USING CHILD SOLDIERS

Ethiopia’s Abiy vows to head to war front amid Tigray advance

“Starting tomorrow, I will mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces,” Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addresses the media in Lamu County, Kenya. 

(File Photo: Reuters)

AFP
Published: 23 November ,2021

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Monday he would head to the war front to lead soldiers battling rebels as the year-long conflict moves closer to the capital Addis Ababa.

“Starting tomorrow, I will mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces,” Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“Those who want to be among the Ethiopian children who will be hailed by history, rise up for your country today. Let’s meet at the front.”

Abiy’s statement came as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group continued to press towards Addis Ababa, claiming control of the town of Shewa Robit, just 220 kilometers northeast of the capital by road.

It also came after the ruling Prosperity Party’s executive committee met Monday to discuss the war, which has dragged on for a year.

After that meeting, Defense Minister Abraham Belay told state-affiliated media that security forces would embark on a “different action,” without providing details.

“We can’t continue like this, that means there will be change,” Belay said.

“What happened and is happening to our people, the abuses being meted out by this destructive, terrorist, robber group, can’t continue.”

Abiy sent troops into Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region to topple the TPLF in November 2020, saying the move came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps.

Though he promised a swift victory, by late June the TPLF had regrouped and retaken most of Tigray including its capital Mekele, prompting the federal army to largely withdraw from the region.

Since then the TPLF has pushed into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

It has also formed an alliance with other insurgent groups including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which is active in the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa.

Fears of a rebel advance on the capital have prompted several countries including the US and the UK to pull out non-essential diplomatic staff.

These countries are also urging their citizens to leave Ethiopia while commercial flights are still available.

The government says rebel gains, and the threat to Addis Ababa, are overstated.

Officials did not respond to a request for comment on the TPLF’s claim to hold Shewa Robit.

The African Union’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, is leading a frantic push to broker a ceasefire, but so far there has been little concrete progress.

WAR OF AGGRESSION FAILED

Ethiopia PM says he will lead army ‘from the battlefront’
By CARA ANNA

 People gather behind a placard showing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at a rally organized by local authorities to show support for the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), at Meskel square in downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. Placard in Amharic reads: "We Have Respect For Our Brave National Army". Ethiopia's prime minister says he will lead his country's army "from the battlefront" beginning Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, a dramatic new step by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner in a devastating yearlong war. (AP Photo/File)


NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister says he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” beginning Tuesday, a dramatic new step in a devastating yearlong war.

“This is a time when leading a country with martyrdom is needed,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement posted on social media Monday night. With rival Tigray forces moving closer to the capital of Addis Ababa, his government declared a state of emergency earlier this month.

An estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war between Ethiopian and allied forces and fighters from the country’s northern Tigray region, who long dominated the national government before Abiy took office. The United States and others have warned that Africa’s second-most populous country could fracture and destabilize the Horn of Africa.

The statement by the prime minister, a former soldier, did not say where exactly he will go Tuesday. His spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, did not respond to a request for comment.

“Let’s meet at the battlefront,” the 45-year-old prime minister said.

In response, the spokesman for the Tigray forces Getachew Reda tweeted that “our forces won’t relent on their inexorable advance towards bringing (Abiy’s) chokehold on our people to an end.” The Tigray forces say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to lift a months-long blockade of the Tigray region of some 6 million people, but they also want Abiy out of power.

The prime minister’s statement also claimed that the West is trying to defeat Ethiopia, the latest pushback against what his government has described as meddling by the international community. Envoys from the African Union and the U.S. have continued diplomatic efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire to the fighting and talks without preconditions on a political solution.

Shortly after Abiy’s announcement, a senior State Department official told reporters the U.S. still believes “a small window of opportunity exists” in the mediation efforts.

In a year’s time, Abiy’s government has gone from describing the Tigray conflict as a “law enforcement operation” to an “existential war.” With Ethiopia’s military reportedly weakened in recent months, and with its retreat from Tigray in June, ethnic-based regional forces have been stepping up and Abiy’s government has called on all able citizens to join the fight.

The prime minister chaired an executive meeting Monday of the ruling Prosperity Party, and Defense Minister Abraham Belay told state media that “all security forces will start taking special measures and tactics as of tomorrow.” He declined to elaborate.

Abiy’s announcement brought shock from the man who nominated him for the Nobel, Awol Allo, a senior lecturer in law at Keele University in Britain. “The announcement is replete with languages of martyrdom and sacrifice,” he said in a tweet. “This is so extraordinary and unprecedented, shows how desperate the situation is.”

The prime minister in his 2019 Nobel acceptance speech spoke passionately about war: “I crawled my way to peace through the dusty trenches of war years ago. ... I witnessed firsthand the ugliness of war in frontline battles. ... War is the epitome of hell for all involved. I know because I have been there and back.”

Abiy was awarded the Nobel for making peace with neighboring Eritrea, on whose border he fought while stationed in the Tigray region.

