their teams.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

N.S. reaches deal with owner of Northern Pulp; firm pursues new mill in Queens County

Lyndsay Armstrong
Thu, May 23, 2024 



HALIFAX — A new agreement between Nova Scotia and the owner of Northern Pulp will see the company abandon plans to reopen its idled Pictou County mill and instead focus on building a new plant in southwestern Nova Scotia.

Progressive Conservative Premier Tim Houston said if the deal is approved, Paper Excellence will start a feasibility study for a potential new kraft pulp mill near the former Bowater mill in Brooklyn, N.S., near Liverpool.

"The Pictou mill is not reopening. But that doesn't have to mean an end to the hope for the kind of good-paying jobs and forestry work and exports that a pulp and paper mill brings with it," Houston told reporters Thursday in Halifax. "The company believes that Liverpool could again support a mill, and I agree."

The Pictou County plant once employed about 300 people but has been idle since 2020 after it failed to meet the province's environmental requirements. The Liberal government at the time said the mill could no longer be allowed to dump effluent into Boat Harbour near the Pictou Landing First Nation, after the company had done so for decades. Former Liberal premier Iain Rankin once called the situation one of the worst cases of environmental racism in Canada.

"I know people are concerned about the reputation of this company in the province," Houston said. "Let me assure you that any project that goes forward will need to meet today's standards and undergo environmental assessment, significant public engagement and Indigenous consultation."

Provincial officials said the agreement with British Columbia-based Paper Excellence addresses the $450-million lawsuit the company launched against the province over the 2020 closure of Northern Pulp, as well as the $99 million in loans the firm owes the province. They also said the agreement will protect the pensions of Northern Pulp workers, with Paper Excellence saying in a statement Thursday the pensions of all current and former Northern Pulp employees will be fully funded.

The settlement must be approved by the British Columbia Supreme Court, which will hold a hearing on May 31. If approved, the company's lawsuit will be dismissed and all motions within the court process against the province will be withdrawn. Paper Excellence, which has been under creditor protection since June 2020, says it would then immediately begin an independent feasibility study on the potential for a new pulp mill in Queens County. That study is expected to take around nine months.

Jean-Francois Guillot, chief operating officer of Paper Excellence's fibre division, said the agreement reached with the province is a “win-win” for both sides that have spent years skirmishing.

"We spent too much time, too many years trying to fight each other and, in my books, we didn’t accomplish anything. So it was time to switch gears and do something more positive," Guillot said in an interview Thursday.

If a new mill is considered viable, Paper Excellence will pay about $50 million for costs related to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and $15 million to the province to settle debts. The company will also put $30 million toward pension plans.

Provincial officials say it's too early to estimate how much work or money will be needed to decommission and clean up the Pictou site if the new mill is deemed viable. Guillot said the Pictou County site will be evaluated as part of the feasibility study to determine what should be done with it, and if there's potential for it to be used in some way for future pulp operations.

If the study finds that a Queens County pulp mill is not viable, the pension and creditor arrangement payments will remain the same, but the company will have to pay the province $30 million to settle debts and spend $15 million on the clean up and closure of the Pictou mill site.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 23, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press

‘Swamp Creature!’: Trump Gets Shouted Down as He Begs for Libertarian Nomination

Mini Racker
Sat, May 25, 2024


It was clear from the start that this year’s Libertarian convention would not be a staid affair.

Going into the weekend, the Washington Hilton was stocked with shrink-wrapped packs of Blood of Tyrants’ Liquid Freedom Energy Tea. More than one attendee appeared to be smoking indoors. The drinks were flowing and the crowd was chanting, booing, and hollering through speeches left and right. Punches even flew. And that was all before former President Donald Trump took the stage in front of hundreds on Saturday.

When that moment came, the former president was met with a sound he was not accustomed to: boos. They broke out as soon as he appeared, and never died down, marking one of the most negative receptions Trump has ever received.

“A lot of people ask why I came to speak at this Libertarian convention,” Trump said as he began his remarks. “And, you know, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? But we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”

It soon became clear that Trump most certainly was not having fun. Try as he might to sell himself as an ally to Libertarians, the crowd was not buying it. Whenever the former president’s supporters began chanting, Libertarians shouted them down. When Trump talked about the government crushing citizens’ rights, an audience member screamed, “You crushed my rights!” When he accused President Joe Biden of enacting censorship and persecution, someone else cried, “So do you!” Shouts of “Swamp creature!” and “Fuck you!” peppered his remarks.

