A bank employee gave $20 to a customer in need. She and her supervisor were fired.

IT HAPPENED ON CHRISTMAS EVE
Two Oregon bank employees were fired after one of them gave a customer $20 when he couldn't access his bank funds. 

© U.S. BANK TODAY, product courtesy of merchant site

Now after U.S. Bank received widespread criticism over the incident, it has apologized and offered both women their jobs back, a spokesperson for the bank told NBC News on Saturday. The CEO of the bank's parent company has spoken with both women.

It happened Christmas Eve, when Marc Eugenio was having a rough go of it. He told NBC affiliate KGW in Portland that his check from a new job was being held by his bank, U.S. Bank, until it could be verified. He said he had spent hours at a branch hoping the situation could be immediately fixed, but it could not.
"I'm away from my family, this was Christmas Eve. I'm sitting at the bank like I'm working there. Working to beg them, not work, but basically beg to have my own money released," he told the outlet.

Eugenio said employees at the branch told him that the check might clear later that afternoon, so he left.

When he got to his car, he saw he was almost out of gas and drove to a gas station. He said he waited at the gas station praying for his funds to be released so he could fill his tank and drive home. But the bank was not able to verify the check that day.

"I was desperate. Sitting there in the gas station on Christmas Eve, away from my family and I couldn't get home," he told KGW. "I was exasperated. I just wish I had $20 to get home."

Eugenio said he decided to call the bank's customer care number, in a last-ditch effort, for help. He connected with call center representative Emily James and explained the situation.

James, who worked at a call center in Portland, told KGW that she put Eugenio on hold and went to talk to a supervisor, Abigail Gilbert, about what could be done to help.

"I know I can't remove the hold and not get in trouble. It's Christmas Eve, let's get this guy home. Let's do anything," James recalled.

According to The Oregonian, Gilbert gave James $20 and gave her permission to leave and meet Eugenio at the gas station to give him the cash.

“It was just, 'If I can fix this, let’s just fix it,' and that wasn’t a good business decision,” Gilbert said. “It was an emotional decision.”

Eugenio told KGW that he was so surprised by the kind gesture that he cried. That gesture, however, would cost James and Gilbert their jobs.

A few days after James gave Eugenio the money, a regional manager pulled her aside and fired both her and Gilbert.

A bank spokesperson told NBC that James and Gilbert were fired for violating a company policy that prohibits employees from leaving work to meet with unknown customers.

James told The Oregonian that she understands the company was worried about her safety but thought the situation could have been handled differently.

The bank agrees, according to a statement it shared with NBC News on Saturday.

"Our recent employment decision in Oregon did not reflect who we are as a company. U.S. Bank fell short of our and others’ expectations and we sincerely apologize," the statement said. "Our CEO Andy Cecere has personally spoken with both employees and asked them to rejoin the company."

Cecere is CEO of U.S. Bancorp, the parent company of U.S. Bank.

Gilbert agreed to come back as a call center supervisor, while James is still considering a new position with the company, the bank spokesperson said.

"We are committed to understanding how we can learn from these events and make the right changes so they do not reoccur. We are beginning a re-evaluation immediately of our policies and how they are applied to be certain they are flexible and put the customer first, while remaining consistent with our obligation to safeguard customer assets and ensure the safety of our employees," the bank's statement said.

She hoped to shine a light on Native American maternal mortality rates. Instead, she became a statistic of it.


Elizabeth Chuck and Haimy Assefa

SEATTLE — The twins were scheduled to be delivered on Aug. 21, 2019, and Stephanie Snook was nervous.

© Provided by NBC News Image: Stephanie Snook

Her pregnancy had not been planned. Snook was born with a heart condition; after her first two children, she had been told getting pregnant again could put too much stress on her heart.

Nonetheless, Snook, 37, a warehouse clerk in food services at the Seattle Mariners’ ballpark, trusted she was in good hands.

A member of the Tsimshian and Tlingit tribes of Alaska, she had been going to a community health clinic that primarily caters to Native populations near her Seattle home. Once she found out she was having twins, she switched to a high-risk maternal-fetal specialist at Seattle’s Swedish hospital system.© Courtesy of Stephanie Snook Image: Stephanie Snook

Snook had just begun her third trimester when NBC News contacted her for an article about maternal mortality, the deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes. Across the country, American Indian and Alaska Natives are more than twice as likely than white women to die from conditions caused or exacerbated by pregnancy — a disparity that exists even in urban areas where access to care is not a problem. NBC News wanted to examine the reasons why.

Snook was not aware of the numbers, but agreed to participate nonetheless.

An activist, Snook regularly brought attention to issues affecting her community, such as missing and murdered indigenous women. Yet Snook was not sure what she could contribute to this topic. She considered herself healthy, other than her congenital heart problem. She felt her doctors had treated her well and did not exhibit any implicit bias toward her — the unconscious stereotypes everyone has, which in a health care setting can lower the quality of care based on gender, skin color or other factors, even if that is not the doctor’s intention.

Then, a few weeks before her scheduled Cesarean section, Snook started to feel some discomfort.

“I am in pain trying to get around,” she texted an NBC News reporter in late July, adding she thought the babies had dropped — a sign labor could be imminent. She still wanted to be interviewed, she said, whether it was before or after the babies were born.

That chance never came.

Through interviews with 10 people close to Snook, NBC News learned that on Aug. 2, she went into cardiac arrest.

Doctors raced to try to save her twins, delivering them by emergency Cesarean section. But the oxygen deprivation from Snook’s heart failure had taken a toll on them all: Snook died on Aug. 4. Snook’s newborns died later that week, cradled by her stunned relatives.