The terms of that peace deal have never been made public. Critics of the current conflict allege that the deal was instead an agreement for the two countries to wage war on the Tigray leaders, who were unpopular among many Ethiopians for their repressive 27-year rule despite significant development gains.

Eritrean soldiers have been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the war, even as Abiy denied for months that they were inside Tigray.

Hedge Fund Alden in Hunt for Another Big Newspaper Chain

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country’s largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million.

By Associated Press
Nov. 22, 2021

 In this Nov. 10, 2009 photo, a man walks past a St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper box as the Gateway Arch is seen in the background in St. Louis. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million. In a press release Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. It already owns 6% of Lee's stock and is proposing to buy the rest for $24 a share. 

(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, file) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By TALI ARBEL, AP Technology Writer

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million.

In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. It already owns 6% of Lee's stock and is proposing to buy the rest for $24 a share. Alden says it does not foresee regulatory issues that could complicate a deal.

Lee stock jumped 22% to $22.59 Monday. The Iowa company's spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Lee's papers include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Buffalo News, along with dozens of smaller papers in more than two dozen states. The company had more than 5,000 full-time employees as of September 2020.

Alden scooped up the Tribune papers earlier this year in a deal that was bitterly contested by the Tribune company's own journalists and community leaders in Tribune's markets, who sought, ultimately without success, to find local buyers for papers including the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune. Alden also owns the Denver Post, Orange County Register and Boston Herald.

Alden has a reputation for slashing costs, including selling off newspapers' real estate, that go even beyond the newspaper industry’s overall turn in that direction. The newspaper business has been consolidating as it struggles with a digital transition and shrinking revenues, and financial firms like Alden have taken an increasingly prominent role as owners. Newsroom jobs dropped nearly in half from 2004 to 2018, according to Pew Research, and the pandemic has exacerbated those stresses. About one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have closed n the past 15 years, according to research from the University of North Carolina.

Alden said Monday that its offer for Lee is a “reaffirmation of our substantial commitment to the newspaper industry and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term.”

But local-news advocates take a different view of Alden and other financial firms' ownership of local papers. “What we have seen in the past, especially with Alden, is that it has led to cuts in reporting staffs, and worse and worse coverage of communities in many cases," said Steve Waldman, president of Report for America, an organization that places journalists in local newsrooms, including The Associated Press. "We should view this latest as a wake-up call. We just can't keep accepting these mergers as if there’s nothing we can do abt them.”

Waldman called on the Justice Department to examine the deal for its impact on communities.

The Lee company significantly expanded in 2020 when it bought b illionaire Warren Buffett's newspaper chai n from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. At the time, Buffett said, “We had zero interest in selling the group to anyone else for one simple reason: We believe that Lee is best positioned to manage through the industry’s challenges."

Buffett did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

In a series of tweets Monday, the union for the Omaha World-Herald's journalists decried a takeover by Alden, calling the hedge fund “awful” and “mercenaries” that gut newsroom staffs and raise subscription prices in an attempt to wring money out of papers.

“We would hope that Lee Enterprises, being a longtime newspaper company and holding control of print newspapers in Omaha and Lincoln, essentially most of the population of the state of Nebraska...you’d hope they would resist the temptation to investors that wave a lot of money in their face and hold to the idea that solid local newspapers are important to communities,” said Jeremy Lipschultz, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska contributed to this report.

WW3.0

Chinese Military At or Near Ability to Invade Taiwan, U.S. Agency Concludes

The startling conclusion from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission comes at a particularly fraught time for security in and around Taiwan.

By Paul D. Shinkman
Nov. 17, 2021

Armored vehicles from Taiwan military forces parades in front of Taiwan presidential palace on the occasion of the nation's 110 birthday, Oct. 10, 2021, in Taipei, Taiwan.© (Alberto Buzzola/LightRocket/Getty Images)

The Chinese military has now or will soon have the ability to invade Taiwan, a U.S. government agency has concluded, documenting also failed attempts by China and the U.S. to better understand one another's intentions.

The People's Liberation Army, China's name for its military, is capable of landing at least 25,000 troops on the island nation to establish an initial beachhead, according to the newly released annual report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally appointed agency designed to provide specific and nonpartisan national security and economic advice to Congress and the president.

"They're giving all the signs this is an option they're considering to be viable," former Republican Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, now a member of the commission, told reporters Wednesday morning following the release of this year's report.

Further complicating existing U.S. efforts to deter China from seizing control of Taiwan by force are new tactics the PLA has employed that offset some of the U.S. military's potency in the region. The report documents that the Chinese military has trained with barges, ferries and other civilian vessels to transport military troops across the Taiwan Straits or elsewhere – in addition to more conventional military transports.

"Given these deployments, it has become less certain that U.S. conventional military forces alone will continue to deter China's leaders from initiating an attack on Taiwan," the report concludes.

The new assessment comes at a particularly fraught time for Taiwan, a democracy formally recognized only by a shrinking number of minor nations. China, which has used economic and diplomatic pressure to isolate Taipei internationally, considers its government illegitimate and the island nothing more than a rogue territory of the mainland.