Soon enough, he appeared to downright beg them to go easy on him: “Right now, in this election, we need your help. We need your support,” he said, prompting a chorus of boos.

“Combine with us in a partnership, we’re asking that of the Libertarians, we must work together,” he pleaded, again eliciting angry shouts.

There were more boos when Trump urged the Libertarian Party to nominate him as its candidate. But the former president soldiered on.

“Now I think you should nominate me, or at least vote for me, and we should win together,” he said. “Only do that if you want to win,” he said. “If you want to lose, don’t do that.”

Perhaps sensing he should bargain with the crowd he had so far failed to win over, he then said: “I’m committing to you tonight, that I will put a Libertarian in my Cabinet, and also Libertarians in senior posts.”

This weekend’s convention was the first since the right-wing Mises Caucus seized control of the party at its Reno convention in 2022. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported on the Caucus’ hard-right approach, which has at times included anti-trans, antisemitic, and racist sentiments, as well as its ties to Trumpworld. But in the days ahead of the speech, the party’s decision to allow Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to headline the Libertarian convention was a major point of contention, and on Saturday, the disagreement broke out into heated conflict.

Members of the Libertarian Party gather for the party's national convention at the Washington Hilton on May 25, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMore

“I think it was a bad idea,” Virginia Libertarian activist Marta Howard told The Daily Beast ahead of the speech. “Not all publicity is good publicity. The rest of the world is going to think, ‘Oh, it’s because they’re right-leaning.’ Whatever they think of Libertarians, they’re just going to think it’s another flavor of Republicans.”

Libertarian National Committee chair Angela McArdle told the Washington Post in early May that Trump’s appearance would help draw attention and attendance, an argument that resonated with some.

“I was originally not happy about it, just because of the optics of the Republican candidate for president coming to where Libertarians pick their candidate,” Blake Rogers, a Mises-aligned alternate who had driven his motorcycle up from Georgia told The Daily Beast. “But a lot of people have made a lot of really good points about it in terms of it being a lot of publicity that we wouldn’t ordinarily get otherwise.”

Still, it was clear that many were not sold on the MAGA-fied convention. While red-hatted Trump supporters lined up outside the ballroom ahead of the former president’s speech, one woman hurried by, her middle finger up, singing “Fuck Donald Trump.”

Many of the Trump supporters were the first inside and quickly took over the rows closest to the stage. But McArdle soon took the stage and requested they move so Libertarian convention delegates could sit up front, threatening to call security if they didn’t.

The formal program began with Mises Caucus-backed presidential candidate Michael Rectenwald roasting Trump and his leadership of Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. “None of us are great fans of Donald Trump,” he said, provoking boos from the middle of the room, where McArdle had relegated most of the Trump supporters.

When Trump chants broke out, Libertarians in the front rows turned around to respond, with some screaming expletives about the former president.

“We are not a bunch of college leftist sissies, so be respectful,” comedian Dave Smith, a Mises Caucus member, warned, earning cheers all around.

As the crowd waited for Trump to appear, supporters in the audience could be heard fretting that there needed to be more of them. A man with a “MAGA=Socialist” sign stood on a chair in the middle of the audience and was soon surrounded by Trump devotees screaming in his face. Others carried signs proclaiming “Stop Trump Vote Lars,” referring to Lars Mapstead, another Libertarian presidential candidate. A chant of “We want Trump!” was quickly overpowered by one demanding to “End the Fed!”

“We should not be fighting each other,” Trump said soon after he took the stage. “Joe Biden gets back in, there will be no more liberty for anyone in our country.”

Trump did sometimes earn cheers from the crowd, including when he talked about ending wars, pardoning Jan. 6 protesters, protecting cryptocurrency, denying money to schools with vaccine or mask mandates, and defunding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The most applause came when he promised to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who has been imprisoned for operating a website that sold illegal goods.

But on the whole, the audience wasn’t having it. Even the night before, the anti-Trump resistance was out in full force. When Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared to warm up the crowd and debate the party’s vice presidential nominee, he was booed for so much as mentioning Trump’s name.

“Who’s going to be the President? It’s either going to be the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee,” Ramaswamy said, sparking audible protests. “I mean, come on! Look, I invite you to dream on.”