Snook was going to help shine a light on her race’s troubling rate of maternal mortality.

Instead, she became a statistic of it.
A population at risk

The number of pregnancy-related deaths across America is at a crisis level. The U.S. ranks the worst out of all developed nations on maternal mortality, with about 700 women dying from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth each year.

Black and indigenous women are disproportionately affected: Black mothers are three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women. American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.3 times more likely to die than white mothers; in urban settings, they are 4.5 times more likely to die.

To make matters worse, some experts believe racial miscategorization on death certificates may be masking an even higher maternal mortality rate for indigenous women. (Maternal mortality data released in January by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics is said to be the most accurate the agency has had yet, but its racial breakdown did not include American Indians and Alaska Natives.)

Researchers do not have a clear explanation for why these groups fare worse, but they suspect a combination of institutional racism in society and the health care system, as well as a higher prevalence of certain health conditions, such as obesity and hypertension, contribute.

While Congress and President Donald Trump have taken steps in the last couple of years to address maternal mortality in America, many advocates feel Native mothers have been overlooked.

They say this is especially problematic given that American Indians and Alaska Natives tend to have more complex patient profiles than their white counterparts: They have higher rates of unemployment and more than 1 in 4 lives in poverty. They have more adverse childhood experiences and higher exposure to physical and sexual violence in their lives, all of which can result in health complications, especially during pregnancy. They also have the highest prevalence of diabetes and smoking of any racial group.

Approximately 2.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives across 37 states receive care through the Indian Health Service, a U.S. government agency with a nearly $6 billion budget. But the Interior Department has acknowledged that the IHS has an “insufficient” number of providers, and the underfunded agency has struggled to replace aging hospitals. (The IHS says it makes do with what it has: “We are extremely efficient with the public resources with which we are entrusted,” it said in a statement, adding that it is making investments to improve patient outcomes.)

In settings where patients get care from non-Native medical providers, experts believe cultural misunderstandings and implicit bias can affect both their treatment and their desire to interact with the medical establishment, and could explain why Native women in urban areas do not fare better than those on rural reservations.

“Proximity to care doesn’t necessarily mean access to care,” said Dr. Kathleen Wilder, chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ committee on American Indian and Alaska Native women’s health.

“Although they may theoretically have the same access as non-Native populations, they don’t really, because a lot of those services are not Native-friendly,” she said. “Many have not had welcoming experiences with the care they receive, so they’re not interested in seeking out that care.”

In Washington, a state maternal mortality review panel in October 2019 found that from 2014 to 2016, American Indian and Alaska Natives had the highest maternal mortality rate of any race — although the state Department of Health cautioned that because the number of maternal deaths during those three years was so small, it was not considered statistically significant.

Still, the department says it is taking steps to reduce the disparity, which includes addressing health provider bias through training and increasing tribal and urban Indian representation on its review panel.
Stephanie Snook’s final days

Snook felt confident for most of her pregnancy, even though her age, the fact that she was carrying twins and her heart condition made her high-risk. But she didn’t drink or smoke, and she had no reason to doubt her maternal-fetal specialist at Swedish’s First Hill campus, part of a hospital system that is the largest nonprofit health care provider in the greater Seattle area.

Her biggest worry was how she would raise her two older children, plus the twins, whose father had left her earlier in her pregnancy.  

© Courtesy of Stephanie Snook Image: Stephanie Snook

Snook’s final appointment with her doctor was on Aug. 1 — the day before she went into cardiac arrest. In the weeks leading up to it, she had started having difficulty breathing, friends and family said.

What happened at the appointment is unclear. Snook’s relatives and co-workers confirmed that it was her regularly scheduled 35-week appointment, less than three weeks before her scheduled Cesarean section. Most did not speak to her afterward, but in a Facebook post that day, Snook wrote that she was “feeling pissed off” at her doctor’s office because it was “taking forever” to be seen.

(Swedish Health Services said in a statement that due to patient privacy laws, it “is not able to comment on specifics to the patient’s case, which includes information about her medical appointment visits.”)

The following day Snook went to work. There, she told a longtime friend and co-worker, Cheryn Castro, a few details about the appointment: Her doctor had told her to stay hydrated and to keep her feet elevated to help with swelling from the pregnancy. She also mentioned she was getting frustrated that the doctor had not delivered the babies yet, said Castro, one of the final people to see Snook alive.

By around 9 a.m. that day, Snook’s breathing had become visibly shallow, Castro said. She could tell Snook was struggling to catch her breath — more so than in prior weeks.

“She just seemed a lot more in distress,” Castro said.

Co-workers urged Snook to call her obstetrician. The doctor’s office told her to go straight to the hospital, Castro said.

Instead, Snook drove home to drop off her car, according to Castro, and reached out to family members for them to pick up her son and daughter from school. Then she called the hospital for a ride.

“It was her understanding that she was going in, and they were going to take the twins out,” Castro said.

Instead, on the way to the hospital, Snook went into cardiac arrest, depriving her and her unborn babies of oxygen for at least 20 minutes as paramedics tried to save her life, those close to her later learned.

An emergency C-section was performed six minutes after the ambulance arrived. A 6-pound, 7.4-ounce boy and a 5-pound, 2.5-ounce girl were delivered, both experiencing seizures as a result of the oxygen loss, Snook’s family said.

In the neonatal intensive care unit, Snook’s relatives held the twins — two newborns hooked up to life support whom Snook had planned to name Sean Daniel and Tammy Ann. The family waited for brain MRI results for Snook and the babies.

All three had irreversible brain damage, doctors gently told the family, forcing them to make a difficult decision.

Snook was taken off life support first, and died on Aug. 4. The twins died later in the week — Sean within a half hour of being disconnected, Tammy within 14 hours, Snook’s family and friends said. 

