California droughts continue to worsen as fire season approaches

The drought conditions in the Golden State are continuing to appear grim as multiple states in the West prepare for an extended fire season due to dryer-than-normal conditions.

A drizzle of rain that moved quickly through California's Bay Area Saturday was not nearly enough to saturate the arid land.

© Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE In this Sept. 7, 2020, file photo, a firefighter douses flames as they push towards homes during the Creek fire in the Cascadel Woods area of Madera County, Calif.

About 77% of California is experiencing severe drought in 2021, a state that has the fourth-most property at risk for fire damage, according to this year's Homeowners Insurance and Wildfire Coverage survey by insurance agency QuoteWizard.MORE: West anticipating dangerous fire season due to severe drought conditions

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency in Sonoma and Mendocino counties and directed state agencies to bolster drought resilience, as well as prepare for impacts on communities, businesses and ecosystems if dry conditions extend to a third year.

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images In an aerial view, low water levels are visible at Nicasio Reservoir on April 23, 2021, in Nicasio, Calif.

Parts of Sonoma County were forecast to get half an inch of rain on Saturday, but the area saw significantly less precipitation, Paul Lowenthal, assistant fire marshal for the Santa Rosa Fire Department, told ABC San Francisco station KGO.

MORE: 'Like a freight train': Firefighters describe what it's like riding out a wildfire in a fire shelter, their last resort for safety

"The reality is that we ended up with quite a bit less, so we're faced with what we anticipate as potentially a long dry summer," Lowenthal said, adding that the fire department will likely declare an early start to the fire season

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© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Dry cracked earth is visible along the banks of Phoenix Lake on April 21, 2021, in Ross, Calif.

This year is expected to be the driest ever for the East Bay, district officials told KGO. Much of the water supply comes from the Sierra foothills, which has only seen about 50% of its average yearly precipitation, the station reported.


The board of water utility, East Bay MUD (municipal utility district), is expected to declare a stage 1 drought this week, which would ask for a 10% voluntary reduction of water use district wide.

MORE: How climate change affects wildfires, like those in the West, and makes them worse

Dry conditions are prevalent in other parts of the West as well.

Eight states from South Dakota to Arizona are currently under red-flag warnings for critical fire danger due to strong winds from 40 to 60 mph, relative humidity as low as 5% and bone-dry conditions.

Earlier this month, Colorado state officials also announced more preparations for an extended fire season due to less-than-normal snowfall during the winter.

ABC’s Alex Stone reports for ABC News Radio:

ABC News' Max Golembo contributed to this report.

You Can Mine Crypto With Just About Anything, Even a Commodore 64

Joanna Nelius

GIZMODO

4/26/2021

Buying a high-end GPU is the fastest way to fill up your wallet with Ethereum, Litecoin, or whatever the cool kids are mining these days. But you can program virtually any computer to process hash functions—even the Commodore 64

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© Photo: Sascha Steinbach (Getty Images)

Spotted by TechRadar, YouTuber 8-Bit Show and Tell used C64 Bitcoin Miner, which is open-source mining software developed by Maciej “YTM/Elysium” Witkowiak, to mine with the a 40-year-old computer. Using a Commodore 64 to mine crypto is probably one of the most inefficient ways to do so, but not surprisingly, it can be done. You’ll operate at a loss, but it sure looks like a fun and interesting project.

With a 1.0MHz processor, a Commodore 64 can mine about 0.2 hash/s according to Witkowiak’s GitHub page. Factor in the power consumption (about 21W), cost per KWh (23 cents for the lowest usage tier where I live), and a pool gee (1%, although pool gees are generally between 1% and 3%), and you’re looking at a -$3.48 loss each month, according to this handy dandy Bitcoin mining rate calculator. The C64 doesn’t handle 32-bit computations very efficiently, which is what the Bitcoin mining program uses. Look, $3.48 isn’t a ton of money to lose every month, but who wants to lose any amount of money? That’s enough to buy a regular hamburger at In-N-Out.