Plenty of attendees seemed happy to keep dreaming. An earlier speech by third party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had earned a much warmer reception, with frequent cheers and standing ovations. Many of his best-received lines had been ones slamming the former president.

“I’m curious to know how President Trump is going to defend his attacks on the Constitution when I meet him on the debating stage,” Kennedy said, earning roars from the crowd.

Kennedy told the convention Friday he had challenged Trump to a debate at the Libertarian convention, but that the former president had declined.

In comments to The Daily Beast, Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes called Kennedy an “ultra-leftist” who “called the NRA a terror group.” Jason Miller, senior Trump campaign adviser, said Trump’s “America First agenda is the one that shares many of the Libertarian voters’ concerns, and he is the only candidate who can defeat Joe Biden and put an end to Biden’s assault on our Constitution, our freedoms, and our God-given rights.”

Team Trump is hoping not to lose too many voters to third-party candidates like Kennedy, whose constituency overlaps with that of the former president. In a close race with Biden, where polls consistently find the two men within a few points of each other, whether Trump earns Libertarians’ votes could be a deciding factor.

“The Libertarian Party can make a big difference,” Trump promised the crowd Saturday, saying he would be “a true friend to Libertarians in the White House” before being booed again.

Minutes after Trump left the stage, McArdle announced a press conference with the Libertarian Party’s actual candidates. The first, Chase Oliver, ribbed Trump.

“Isn’t it nice to have a Libertarian on stage at the Libertarian convention?” he asked. “We just had a neocon war criminal on our stage a few minutes ago."

The response was quieter than it had been when Trump was speaking. Most of the crowd had already left.

The Daily Beast



Trump, accustomed to friendly crowds, confronts repeated booing during Libertarian convention speech

Sat, May 25, 2024 



WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing the Libertarian Party National Convention on Saturday night, with many in the crowd shouting insults and decrying him for things like his COVID-19 policies, running up towering federal deficits and lying about his political record.

When he took the stage, many jeered while some supporters clad in “Make America Great” hats and T-shirts cheered and chanted “USA! USA!” It was a rare moment of Trump coming face-to-face with open detractors, which is highly unusual for someone accustomed to staging rallies in front of ever-adoring crowds.

Libertarians, who prioritize small government and individual freedoms, are often skeptical of the former president, and his invitation to address the convention has divided the party. Trump tried to make light of that by referring to the four criminal indictments against him and joking, “If I wasn’t a Libertarian before, I sure as hell am a Libertarian now.”

Trump tried to praise “fierce champions of freedom in this room” and called President Joe Biden a “tyrant” and the “worst president in the history of the United States,” prompting some in the audience to scream back: “That’s you.”

As the insults continued, Trump eventually hit back, saying “you don't want to win” and suggesting that some Libertarians want to “keep getting your 3% every four years.”

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won about 3% of the national vote in 2016, but nominee Jo Jorgensen got only a bit more than 1% during 2020’s close contest.

Libertarians will pick their White House nominee during their convention, which wraps on Sunday. Trump’s appearance also gave him a chance to court voters who might otherwise support independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who gave his own Libertarian convention speech on Friday.

Polls have shown for months that most voters do not want a 2020 rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden. That dynamic could potentially boost support for an alternative like the Libertarian nominee or Kennedy, whose candidacy has allies of Biden and Trump concerned that he could be a spoiler.

Despite the raucous atmosphere, Trump continued to press on with his speech, saying he’d come “to extend a hand of friendship” in common opposition to Biden. That prompted a chant of “We want Trump!” from supporters, but more cries of “End the Fed!” — a common refrain from Libertarians who oppose the Federal Reserve. One person who held up a sign reading “No wannabe dictators!” was dragged away by security.

Trump tried to win over the crowd by pledging to include a Libertarian in his Cabinet, but many in the crowd hissed in disbelief. The former president did get a big cheer when he promised to commute the life sentence of the convicted founder of the drug-selling website Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, and potentially release him on time served.

That was designed to energize Libertarian activists who believe government investigators overreached in building their case against Silk Road, and who generally oppose criminal drug policies more broadly. Ulbricht’s case was much-discussed during the Libertarian convention, and many of the hundreds in the crowd for Trump’s speech hoisted “Free Ross” signs and chanted the phrase as he spoke.