© Haimy Assefa / NBC News Image: Stephanie Snook

A death certificate for Snook obtained by NBC News lists cardiac failure as the cause of death, and cites her pre-existing heart condition as a contributing factor. For reasons that are not clear, no autopsy was performed; the King County medical examiner’s office said it was not authorized to provide information.

Snook’s family is not currently considering legal action against the hospital. They say they feel too overwhelmed with grief and adjusting to life caring for Snook’s surviving children, a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl who both have autism.

But they do have questions. Twins are often delivered by 37 weeks gestation to avoid complications, but can thrive if delivered earlier. Snook’s Cesarean section was scheduled for 37 weeks and 5 days. Did the obstetrician consider moving up the delivery date? Were there obvious signs at Snook’s 35-week appointment that, within 24 hours, her heart would fail? And would Snook be alive if she had called an ambulance sooner?

Snook did not voice complaints about the care she had been receiving. But Castro was confused. She wondered whether Snook’s doctor should have taken her breathing issues more seriously, especially given that she had a heart condition.

“In this day and age, she should have had the greatest care, so I don’t understand,” Castro said. “I kept thinking: ‘There’s something wrong. They’re not paying attention.’”
A community mourns — and questions their care

Snook and her babies’ deaths devastated her community, and raised concerns over whether unconscious bias played a role.

“We can have all the medicine and we can have the most advanced science, but if the racism is still there, there's still that barrier,” said Natasha Osborn, 28, who is half-Native, half-white and lives in the Seattle suburb of Tukwila.

Osborn met Snook through local parenting meetups while they were both pregnant, and gave birth to a baby boy last month.

Osborn has found in the past that if she identifies as white, some doctors seem more receptive to her than if she identifies as Native. Snook’s death left her wondering if race resulted in Snook getting lesser-quality care.

It is a question others have, too.

When Abigail Echo-Hawk was pregnant with her first child in 2000, the treatment she received from a non-Native medical assistant at her obstetrician’s office discouraged her from returning.

“The very first thing she did was ask me to push up my sleeves so she could look at my arm, and I didn't understand why,” said Echo-Hawk, the chief research officer at the Seattle Indian Health Board, the community health center that specializes in the care of American Indians and Alaska Natives where Snook went before switching to her maternal-fetal specialist.

“I realized that she was checking my arm to see if I had been using intravenous drugs.”

When the medical assistant saw Echo-Hawk had no track marks on her arms, the conversation shifted to another presumption about indigenous people, Echo-Hawk said.

“She sat and questioned me for five minutes about how much I had been drinking prior to getting pregnant, and after becoming pregnant,” she said. “I told her I wasn't drinking, I hadn't been drinking at any point in time. She told me, ‘I know you people drink.’”

“I felt deep shame and anxiety,” Echo-Hawk said. As a result, she didn’t go back for any medical care until the end of her second trimester.
‘A weight we carry forever’

In recent years, the potentially deadly effects of unconscious bias from health care providers has come under the spotlight, with hospitals around the country training their staff on ways to combat it.

Swedish, where Snook and her infants died, is among such hospitals. The staff undergoes a half-day of annual training on implicit bias, said Dr. Tanya Sorensen, a maternal-fetal medicine physician and the executive medical director for the Women’s Institute for Swedish Health Services.

The hospital was an early participant in programs at the state level aimed at improving best practices to reduce maternal mortality, and holds an annual summit on women’s health, which includes a discussion on diversity and health care discrepancies, Sorensen added. While she could not discuss Snook’s particular case, she said the deaths of any mother or child “is a weight that we carry forever. It’s horrendous.”

Echo-Hawk feels there needs to be a comprehensive approach to reducing institutional racism. A start, she said, would be having a Native doctor in the same room as a non-Native doctor who can educate providers on cultural considerations that could help a Native mother feel more welcomed in their office. Having doulas support pregnant women of color is also effective in reducing racial disparities.

Echo-Hawk said it is incumbent on government agencies to help reduce other stress factors that are contributing to American Indian and Alaska Natives’ overall health. Many women need access to affordable housing and transportation, she said, and a justice system that works with them if they are affected by sexual assault or domestic violence.

“People often say: ‘How do we help a mother beat the risk? I'm tired of trying to beat the risk for one mother,” Echo-Hawk said. “We need to change the reasons that risk exists, and it's not placed on the mother, it is placed on our society to begin to address these systemic issues.” 

© Haimy Assefa Image: Stephanie Snook

Those who knew Snook are slowly adjusting to life without her. Cecelia Cook, a cousin and close friend, still struggles to make sense of it.

“I was excited to be buying babies’ clothes and baby toys,” Cook said a few days after Christmas. “They would have just been starting to get into that age where they liked toys.”

Cook described Snook as “always happy, always laughing,” someone who dedicated her life to her children and to raising awareness about problems afflicting American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“She was at a lot of Native events, putting out the word for different Native problems,” Cook said. “Anything that would help out our Native community, she was really working on, trying to get the word out.”

Elizabeth Chuck reported from New York, and Haimy Assefa from Seattle.

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The Mormon Church Amassed $100 Billion. It Was the Best-Kept Secret In the Investment World.

INVESTING THEIR HOWARD HUGHES INHERITANCE 

WSJ

© Lindsay D'Addato for the Wall Street Journal.

Salt Lake City

For more than half a century, the Mormon Church quietly built one of the world’s largest investment funds. Almost no one outside the church knew about it.

Some of that mystery evaporated late last year when a former employee revealed in a whistleblower complaint with the Internal Revenue Service that the fund, called Ensign Peak Advisors, had stockpiled $100 billion. The whistleblower also alleged that the church had improperly used some Ensign Peak funds. Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormon Church, denied those claims.