Using a SuperCPU accelerator helped increase the hash rate a bit, because it has 20MHz of processing speed to the C64's 1MHz. The SuperCPU was able to mine at a hash rate of 0.3 seconds compared to the 3.5 seconds the Commodore was getting on its own at the beginning of the video. When SuperCPU was optimized, the rate went down to 0.1 seconds

8-Bit Show and Tell’s video was inspired by YouTuber stacksmashing; the creator used a Raspberry Pi Pico as a link-cable to USB adapter to mine crypto on an original Game Boy. A Commodore 64 and a Game Boy aren’t the only devices some people have used to mine crypto, either. Along with Raspberry Pis, others have used MacBooks, old computers, Android phones, and tons of other devices that aren’t great for mining. Even smart toasters. (Yes, toasters.)

YOUR COMPUTER IS USED TO DO CALCULATIONS, THESE ARE CALLED MINING THE RESULTS ARE CALLED BITS (COIN)

Southbrook Farms launches GoFundMe for injured vineyard employee

Southbrook Farms, a vineyard based out of Niagara-on-the-Lake, is raising money via a GoFundMe for an injured employee.

Juan Carlos, known to many as ‘JC,’ has been flying in and out of Canada from Mexico and working with Southbrook for the last 12 years. Carlos has over 20 years of viticulture experience and works in wineries around the country and even in other parts of the world.

On March 23, Carlos was chopping pasture shoots on a farm in Mexico when the shoots wrapped around his hand and dragged it into the industrial chopping machine.

Carlos was able to promptly stop the machine and had emergency surgery the same night, and as a result, keep his hand and three fingers.

In Mexico, health care and employment insurance is uncommon for trade workers like Carlos, so the married father of four has relied on his savings to pay for the surgery, subsequent checkups and medication. He is also paying out of pocket for transportation to his checkups in Mexico City from his hometown of Ayapango, over an hour away.

Carlos is unable to work with his current injury. Although members of his family have been able to help somewhat, finances are already stringent and Carlos has yet to start physiotherapy.

“He's been coming to Canada to work for about eight months a year where he's away from his family and providing for them,” said Ann Sperling, director of winemaking and viticulture at Southbrook Farms.

She set up a GoFundMe campaign for Carlos after hearing about the incident. "When we heard about this, we realized it’s not just an injury that he's going to recover from quickly and that it's going to take a lot of time but also mental strength to be able to get through this,” Sperling said.

She said that Southbrook typically keeps in contact with their employees, even in the off season. She said that Ontario’s first lockdown prevented Carlos from travelling to Canada to work and when an opportunity arose to work in British Columbia several months later, Carlos was mugged at knifepoint for his phone and passport.

At that point, Southbrook had lost contact with Carlos. The next time they heard from Carlos was when he reached out to inform them about his injury. She said the injury may result in Carlos being unable to "do the same kind of work again (and) we want to help him get through this initial stage."

Sperling said physiotherapy will be vital in Carlos' recovery. If he were to return to Canada, he would need to go through a physical examination and it's possible the 48-year-old could be deemed unfit to work.

Carlos is required to undergo physiotherapy for a year, and the goal of his GoFundMe campaign is to cover the cost of therapy, travel, groceries and medicine. The target is to raise over $16,000 by October 2021.

Moosa Imran, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Grimsby Lincoln News

China probes food delivery giant Meituan amid antitrust squeeze


BEIJING (Reuters) -China launched an antitrust investigation into food delivery giant Meituan, the market regulator said on Monday, the latest target in a crackdown on the country's sprawling internet platform economy.

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said in a statement that its investigaton was focused on the practice whereby a company forces vendors to use their platform exclusively, known as "choose one from two".

Tencent-backed Meituan, which this month raised $10 billion in a stock and convertible bonds sale, said in a statement it would cooperate with the investigation and that its business was operating normally.

This month, SAMR imposed a record $2.75 billion fine on e-commerce giant Alibaba over the same practice and summoned 34 internet firms including Meituan to tell them to learn from Alibaba's penalty and not use banned practices.

Meituan, which competes with Alibaba-backed Ele.me among others, had an estimated 68.2% of China's food delivery market in the second quarter of 2020, according to Trustdata. Meituan's businesses also include bike sharing, community group buying and restaurant reviews.

China has in recent months taken measures to rein in its once loosely-regulated internet economy in a clampdown backed by President Xi Jinping that has rattled the industry.

Zheng Wei, a partner with Beijing-based law firm Anli Partners, said regulators aimed to reduce the impact of dominant internet players on consumers, employees and smaller firms.