Despite those promises, many in the crowd remained antagonistic. One of the candidates vying for the Libertarian presidential nomination, Michael Rectenwald, declared from the stage before the former president arrived that “none of us are great fans of Donald Trump.” After his speech, Rectenwald and other Libertarian White House hopefuls took the stage to scoff at Trump and his speech.

Those for and against Trump even clashed over seating arraignments. About two hours before the former president's arrival, Libertarian organizers asked Trump supporters in the crowd to vacate the first four rows. They wanted convention delegates — many of whom said they’d traveled from around the country and bought expensive tickets to the proceedings — could sit close enough to hear the speech.

Many of the original seat occupants moved, but organizers eventually brought in more seats to calm things down.

The Libertarian split over Trump was reflected by Peter Goettler, president and chief executive of the libertarian Cato Institute, who suggested in a Washington Post column that the former president’s appearance violated the gathering’s core values and that “the political party pretending to be libertarian has transitioned to a different identity.”

Trump’s campaign noted that Biden didn't attend the Libertarian convention himself, and argued that the former president's doing so was part of an ongoing effort to reach would-be supporters in places that are not heavily Republican — including the former president’s rally Thursday in the Bronx during a pause in his New York hush money trial.

The Libertarian ticket will try to draw support from disaffected Republicans as well as people on the left. Such voters could also gravitate toward Kennedy.

Trump didn't dwell on Kennedy on Saturday night. But, after previously praising him and once considering him for a commission on vaccination safety, the former president has gone on the attack against Kennedy. He suggested on social media that a vote for Kennedy would be a “wasted protest vote” and that he would “even take Biden over Junior.”

The former president, while in office, referred to the COVID-19 vaccine as “one of the greatest miracles in the history of modern-day medicine.” He’s since accused Kennedy of being a “fake” opponent of vaccines.

In his speech at the Libertarian convention, Kennedy accused Trump and Biden of trampling on personal liberties in response to the pandemic. Trump bowed to pressure from public health officials and shut down businesses, Kennedy said, while Biden was wrong to mandate vaccines for millions of workers.

For his part, Biden has promoted winning the endorsement of many high-profile members of the Kennedy family, in an attempt to marginalize their relative’s candidacy.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden’s reelection campaign, slammed Trump and top Republicans for opposing access to abortion and supporting limits on civil society, saying in a statement Saturday, that “freedom isn’t free in Trump’s Republican Party and this weekend will be just one more reminder of that.”

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

Myanmar quietly announces plans to study controversial Chinese dam project suspended 13 years ago

Grant Peck
Thu, May 23, 2024 




BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Myanmar’s military government appears to be considering reviving a massive China-backed hydroelectric dam project, work on which was suspended more than a decade ago after protests over its possible impact on the environment.

A notice from the Information Ministry, published online in the latest issue of the government gazette on Tuesday, announced a new leadership team for the Myitsone hydropower project, which was put on hold in 2011 by Myanmar’s military-backed former president, Thein Sein.

The $3.6 billion project in the northern state of Kachin, along the country’s Irrawaddy River, was supposed to export about 90% of the electricity it generated to China, Myanmar’s northern neighbor.

China had considered the dam an important part of a national strategy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and meet its targets to cut pollution. It lobbied strongly for its construction to resume, even after the suspension.

Environmental activists have said the dam would displace countless villagers and upset the ecology of the Irrawaddy River, one of the country’s most vital national resources,

Other opponents questioned the arrangement in which China would take 90% of the dam’s power, while nearly 70% of Myanmar at that time had no access to electricity, according to the World Bank.

Myanmar currently suffers from prolonged power outages that have become a major burden since the army seized power in February 2021, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Power cuts in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, now typically last eight hours a day.

The state-owned Yangon Electricity Supply Corporation reported early this month that the power supply has decreased due to inadequate power generation, a sudden increase in power consumption during a recent brutal heat wave and the destruction of electrical facilities by forces fighting against the country's military government.

Current power production can meet only 50% of demand, it said.

It said a board for the Myitsone hydropower project was formed with 11 members from different departments. Aye Kyaw, a deputy minister of the Electricity Ministry, was appointed the board's leader.

The notice, dated April 24, said the group would conduct research, consider technical solutions and handle public relations for the project in collaboration with the leadership team of China’s SPIC Yunnan International Power Investment company.