They also declined to comment on how much money their investment fund controls. “We’ve tried to be somewhat anonymous,” Roger Clarke, the head of Ensign Peak, said from the firm’s fourth-floor office, above a Salt Lake City food court. Ensign Peak doesn’t appear in that building’s directory.


Interviews with more than a dozen former employees and business partners provide a deeper look inside an organization that ballooned from a shoestring operation in the 1990s into a behemoth rivaling Wall Street’s largest firms.

Its assets did total roughly $80 billion to $100 billion as of last year, some of the former employees said. That is at least double the size of Harvard University’s endowment and as large as the size of SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the world’s largest tech-investment fund. Its holdings include $40 billion of U.S. stock, timberland in the Florida panhandle and investments in prominent hedge funds such as Bridgewater Associates LP, according to some current and former fund employees.

Church officials acknowledged the size of the fund is a tightly held secret, which they said was because Ensign Peak depends on donations—known as tithing—from the church’s 16 million world-wide members. The church is under no legal obligation to publicly report its finances.  (WHICH IS WHY THEY OPPOSE PAYING TAXES AND PROMOTE TAX CUTS AND TAX CUTTING IN ALBERTA THEY ARE SOUTHERN UCP MEMBERS)

But the whistleblower report—filed by David Nielsen, a former Ensign Peak portfolio manager—has heaped pressure on the church to be more transparent about its finances, something the church has avoided for decades.

The firm doesn’t tell business partners how much money it manages, an unusual practice on Wall Street. Ensign Peak employees sign lifetime confidentiality agreements. Most current employees are no longer told the firm’s total assets under management, according to some of the former employees; few employees understand what the money is intended for.

In their first-ever interview about Ensign Peak’s operations, Mr. Clarke and church officials who oversee the firm said it was a rainy-day account to be used in difficult economic times. As the church continues to grow in poorer areas of the world like Africa, where members cannot donate as much, it will need Ensign Peak’s holdings to help fund basic operations, they said.

“We don’t know when the next 2008 is going to take place,” said Christopher Waddell, a member of the ecclesiastical arm that oversees Ensign Peak known as the presiding bishopric. Referring to the economic crash 12 years ago, he added, “If something like that were to happen again, we won’t have to stop missionary work.”

During the last financial crisis, they didn’t touch the reserves Ensign Peak had amassed, church officials said. Instead, the church cut the budget.

A former employee and the whistleblower in his report said they heard Mr. Clarke refer to the second coming of Jesus Christ as part of the reason for Ensign Peak’s existence. Mormons believe before Jesus returns, there will be a period of war and hardship.

Mr. Clarke said the employees must have misunderstood his meaning. “We believe at some point the savior will return. Nobody knows when,” he said.

When the second coming happens, “we don’t have any idea whether financial assets will have any value at all,” he added. “The issue is what happens before that, not at the second coming.”

Whereas university endowments generally subsidize operating costs with investment income, Ensign Peak does the opposite. Annual donations from the church’s members more than covers the church’s budget. The surplus goes to Ensign Peak. Members of the religion must give 10% of their income each year to remain in good standing.

Dean Davies, another member of the ecclesiastical arm that oversees Ensign Peak, said the church doesn’t publicly share its assets because “these funds are sacred” and “we don’t flaunt them for public review and critique.”

Mr. Clarke said he believed church leaders were concerned that public knowledge of the fund’s wealth might discourage tithing.

“Paying tithing is more of a sense of commitment than it is the church needing the money,” Mr. Clarke said. “So they never wanted to be in a position where people felt like, you know, they shouldn’t make a contribution.”

Some members are now asking why details about the fund have been tightly held for so long, what the money is for, and whether tithing so much to the church should still be the standard practice.

Carolyn Homer, a church member who lives in Virginia, resolved to tithe less and give more to other charities after she heard about the money managed by Ensign Peak. A theme of the Book of Mormon, she said, is that God condemns churches that care more about wealth than feeding the poor. “When I hear members of the church say, ‘It’s none of your business how wealthy we are,’ that to me is echoing the very scripture we revere, and not in a good way.”

The church officials and Mr. Clarke declined to disclose the size of the church’s annual budget or to say how much money goes to Ensign Peak but gave estimates for its main areas of expenditure that, collectively, total about $5 billion.

A majority of the money held by Ensign Peak is from returns on existing investments and not member donations, according to Mr. Clarke. In recent years, the fund has gained about 7% annually, he said.

The former employees offered more details of Ensign Peak’s operations. During the bull market of the last decade, some of them said, the fund grew from about $40 billion in 2012 to $60 billion in 2014 to around $100 billion by 2019. About 70% of the money is liquid, one of the former employees said. As its assets swelled, Ensign Peak grew more secretive, said some of the former employees.

The firm doesn’t borrow money–the church warns members against going into debt. It also doesn’t invest in industries that Mormons consider objectionable—including alcohol, caffeinated beverages, tobacco and gambling. Mr. Clarke said the fund has pulled some of its money from an investment firm called Fisher Investments after the founder, Ken Fisher, made remarks last year that Mr. Fisher later called “inappropriate.” A spokesman for Fisher declined to comment.

A Calling

The church established the investment division, which would later become Ensign Peak, in the 1960s, during a period of economic hardship for the faith. In 1969, construction on the church’s office building was halted when the money for construction ran out.

Church leaders had long told members to put away provisions for hard times. Nathan Eldon Tanner, a counselor of the first presidency, the highest level of church leadership, said the church itself should do the same.