He told Reuters that "regulators aim to prevent internet platforms from using their dominant position to exert influence over governance, including legislative and judicial process."

Reuters reported in April that SAMR was adding staff and other resources as China revamps its competition law with proposed amendments including a sharp increase in fines and expanded criteria for judging a company's control of a market.

In March, Meituan was among five backers or owners of community group-buying platforms fined by SAMR over "improper pricing behaviour" related to subsidies.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe and Yingzhi Yang; Editing by Louise Heavens and Edmund Blair)

Hearing on objections to Amazon union election to start May 7: labor group

(Reuters) - The labor group that did not secure enough votes from Amazon.com Inc warehouse workers in Alabama to form a union said on Monday the hearing on its objections to the election is set to start on May 7, citing a government filing

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© Reuters/DUSTIN CHAMBERS FILE PHOTO: Congressional delegation to Amazon plant

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The labor group, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), has said Amazon's conduct prevented employees from freely exercising their choice, while the company has denied that intimidation of workers caused them to reject joining the RWDSU by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Chris Reese)

BROUGHT FOOD SERVICES BACK IN-HOUSE Mississippi prisons end contract with controversial food provider

Justin Carissimo 

CBS NEWS

4/27/2021

A company accused of serving rotten and spoiled meals to inmates in Mississippi is no longer providing food in the state's correctional facilities.

© MDOC pic.jpg

The state began a new, three-year deal with the company Merchants Foodservice on March 1 to provide meals to 15 prisons, youth centers and other facilities across the state, according to an agreement signed by Burl Cain, the state's prison commissioner. The deal ends the state's five-year, multimillion-dollar relationship with the company Aramark.

In an email to CBS News, an Aramark spokesperson said the contract "was not renewed after the terms concluded and the state chose to bring food service in-house at all locations." The state's Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.

Marcy Croft, an attorney with Team Roc who is representing 230 inmates, said inmates had complained the food was often "spoiled, rotten, molded or uncooked" and that portion sizes were too small. "They aren't asking for five-star meals," Croft said. "They're just asking for food that's edible and that can keep them alive — it's a very basic request."

Last year, Croft filed a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections claiming inmates were denied adequate health care, fed both contaminated and spoiled food and were housed in unsafe living quarters — a legal effort bankrolled by Yo Gotti and Jay-Z's Team Roc.

In the lawsuit, Croft and her legal team said inmates complained about receiving food that was undercooked or not defrosted and contained rat, bird, or insect feces. They claimed some suffered adverse side effects, with one inmate vomiting for days from "apparent food poisoning."

"In the correctional system, timely meals are a security issue. People don't want to feel like they need to fight over resources, and that's certainly what was happening at Parchman," Croft told CBS News.

She said some of her clients skipped meals and displayed a disturbing amount of weight loss: "We had a number of clients who have lost massive amounts of weight — anywhere from 30 to 60 pounds because the food was inedible."

An inmate living at Parchman described the food to CBS News last year: "The rice and potatoes be spoiled sometimes. The bologna and lunch meat they serve — instead of a pinkish color — is a gray or dark color, that's how you know it's spoiled. They usually give hard trays that have dried up food on the side. There were some trays with roaches and water inside."

© Provided by CBS News These undated images purportedly show food served at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. / Credit: Team Roc

The conditions at state-run prisons came under national scrutiny last year after a spate of inmate deaths, triggering a Department of Justice investigation and widespread calls for reform. Last year, CBS News spoke to several inmates who complained of squalid conditions inside Parchman's infamous Unit 29, which Governor Tate Reeves vowed to close by the end of 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic upended those plans and more than 400 inmates still remain in Unit 29, according to Croft, who recently met with clients inside Parchman. Both inmates and state health officials have documented dire conditions in Unit 29, such as molding, flooding in cells, as well as rat and cockroach infestations. The cellblock, which has undergone some renovations, is also now being used to hold inmates who display symptoms of COVID-19, Croft said.

The Department of Corrections and Reeve's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this week, Reeves signed legislation that gives more inmates the possibility of parole. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, was championed by criminal justice advocates.

Jessica Jackson, the chief advocacy officer for Reform Alliance, called the signing a "significant effort" to create a pathway for thousands of people to be released from custody.