Any revival of the project will have to contend with the war being fought over much of Myanmar by pro-democracy guerrillas and their ethnic armed group allies against the military-run government installed after Suu Kyi was ousted.

Fighting has erupted in the nearby townships of Kachin’s capital, Myitkyina, in recent months as the troops from the powerful armed forces of the Kachin ethnic minority have reportedly captured dozens of army bases in the area.

Grant Peck, The Associated Press

Chip-funding ‘warfare’ continues with South Korea’s $19 billion package

David Meyer
Thu, May 23, 2024 


Less than two weeks ago, South Korea’s finance minister said the country was preparing to shell out $7.3 billion for its chip sector, to keep up with the torrents of state funding that are flowing around the world. Today, the government unveiled its promised package—and at $19 billion it’s more than twice as big as previously signaled.

“As we all know, semiconductors are a field where all-out national warfare is underway,” President Yoon Suk Yeol said, according to Reuters. “Win or lose, that depends on who can make cutting-edge semiconductors first.”

South Korea is one of the world’s top chipmaking nations, with its strength specifically lying in the memory market. Production has been booming recently, but the South Korean government would very much like the country to make more non-memory chips, where its share remains in the order of 2%. (The big beast, of course, remains Taiwan, which accounts for around a fifth of the world’s overall semiconductor industry, and which makes more than 90% of the most advanced chips.)

The new funding will mostly be used to provide low-interest loans for semiconductor firms’ private investments and to extend their tax incentives, and also to establish a fund for fabless firms—that is, chip companies that outsource the manufacturing to the likes of Taiwan’s TSMC—and for parts and equipment companies.

However, the Korea Herald reports, South Korea won’t be providing any direct subsidies. Countries like the U.S. may be going subsidy-mad—$39 billion of the $52 billion appropriated under its CHIPS and Science Act is being doled out in straight-up grants—but, according to Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, those are countries that “have to build chip facilities from scratch.”

“Countries with decent chip manufacturing capability, like Korea and Taiwan, do not have direct subsidies,” Choi said, per the Herald. “What we are offering are tax benefits, and they are similar to subsidies in their character. When it comes to tax credits, we offer the highest level of incentives.”

According to recent Bloomberg number-crunching, governments worldwide have so far earmarked $380 billion to boost chip production. This is mostly down to the West’s gradual uncoupling from China and fears over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, but—in the zoomed-out sweep of history—it’s also a return to the good old-fashioned economic model of making stuff yourself, rather than contracting production out to the someone on the other side of the world.

Speaking of the CHIPS Act, the latest beneficiary of Washington’s largesse is Absolics, which will be taking up to $75 million in American subsidies to develop and make a type of glass that will be used in advanced packaging—i.e., bundling different types of chip into a single chipset.

Investment in advanced packaging is crucial if you want to end up with the kind of power-efficient chipsets that are used in AI and high-performance computing. And at this point, it’s worth pointing out that Absolics is over 80% owned by … South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, SK Group, which is also parent of the world’s second-biggest memory-chip maker, SK Hynix.

Meanwhile, the largest South Korean conglomerate and memory-chip maker, Samsung, is also happily raking in up to $6.4 billion in CHIPS Act subsidies so it can build out R&D and advanced packaging capacity in the U.S. All-out national warfare indeed!

Bird Flu Is More Widespread Among Dairy Cows, Sewage Tests Suggest

Riley Griffin and Jessica Nix
Thu, May 23, 2024 




(Bloomberg) -- A Michigan farmworker who tested positive for bird flu is just the second person to have been infected since an outbreak in US cattle appeared in March. Surveillance of sewage suggests the virus may be more widespread among dairy cows than reported, raising workers’ risk.

Academic and industry-run labs have been leading the way toward more nuanced and complete information about the H5N1 virus’s range by analyzing wastewater. They found bird flu in sewage samples collected before the virus had been identified in US cows. They’re seeing signs in cities that are far from infected cattle herds. And they’re already giving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention better information about where to focus its efforts.

While rarely seen in humans, the H5N1 strain has considered a pandemic threat for decades because it often jumps between species, sometimes causing lethal disease in people. As farmers resist testing, the US needs to expand its monitoring of sewage, particularly in rural areas around farms where the pathogen may be spreading, said Paul Friedrichs, director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.