At first, the investment division had just three employees, and one of the church’s top three leaders had to approve every trade. By the late 1970s, the division managed about $1 billion, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

The investment division reported monthly to an oversight body called the investment committee, which included ecclesiastical leaders. They would compare the division’s performance against market benchmarks.

“If we were not doing as well, they’d ask, ‘How come?’” one former employee said.

In 1997, the investment division was spun off into Ensign Peak Advisors, a separate legal entity named after a hill that overlooks downtown Salt Lake. The peak has its own significance: in 1847, Brigham Young and other Mormon pioneers scaled it to survey the valley as a potential settling place.
Mr. Clarke was tapped to lead the firm and charged with “bringing the investment department into the 20th Century,” a former employee said.

Previously, Mr. Clarke had worked as a professor at Brigham Young University, which is owned by the church. He was running an investment firm in Los Angeles when the presiding bishopric called him.

“It certainly wasn’t the most attractive financial office,” Mr. Clarke said. “But you want to make a difference in your life...This was an opportunity.”

The firm has steadily grown under Mr. Clarke’s tenure. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, “We got whacked, like everybody else,” Mr. Clarke said. Ensign Peak went into a hiring freeze, but soon resumed adding staff.

It now employs about 70 people. About one in seven are women, Mr. Clarke said.

In most respects, Ensign Peak’s offices look much like those of any other investment firm. CNBC plays on the television by the entrance and newspapers are strewn across a lobby table.

But the walls hint at Ensign Peak’s religious nature. Paintings depict scenes from the Bible and Mormon history, including several that depict pioneers who trekked in the 1800s to what is now Utah.

Employees need a temple recommend—an honor, which allows them to enter the faith’s holiest spaces, that is not afforded to all members —to work at Ensign Peak. They earn far less than they would on Wall Street. One former employee said they make less than $150,000 a year, a fraction of the fortunes possible in finance.

“It was not glamorous or religious 99.9% of the time,” one of the former employees said. For most, working at the firm was “a religious calling,” he said.

Executives used to share information about the assets under management with employees. That changed in recent years; now few employees are explicitly told the number, according to Mr. Clarke and some of the former employees.

The firm also created a system of more than a dozen shell companies to make its stock investments harder to track, according to the former employees and Mr. Clarke. This was designed to prevent members of the church from mimicking what Ensign Peak was doing to protect them from mismanaging their own funds with insufficient information, according to Mr. Clarke.

Neuburgh Advisers LLC, one of the shell companies, held hundreds of stocks, including Apple Inc. shares valued at more than $175 million and Amazon.com Inc. shares worth more than $70 million, according to a recent regulatory filing.

From time to time, church leaders in the ecclesiastical arm that oversees Ensign Peak arranged lunch meetings with Ensign Peak employees. During Q&A sessions at the end, employees sometimes asked what the money might be used for, according to one of the former employees, who attended.

Church leaders responded by saying they wanted to know that, too, according to this person.

“It was so amorphous,” the former employee said. “It was always, ‘When we have direction from the prophet.’ Everyone was waiting, as it were, for direction from God.” The prophet is the president of the church.

The Quiet Giant

Ensign Peak’s scale went relatively unknown on Wall Street. The firm doesn’t tell business partners how much money it manages, an unusual level of secrecy in the financial world.

One outside expert said the financial industry didn’t suspect it might be approaching $100 billion. “People thought it was between $30 and $40 billion,” said Michael Maduell, president of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, which tracks large pools of money.

Employees in the fund rarely shared with outsiders much of what they did, even to friends in the same line of work. A person who worked at a money management firm said when that firm sought an investment from Ensign Peak, officials at the Mormon fund declined to share how much money they managed. Ensign Peak told this person that a small investment for the fund would be about $30 million and a large investment about $350 million.

The fund invests conservatively, Mr. Clarke said, in part because it has “a longer term horizon” than many other firms. In recent years, Mr. Clarke developed a quantitative stock trading program, incorporating one of the hottest recent trends in finance.

On his office bookshelf, Mr. Clarke keeps a copy of “Principles” by Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates. He said Bridgewater deputies have visited in the past, and that Mr. Dalio’s firm “helped us think about what’s happening kind of in the broader economy.” Bridgewater declined to comment.

Mr. Clarke also keeps an ancient Roman coin in his office, a reference to the biblical story of the widow’s mite, in which a poor widow donates to the temple treasury.

“It’s just a reminder of the purpose of the funds,” he said. “Many of the funds come from people who don’t make a lot of money.”

A Debate That Started in Salt Lake

Among rank-and-file members of the church, the whistleblower report unleashed an intense debate about tithing and how the church uses its vast resources.

On a recent snowy Sunday at a Salt Lake City meetinghouse, members said they trusted church leaders with their own money, and would continue to donate 10% of their income. “They use it well,” said Lasi Kioa, a 61-year-old immigrant from Tonga and a lifelong church member. “They help other people. They build the church. I believe in that.”

But Sam Brunson, a church member and tax law professor at Loyola University, said he wished church officials would use the $100 billion to help those in need today.

“They could go a good way to eradicating malaria, or fix Puerto Rico’s electrical grid,” he said. Alternatively, he said, the church could change what it considers tithing, allowing members to give 10% of their income to charity, rather than to the church itself.

Mr. Waddell, the member of the ecclesiastical arm that oversees Ensign Peak, said that with more than 16 million members there would always be some difference of opinion, but the vast majority of members have “expressed appreciation for the success we have had in managing the finances.”