"This is monumental for Mississippi. It's also the first piece of criminal justice reform legislation that Tate Reeves has signed," she said. "It shows that the issue of criminal justice reform continues to be a bipartisan issue even in the reddest of states."

Native American Nonprofit Calls on CNN to Fire Rick Santorum: 'Reckless and Irresponsible'

J. Clara Chan 

THE WRAP

4/26/2021

© TheWrap Rick Santorum

"Rick Santorum is fueling white supremacy by erasing the history of Native peoples," Crystal Echo Hawk, the founder of IllumiNative, says

IllumiNative, a nonprofit focused on challenging negative narratives about Native Americans, called on CNN to fire Rick Santorum on Monday after he dismissed Native culture and said there was "nothing" in the U.S. before colonizers arrived.

"Rick Santorum perpetuated a myth that whitewashes American history and attempts to erase Native peoples," Crystal Echo Hawk, the founder and executive director of IllumiNative, said in a statement. "American history that does not include Native peoples is a lie and Rick Santorum is fueling white supremacy by erasing the history of Native peoples. CNN should not give Rick Santorum a national platform where he can spew this type of ignorance and bigotry against communities of color on air. Allowing him to spread racism and white supremacy to the American public is reckless and irresponsible."

"CNN must do more to include Indigenous and diverse voices in its programming and fire Rick Santorum," Echo Hawk continued.

A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, Santorum gave a speech for the Young America's Foundation, a conservative youth group, in which he claimed there "isn't much Native American culture in American culture" and said colonizers "birthed a nation from nothing." A video clip of his speech went viral Monday on social media, leading to public backlash against Santorum.

"We came here and created a blank slate. We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn't much Native American culture in American culture," the former Pennsylvania senator and CNN political commentator said. "It was born of the people who came here pursuing religious liberty."

In her statement on Monday, Echo Hawk pushed back on Santorum's baseless claim that Native culture isn't present in "American culture."

"The contributions of Native Americans are everywhere — our history, our land, and our culture are so important and meaningful that they were stolen by the very people who came to these shores," she said. "Despite these attempts to erase us, we continue to thrive."

The Pentagon's explanation about why an unknown Florida company took over a giant slice of its internet leaves a key question unanswered
insider@insider.com (Katie Canales) 

4/26/2021

© Provided by Business Insider Carlos Barria/Reuters

A Florida company that took over a Pentagon-owned slice of the internet only stood up in September.

The company also doesn't have experience in working with government contracts.

The Pentagon has responded to the news, but has not answered why it chose such a new firm.

The Pentagon has responded to how a mysterious Florida company was able to take over a large chunk of government-owned internet.

In a statement on Friday, Brett Goldstein, the chief of the Pentagon's defense digital service, said federal officials are working to "assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space" and hopes to "identify potential vulnerabilities" in its fight to curb cyberattacks of US networks, according to the Associated Press.

However, it hasn't explained why it entrusted that work to a firm - identified as Global Resource Systems LLC, which is based in Florida and incorporated in Delaware - that appears to have just launched in September and that lacks experience working with government contracts, the AP reported.

About three minutes before former President Donald Trump's term ended on January 20, the company posted on a global platform that it had taken over a massive section of unused internet that was owned by the Department of Defense, which had chosen Global Resource Systems LLC to manage its address space.

It now controls about 175 million IP addresses, or roughly 1/25 of the world's internet space, per the AP.

"That is the biggest thing in the history of the internet," as one expert told the AP. It's also more than large internet companies like AT&T, Comcast, and China Telecom controls.

As the outlet notes, the company doesn't have a presence online, and per public records does not have a business license in Plantation, Florida, where it is based. The company filed paperwork in October, per Florida state records, detailing its incorporation in Delaware.

Reporters with the AP and The Washington Post visited the physical addresses listed under the company but were turned away without being given information.
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US marks slowest population growth since the Depression

AP NEWS 4/27/2021


WASHINGTON — U.S. population growth has slowed to the lowest rate since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Monday, as Americans continued their march to the South and West and one-time engines of growth, New York and California, lost political influence

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Altogether, the U.S. population rose to 331,449,281 last year, the Census Bureau said, a 7.4% increase over the previous decade that was the second-slowest ever. Experts say that paltry pace reflects the combination of an aging population, slowing immigration and the scars of the Great Recession more than a decade ago, which led many young adults to delay marriage and families.