“We’re going to need to do more work as a nation on how do we better structure wastewater surveillance in areas that don’t have or aren’t on a municipal wastewater system,” Friedrichs, a retired major general and joint staff surgeon at the Pentagon, said in an interview. “That’s the gap we’re going to have to figure out how to bridge.”

Concerned about lost income, dairy farms have resisted efforts to test cows and workers, potentially concealing the true scope of the virus’s spread.

Viruses are often excreted in feces, which prompted scientists to turn to wastewater early in the pandemic to track Covid’s spread, hunt for new trends and spot the emergence of concerning variants. Although it’s unable to show whether the source is infected humans, animals or products like milk, wastewater surveillance paints a more complete picture of where pathogens are emerging across broad geographic areas.

In Texas, for example, 19 out of 23 wastewater sites were found to contain traces of the virus between early March and the end of April, according to Texas Wastewater Environmental Biomonitoring. Meanwhile, the state has some 400 dairy farms, and just 14 herds have tested positive for bird flu to date, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Other Biden administration officials, who asked not to be named while describing the federal response, said they’re worried about the time it took the government to first spot the outbreak in cattle, which likely began in late 2023 after contact with sick migratory birds. That monthslong delay shows the limitations of US pandemic preparedness efforts and a disjointed public-health system, the officials said.

Friedrichs said the US should seek the help of additional wastewater experts and operations to develop “a more robust national picture.”

Tracking Technology

Specialists in the field include Verily, the Alphabet Inc. life-sciences unit that began working with Stanford University and Emory University to monitor wastewater during the pandemic. With funding from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and others, Verily expanded testing for more than dozen viruses to 190 sites, and in October, it was tapped to support the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System that includes hundreds more facilities.

Since it was first detected in US cattle in March, bird flu has been found in 52 herds from nine states. However, before the first reported case, Verily’s top wastewater scientist Bradley White noticed a strange trend: influenza A, a viral category that includes H5N1, was spiking in parts of the country. White had a hunch the surge was driven by bird flu, and developed a test for genetic signatures typical of H5N1 and its H5 cousins.

Using the assay to look back through old wastewater samples, White found an H5 virus had been present in Amarillo, Texas, as early as February — weeks before the White House was first alerted of the emerging outbreak. That shows the potential for wastewater surveillance as an early warning signal for bird flu, White said.

It appears bird flu has “run its course” in Texas, he said, as overall influenza A levels appear to be declining in the state. Verily announced this week that it had expanded its search for H5 markers to all 190 sites in an effort to better track the outbreak.

Recognizing the need for more monitoring, the CDC is also putting an additional $3 million into wastewater analysis, part of a $93 million package aimed at improving H5N1 surveillance. The agency said in 2022 that it had put more than $100 million toward testing for Covid in wastewater, and expected the funds to last for an additional three years. In March, it made a fiscal 2025 budget request for an additional $20 million to test sewage for emerging diseases.

The CDC is also starting a project to check sewage at 10 new locations close to livestock, and launching a study that would help distinguish whether human or animals were responsible for virus detected in wastewater. Last week, it launched an online wastewater data dashboard tracking influenza A. Between late April and mid-May, only two of six Michigan-based wastewater sites on the CDC dashboard showed moderate levels of influenza A.

Potential Mutations

Concern about H5N1 soared about two decades ago when a strain of the virus began running rampant in poultry, occasionally infecting people. Health officials worldwide began looking for signs of human-to-human transmission that might have signaled a potential pandemic before the outbreak finally subsided. While some human cases have been severe, even deadly, the two farmworkers infected in the recent US outbreak both had mild symptoms and recovered. No transmission between people has been seen.

H5N1 infections in cows can lead to decreased milk production and may raise their risk of other conditions, like pneumonia. Pasteurization kills the virus, and there’s no evidence of danger from commercial milk, cheese or ice cream.

Health officials are particularly concerned about tracking the virus on dairy farms where infected cows frequently come in contact with workers, and mutated viruses may find opportunities to infect humans. The dangers the virus has shown in the past raises the stakes for wastewater monitoring.

“The risk is the longer this outbreak continues, the more opportunities there may be for a spillover jump from an animal species to a human,” said Al Ozonoff, an infectious disease scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The next event experts worry about is, he said is “some viral evolution which creates an opportunity for human-to-human transmission.”

--With assistance from Ilena Peng.

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