Mr. Nielsen’s report, which was first reported by the Washington Post, stoked this debate. The report alleged the fund made no charitable contributions despite being incorporated as a tax-exempt charity. Fund and church officials said they haven’t violated any tax laws, and that the church organization as a whole, of which Ensign Peak is a part, puts nearly $1 billion a year toward humanitarian causes and charities. The IRS, which hasn’t accused the church of any wrongdoing, said it doesn’t comment on specific whistleblower claims. Mr. Nielsen didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tax specialists familiar with the IRS’s whistleblower program said they didn’t expect the claim against Ensign Peak to be successful. The program receives many more claims than it acts on, and it has historically been reluctant to pursue tax issues involving churches, which have special status under the tax code. If the whistleblower’s claim is successful, that person could receive up to 30% of the proceeds collected by the IRS.

The whistleblower also accused Ensign Peak of illegally using tax-exempt donations to bail out two business ventures during the financial crisis—a life insurance company the church owned and construction of the City Creek Center, a Salt Lake City mall across the street from the church’s offices. Church officials confirmed to the Journal they had made these payments but denied they were illegal.

Gerald Causse, the presiding bishop, said the payouts during the financial crisis weren’t charitable disbursements at all, but investments. “It’s not an expenditure,” he said. “Tomorrow we can sell it and it will come back with a return.”

In the interview with the Journal, church officials maintained the payouts were not made with tithing funds, because, they said, most of the money in Ensign Peak doesn’t come directly from tithing but from returns on investment.

Tax lawyers have publicly debated whether Ensign Peak violated any laws as alleged by the whistleblower. Mr. Brunson, the tax law professor, doesn’t think so. But as a church member, he said he finds the lack of transparency frustrating, even if it is legal.

“I’m a stakeholder in the church, and society has some stake in the church too,” he said. “Even though I’m willing to tithe blindly, I would like to see what’s happening with that money.”

—Laura Saunders contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Lovett at Ian.Lovett@wsj.com and Rachael Levy at rachael.levy@wsj.com

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Melvin Dummar - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Melvin_Dummar

Melvin Earl Dummar (August 28, 1944 – December 9, 2018) was a Utah man who earned attention when he claimed to have saved reclusive business tycoon Howard Hughes in the Nevada desert ... The will left approximately $156 million to the LDS Church and although Hughes had employed many LDS workers, he had ...

‎The "Mormon Will" · ‎Text of the "Mormon Will"

Will - Howard Hughes And The Mormon Will - Dummar ...

https://law.jrank.org › pages › Will-Howard-Hughes-Mormon-Will

When billionaire recluse Howard Hughes died in 1976, it appeared that he had not ... of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the MORMON CHURCH.

Purported Will of Hughes Found at Mormon Office - The New ...

https://www.nytimes.com › 1976/04/30 › archives › purported-will-of-hugh...

Apr 30, 1976 - SAN FRANCISCO, April 29 —Officials of the Mormon Church ... will purportedly made six years ago by Howard R. Hughes had been found.

Remembering the Howard Hughes "Mormon Will" | Mormon ...

https://www.mormonmatters.org › remembering-the-howard-hughes-mor...

Oct 31, 2009 - It was the death of billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes, who ... Dummar delivered the envelope to the LDS Church's headquarters in Salt ...

Man who saved Howard Hughes' life and claimed to be the ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com › local › obituaries › 2018/12/11

Dec 11, 2018 - Melvin Dummar, purported heir to Howard Hughes estate, dies at 74 ... Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is ...

Howard Hughes and the Mormon Will - Peter Allsopp - Medium

https://medium.com › howard-hughes-and-the-mormon-will-218b0ff3d37c

May 24, 2018 - Howard Hughes the billionaire aviator, industrialist and filmmaker ... president of the Mormon Church enclosing a document dated March 19, ...

[PDF]

Mormons, Hughes & C.I.A.

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of the Mormon Church. Robert Bennett, a prominent Mormon who is the son of Wallace F. Bennett, bought the Mullen Company in 1971. The notorious Howard.

As Kansas lawmakers battle over abortion, Medicaid expansion could be casualty


 The Kansas City Star

TOPEKA, Kansas — Minutes after an anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution failed in the House, Senate President Susan Wagle made clear the consequences.

© Mark Reinstein/Zuma Press/TNS Democrat Governor Laura Kelly on inauguration day at the Kansas State Capitol on Jan. 14, 2019 in Topeka, Kan. Kelly vetoed a bill that would have required doctors to inform patients that the abortion pill is reversible.

In a nearly empty Senate chamber Friday afternoon, the Wichita Republican sent more than a dozen bills that could be used as legislative vehicles for Medicaid expansion back to committee, ensuring they won’t be passed anytime soon.

“We will not take up Medicaid expansion until the amendment is on the ballot,” declared Wagle, who running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

House Republicans tried in vain Friday to pass an amendment asserting that the state constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to an abortion. Even after taking the desperate parliamentary step of holding the roll open for more than five hours, lawmakers ended up four votes short of the two-thirds support needed to place it on a statewide ballot.

The measure cleared the Senate last week.

Amendment supporters, including the influential group Kansans for Life, are now engaged in an aggressive effort to block any progress on Medicaid expansion until their proposal clears the Legislature. Gov. Laura Kelly, Democrats and some Republicans have made increasing eligibility in the healthcare program a top priority.

The hardline tactic added a chaotic factor to the debate over the amendment, which had largely centered on abortion itself. Now the fate of both the amendment, and a measure that could bring health coverage to an additional 150,000 low-income Kansans, may be tied together.

For backers of the amendment, few things exceed its importance. Restrictions on abortion enacted over 30 years are now in danger, they warn, after the Kansas Supreme Court this spring found that the right to personal autonomy extends to a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.