The new allocation of congressional seats comes in the first release of data from last year's headcount. The numbers generally chart familiar American migration patterns: Texas and Florida, two Republican Sunbelt giants, added enough population to gain congressional seats as chillier climes like New York and Ohio saw slow growth and lost political muscle. The report also confirms one historic marker: For the first time in 170 years of statehood, California is losing a congressional seat, a result of slowed migration to the nation’s most populous state, which was once a symbol of the country’s expansive frontier.

The state population figures, known as the apportionment count, determine distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year. They also mark the official beginning of once-a-decade redistricting battles. The numbers released Monday, along with more detailed data expected later this year, will be used by state legislatures or independent commissions to redraw political maps to account for shifts in population.

It’s been a bumpy road getting this far. The 2020 census faced a once-in-a-century coronavirus pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, allegations of political interference with the Trump administration’s failed effort to add a citizenship question, fluctuating deadlines and lawsuits.

Texas was the biggest winner — the second-most populous state added two congressional seats, while Florida and North Carolina each gained one. Colorado, Montana and Oregon all added residents and gained a seat each. States losing seats included Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The new numbers contain some surprises. Though Texas and Florida grew, the final census count had them each gaining one fewer seat than expected. Arizona, another fast-growing state that demographers considered a sure bet to pick up a new seat, failed to get one. All three states have large Latino populations that represent about half their growth, and this could be an early sign that Hispanics shied away from the Trump administration’s count.

Still, Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defence and Educational Fund, said he wasn’t ready to “sound the alarm” over the underperformance of states with large Hispanic populations. He noted that he believes Hispanic growth helped states like Colorado and Oregon each gain seats and prevented states like New York and Illinois from losing more.

Congressional reapportionment is a zero sum game, with states divvying up the 435 House seats based on population advantages that can be strikingly small. If New York had counted 89 more residents, the state would have kept its seat and Minnesota would have lost one, officials said. Minnesota, which had the nation’s highest self-response rate, also secured the last House seat in 2010.

The reshuffling of the congressional map moved seats from blue states to red ones, giving Republicans a clear, immediate advantage. The party will have complete control of drawing the congressional maps in Texas, Florida and North Carolina — states that are adding four seats.

In contrast, though Democrats control the process in Oregon, Democratic lawmakers there have agreed to give Republicans an equal say in redistricting in exchange for a commitment to stop blocking bills. In Democratic Colorado, a nonpartisan commission will draw the lines, meaning the party won’t have total control in a single expanding state’s redistricting.

The overall numbers confirm what demographers have long warned — that the country's growth is stalling. Many had expected growth to come in even below the 1930s levels given the long hangover of the Great Recession and the drying up of immigration, which came to a virtual halt during last year's pandemic.

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., warned that even a recovering economy may not change the trend with the population aging rapidly and immigration contentious. “Unlike the Great Depression, it's part of a process where we're likely to keep having slow growth,” Frey said.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to move to GOP-run states. For now, that shift provides the Republicans with the opportunity to shape new congressional districts to maximize the influence of their voters and have a major advantage in upcoming elections — possibly enough to win back control of the U.S. House.






But in the long term, it's not clear the migration is good news for Republicans. Many of the fastest growing states are increasingly competitive political battlegrounds where the new arrivals — including many young people and people of colour — could at some point give Democrats an edge.

“What's happening is growth in Sunbelt states that are trending Democratic or will soon trend Democratic,” Frey said.

That means Republicans may be limited in how many favourable seats they can draw as Democrats move to their territory.

“It's going to be harder and harder for the Texas Legislature to gerrymander advantageous congressional districts” for Republicans, said William Fulton, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston. “Texas hasn't flipped blue yet as a state, but the blue population centres are growing really fast.”

Fulton, who moved to Texas from California, said his new home has become “the new California — the big state that's adding a lot of population.” He believes California risks becoming the new Northeast — which he characterized as a stagnant, crowded area that retains wealth and intellectual clout but loses innovators to more promising places.

Despite California's slow growth, the state still has 10 million more residents than Texas.