Opponents fear the amendment would give the Legislature too much power over abortion, creating a legal environment in which lawmakers could ultimately ban the procedure if the federal right to an abortion is ever eliminated. Kelly said Friday the constitution “should not be permanently altered to make it easier for politicians to interfere with women and their doctors when serious medical decisions need to be made.”

For advocates of Medicaid expansion, hope had been growing that victory was finally within reach after years of setbacks. A deal struck by Kelly and Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, late last year paved the way for expansion in 2020, or so they thought.

All of it is now in doubt. Amid rising tensions, lawmakers fled the Capitol for the weekend with neither side signaling it planned to give in.

Responding to Wagle’s actions, House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said the senator was being “pretty childish to pull that.”

“You’ve got 150,000 Kansans that have been waiting seven years for the passage of Medicaid expansion,” Sawyer said. “It’s unfortunate that she’s going to make them wait longer.”

The blockade also drove a wedge between the Senate’s top Republican leaders. Denning, who faces a tough re-election bid, said Wagle hadn’t consulted him beforehand and that her actions and statements “in no way reflect the session plans of my office.”

“I believe in the legislative process,” Denning tweeted. “Her statements are obstructive and not how we should be governing.”

A Senate committee was expected to begin debating the Kelly-Denning compromise plan on Monday. It was unclear Friday whether that would still go forward.

In defending the linkage of the amendment and Medicaid, Wagle and Kansans for Life invoked the prospect of taxpayer-funded abortions. Under the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision, they argue, bans on abortions using state Medicaid dollars could be thrown out (federal law largely prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion).

“Absolutely it’s coming,” Wagle said of future court decisions eliminating the restrictions.

Kansans for Life lobbyist Jeanne Gawdun said in a statement that the amendment “is the only way to ensure expansion does not turn into a new public funding stream for abortion.”

Sawyer called their argument “ridiculous and a total red herring.”

“If they were truly pro-life they would support Medicaid expansion. It almost seems like they ought to change their name to Kansans for Fetuses or something,” Sawyer said.

Amendment supporters could potentially win House votes by moving the proposed date of the election from the August primary to the November general election ballot, which attracts a higher turnout.

All four Republicans who voted against the amendment Friday cited the election calendar as one of their concerns.

“That was one part of it,” said Rep. Jan Kessinger, an Overland Park Republican who voted no. “But the other is, if you want to stop abortion, stop pregnancy and that’s with low-cost or no-cost birth control.”

“I believe we must ensure an electoral process that guarantees the largest voter turnout,” Rep. Tom Phillips, a Manhattan Republican who also voted no, said in a statement.

But Kansans for Life has repeatedly called moving the election from August to November a “poison pill.” Other proponents have said the August election would allow voters to focus on Kansas-specific issues without also having to make decisions on federal races.

In an interview, Gawdun said that “anyone who votes against the amendment has do endorse the fact that there’s unlimited abortion in the state of Kansas throughout the entire nine months. And that’s what they have to own.”

Amending a state constitution to allow lawmakers to limit abortion rights is a relatively recent practice. Tennessee became the first in 2014, when voters decided the state constitution should not allow public funding for abortions and that lawmakers could regulate them .

Other states, like Alabama and West Virginia, have adopted similar amendments.

“The difference of a constitutional amendment is that you’re not just saying this is what we think is good policy,” said Katie Glenn, government affairs counsel at Americans United for Life. “You’re saying this is a fundamental right.”

Abortion rights advocates say these changes made at the state-level are a part of a broader, parallel initiative to ban abortion at the federal-level.

“If neither the state nor the federal level constitution protect abortion rights, then it will be possible to pass outright abortion bans,” said Elizabeth Nash, senior states issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group supporting abortion rights.

Bill Gates commissions $645 million, 370-foot eco-friendly luxury superyacht powered by liquid hydrogen that will let it travel nearly 4,000 miles before it needs to refuel

HELPING KEEP THE SUPERYACHT INDUSTRY AFLOAT

MAYBE HE WILL OFFER GRETA THUNBERG A LIFT TO THE NEXT DAVOS MEETING 

The world's second richest man has bought himself a futuristic superyacht that's powered entirely by liquid hydrogen - meaning its only emission is water.

Bill Gates is believed to have paid $645 million in order to purchase Aqua, the plans of which were unveiled at the Monaco Yacht Show last year.

The luxury liner is 370 ft-long and comprises five decks complete with space for 14 guests, 31 crew members, a gym, yoga studio, beauty room, massage parlor and cascading pool on its rear deck.

But its most impressive feature is locked away in the hold - two 28-ton vacuum-sealed tanks that are cooled to -423F (-253C) and filled with liquid hydrogen which powers the ship.

Gates, 64, is known to regularly take vacations onboard superyachts, however this is the first time he has bought one. In the past he would usually rent boats during summer trips to the Mediterranean.

The new vessel is not expected to be ready to take to the open seas until 2024.

















a boat on a body of water: The Aqua superyacht is a futuristic design that is 370ft-long, comprised of five decks, and runs off liquid hydrogen meaning it only emits water. Design studio Sinot said the exterior of the vessel was inspired by ocean swells, the movement of the tides, and weather out on the open oceanNext Slide
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The Aqua superyacht is a futuristic design that is 370ft-long, comprised of five decks, and runs off liquid hydrogen meaning it only emits water. Design studio Sinot said the exterior of the vessel was inspired by ocean swells, the movement of the tides, and weather out on the open ocean

The hydrogen is pumped through a special type of fuel cell which converts it into electricity, while emitting only water which can be safety pumped into the ocean.


Despite its novel fuel source, the vessel is able to reach 17 knots and travel 3,750 miles before it needs to refuel, enough to cover an Atlantic crossing from New York to Southampton.

When the plans for the Aqua were unveiled, it was only a concept but Gates decision to commission its construction is a milestone.

Designer Sander Sinot is hoping it will pave the way towards a more ecological future for the superyacht industry.

He said: 'With every project, I challenge my team and myself to surpass ourselves. For development of AQUA we took inspiration from the lifestyle of a discerning, forward-looking owner, the fluid versatility of water and cutting-edge technology to combine this in a superyacht with truly innovative features.'

Working alongside Lateral Naval Architects, Sinot spent five months perfecting the details in the yacht in the hopes of one day being able to transform it into a real vessel.

The commissioning of the yacht is a sure sign of Gates' interest in alternative fuels.

Gates is already an investor in Heliogen, a California start-up that uses smart software to control an array of mirrors that focuses the sun's rays to generate extreme heat according to the Daily Telegraph.

The company aims to create a clean source of hydrogen gas by splitting water molecules without the use of fossil fuels.

Gates has long argued that investing in new energy systems is a better way to get companies to cut carbon emissions rather than forcing investors to pull out of oil companies when so much of the economy relies upon fossil fuels.

'By investing in energy innovations, we can build on the progress we've made deploying current technology like renewables, which will help accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to a future of reliable and affordable carbon-free electricity,' Gates said.

'We need big breakthroughs in technologies that will allow us to supply the power grid with clean energy even during windless days, cloudy weather, and nighttime.'

Although this new yacht will be run on liquid hydrogen, there will also be an engine that runs on diesel as a back-up due to a current lack of hydrogen refueling stations.

Aside from the fuel source, the yacht's other features include a wheelhouse that looks like something out of a spaceship, a huge central staircase spiraling around a water feature, and a beauty and fitness suite.

The rear deck features two entertaining areas - one upper and one lower - along with a cascading pool, sun loungers, and outdoor dining space.

There is also storage space for two 32ft tenders - smaller boats used to get to and from the main yacht - three jet-skis and smaller 'water toys'.

Computer-generated images of the yacht, along with a 10ft scale model, were unveiled by Sinot at the Monaco Yacht Show last year.










The yacht's designers said they wanted it to combine 'ground-breaking technology with cutting-edge design' and provide a blueprint for future designs using eco-friendly fuel sourcesNext Slide
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The yacht's designers said they wanted it to combine 'ground-breaking technology with cutting-edge design' and provide a blueprint for future designs using eco-friendly fuel sources© Provided by Daily Mail The upper-deck lounge area leads directly off the owner's pavilion area and has floor-to-ceiling windows as well as views out over the outdoor entertaining space. It can be used either as a casual entertaining space, or for al-fresco dining

© Provided by Daily Mail A lounge space within the lower-deck entertaining area can either be set up for casual conversation, or rotate to face a cinema screen. Behind the seating area is the formal dining space, with settings for 14 people

Cheetah at N.J.'s Turtle Back Zoo Celebrates Year of Friendship with Emotional Support Puppy


Cheetah that lives in zoo finds comfort with support dog
(Video by CBS New York)

Man’s best friend is also a pal to the big cats of the planet.
At the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey, more than 200 wide-ranging species are cared for by staff members. The resident cheetahs at the zoo, however, get additional (and surprising) support from another member of the animal kingdom — dogs.

Nandi is one of Turtle Back’s “ambassador cheetahs,” she makes appearances at events and schools to educate people on cheetah conservation efforts. The cheetah population in the wild has declined some 90 percent in the past century, according to the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

To ease her anxiety, Nandi was raised with Bowie, a Labrador retriever who enjoys playing and scrapping with the cheetah on top of providing emotional support.

“Bowie has a very important job here, which is to be kind of her confidence-builder,” zookeeper Charlotte Trapman-O’Brien told WLNY. “Cheetah’s are naturally skittish by nature, so one of the things that allows us to bring her out and do educational presentations like this is having Bowie by her side.”


Trainer Samantha Wegman told the outlet that they expose the dogs to various scenarios in order to acclimate them to their special role as the cats’ steadfast rocks.

“We do need him to be calm,” Wegman said of Bowie. “That’s his whole job with the cheetah … no matter what else is going on, if something startles [Nandi], she needs to look to him, and he needs to be calm.” 

© Provided by People Turtle Back Zoo

On Nov. 23, the Turtle Back cheetahs — who also include Alvin, Simon and Theodore — celebrated their first birthday.

“Their first year has been full of fun new experiences, learning new things, and building strong relationships with one another and their trainers,” wrote the zoo in a lengthy post on Instagram, sharing photos of the cats’ growth.

 

Bowie turned 1 year old on Dec. 17, with the zoo commemorating the day by putting the adorable pup in a white-blue-and-gold “Happy Birthday” hat for a photo on Instagram.

“He makes sure that [Nandi] always feels comfortable and confident,” wrote the zoo staff in the caption. “Bowie is a very playful yellow Labrador retriever, who loves playing & wrestling with Nandi. He also loves learning new things, long walks (on or off the beach), & cuddling with his trainers. His silly, playful nature brings joy to everyone he meets.”

Of course, the cheetahs’ human companions are just as important as their four-legged friends. One zookeeper named Joanna wrote of her relationship with Theodore on Instagram, saying that there’s a “trust” shared between the two of them.

© Provided by People Turtle Back Zoo

“Because of our relationship, Theodore trusts that I would never bring him into an unsafe or scary situation,” wrote Joanna. “Additionally, I learn about Theodore’s likes and dislikes, so I know how to show him he’s done a great job!”

She added: “Theodore loves his giant boomer ball, chew toys, learning new things, and quality time with his trainers. And I of course, love him