North Carolina and Texas, Fulton said, are positioned to become the intellectual powerhouses of the new economy, as the South has snatched away major manufacturing industries like automobiles from the Rust Belt. “We are 10-20 years away from the South and the West being truly dominant in American culture and American society,” Fulton said.

But population booms also bring new burdens, like increased traffic, rising home prices and strains on an infrastructure already grappling with climate change — vividly illustrated when the Texas power grid failed in the winter storms of February.

The pattern outlined in the the Census data was one started in the 1930s with the development of modern air-conditioning and has been steady since then. The change in the pattern this time was California.

Home prices have soared in California, contributing to a stream of residents leaving for other Western states. Those relocations helped turn Colorado and Nevada into Democratic states and made Arizona competitive.

"That's the California exodus, blue state immigrants,” Frey said. “Californians are taking their votes and moving to other places.”

The power shift is also being driven by Hispanics. Over the decade, Hispanics accounted for around half of the growth in Arizona, Florida and Texas, according to figures from the American Community Survey, a Census Bureau program separate from the decennial census.

The legal deadline for turning in the apportionment numbers was Dec. 31, but the Census Bureau pushed back that date to April because of challenges caused by the pandemic and the need for more time to correct not-unexpected irregularities.

More detailed figures will be released later this year showing populations by race, Hispanic origin, gender and housing at geographic levels as small as neighbourhoods. This redistricting data will be used for redrawing precise congressional and legislative districts.

President Joe Biden sent Monday's numbers to the Capitol, where the House clerk has 15 days to notify governors.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi

Mike Schneider And Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press

INSIDER TRADING

The CEO of Emergent, the company that ruined 15 million J&J vaccine doses, sold more than $10 million in stock before prices fell

salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani) 

4/27/2021

© Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Employees work in a lab at Emergent Biosolutions, which is manufacturing vaccines for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson on February 8, 2021 in Baltimore, Maryland.

There are millions of doses in the building which are awaiting FDA approval to be distributed. The botched rollout of vaccines in Maryland has put more pressure on getting more vaccines out into circulation.

Emergent BioSolutions stock prices fell by over 50% on February 19, The Washington Post reported.

The company's CEO, Robert Kramer, sold more than $10 million worth of stock in January and early February.

It was reported last month that their Maryland facility ruined millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccines.

The CEO of Emergent BioSolutions, the company that ruined 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, sold more than $10 million worth of his stock in the company before the price fell, The Washington Post reported.

Robert Kramer sold the stocks in January and early February, right before the price fell on February 19 after the company's published financial report. The price has since dropped from $125 a share to $62, a more than 50% drop, the Post reported.

The stocks Kramer sold would now be worth $5.5 million and were his first substantive sales of the company's stock since 2016.

He made his current sale because of the compensation package the company gave him. He was able to buy the stocks for about $2.5 million and then sell them for market price. The sale was a part of a November 13 trading plan, the Post reported.

Those plans are made in advance on when stocks are bought and sold and help protect members of the company from being accused of insider trading.

On March 31, it was reported that Emergent, which also produced coronavirus vaccines for AstraZeneca, had ruined 15 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines due to human error when employees mixed up ingredients for the two different vaccines.

After the news of the ruined doses, shares in the company tumbled by as much as 14.5%.

Democrats in the House of Representatives also recently launched an investigation into whether or not the company was granted a federal contract to make the shots because of a connection to a top former Trump administration official, CNBC reported.

Emergent did not reply to Insider's request for comment at the time of publication but spokeswoman Nina DeLorenzo told the Post: "Mr. Kramer, our executive team, and our board of directors are held to the highest ethical standards and follow strict compliance with all laws and regulations governing financial transactions. Any insinuation of wrongdoing is without evidence or merit."

The company faced issues since April 2020, when a Food and Drug Administration inspector found violations, including failures to follow testing procedures at the Baltimore facility, the Post reported.

A New York Times report from earlier this month revealed that a batch of AstraZeneca's vaccine was discarded in October 2020 because of suspected contamination. The next month a batch of Johnson & Johnson vaccine was also discarded because of employee error.

The Post also reported that the company was sued for $19 million in July 2020 by a company that asked them to produce an experimental ricin vaccine. That company had already given doses of the vaccine produced by Emergent to participants in a study of the drug before it was revealed that Emergent used ingredients that were outside of specifications.

Read the original article on Business Insid