Concerns about military action have spiked in recent months following U.S. and Taiwanese assessments that a Chinese bid to retake control of the island by force could take place within years. China has also expressed outrage at growing U.S. willingness to acknowledge the presence of American military trainers in Taiwan.

Though the current U.S. administration policies focus on overtures to Beijing, President Joe Biden fueled Chinese paranoia of U.S. support for formal Taiwanese independence during remarks he made during a high-profile video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday. Biden later clarified, "We are not encouraging independence" – in keeping with decades-old U.S.-China policy – but not before Chinese state media blasted the original comments as "a dangerous sign."

Indeed, Xi himself warned Biden about Taiwan during their summit, which was otherwise largely seen as a productive step toward a more functional relationship following the bellicose approach of the Trump administration. Any intention of using Taiwan to contain China is "just like playing with fire," Xi said of one of the Chinese Communist Party's most sensitive issues. He added, "whoever plays with fire will get burnt."

A growing chasm in understanding between Washington and Beijing also contributes to rising concern about Taiwan. This shortcoming is particularly troublesome among the Chinese military leaders that would carry out an assault on the island nation or oversee other activities that the U.S. and its partners could misconstrue as such – such as China's recent aerial incursions near Taiwan's airspace.

"Having worked with the Chinese military for many years, it's not a high priority for the Chinese military to engage in de-escalation measures," Roy Kamphausen with the National Bureau of Asian Research, and another member of the commission, also told reporters Monday when asked about the two countries' ability to slow an accidental march to war. "They regard that as a political set of activities and the military avoids those actions unless they are within very tightly bounded parameters."

"In the event of miscalculation," he adds, "there's much less autonomy at the tactical level for the Chinese military leaders to respond in de-escalatory ways."

That shortfall produces a higher likelihood of escalation in the short term, Kamphausen adds, pointing out that China's political leaders would need to intervene.

Yet despite recent bellicose rhetoric toward Taiwan, China's commitment to a forceful reunification of the island remains unclear. Its political leadership ultimately would make a decision to invade, not its military, and it faces substantial constraints on its ability to wield that force, the commission's report concludes.

"These include the inherent uncertainty of a military confrontation with the United States, the extensive damage that would likely result to the Chinese economy, and the risk that an attack on Taiwan could prompt the formation of a coalition of countries determined to constrain any further growth in China's power and influence," it states.

The U.S.-China commission recommended in its latest report that the U.S. enhance its deterrent capabilities in the region, including making it easier for Taiwan to buy military equipment that could contribute to its self defense and to move more U.S. military resources into the region to ensure their survivability in the case of conflict with China.

Copyright 2021 U.S. News & World Report

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Book ‘Starry Messenger’ Coming in 2022

Neil deGrasse Tyson is reaching very high with his next book.

By Associated Press
Nov. 18, 2021


NEW YORK (AP) — Neil deGrasse Tyson has a new publisher and high ambitions for his next book.

Henry Holt and Company announced Thursday that the celebrated commentator and best-selling author will release “Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization" next fall. The astrophysicist says that “Starry Messenger,” a call for science, exploration and rational thought as paths to a better life on Earth, may be his “most important.”

“As a scientist I could not sit idly by and watch the irrationalities of the world dismantle civilization, knowing that a dose of sensibility — a cosmic perspective in our collective thinking can save us from ourselves," he said in a statement.

Previous books by Tyson, host of the National Geographic series “StarTalk” and director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, include “Welcome to the Universe” and “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.” The upcoming book marks the first time that Tyson, who has released books with W.W. Norton and Company and Princeton University Press among others, has worked with Holt. Next fall, Norton will release an updated paperback edition of the 2004 publication “Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution,” which Tyson co-wrote with Donald Goldsmith.

How Fast Fashion Dumps Into the Global South

The U.S. far outpaces other countries in sending used clothing to Africa and Asia – with adverse environmental consequences.

By Zoya Wazir
Nov. 11, 2021


A man scavenges clothes from debris burnt down by the fire in the early morning at Gikomba market, East Africa's largest second hand clothing market, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Nov. 8, 2021.

(YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)


The fast fashion industry has boomed tremendously in recent years – with Western countries leading the world in consumption and secondhand clothing exports, which are clogging developing countries and landfills with used clothing.

Fast fashion aims to provide consumers with cheap, fashionable garments that are produced quickly and up-to-date on high-fashion trends, often at the expense of laborers and the environment. While social media has certainly accelerated the trend cycle and given consumers increased access to low-priced, fleeting clothing, American overconsumption is not a new fad. It's been around for decades, and it's been inching the world closer to irreversible climate damage as Americans donate their clothing and buy more at increasing rates.

A major point of contention at the United Nations Climate Conference – which comes to an end this weekend in Glasgow, Scotland – is the divide between wealthy and developing countries. And just as there is an increasing divide between countries that became rich from fossil fuels powering their economies and poor countries being told those fuels are now too dangerous for the planet, the fast fashion industry is exposing a chasm between wealthy countries exporting used clothing and developing countries becoming textile dumping grounds.

Currently, the U.S. leads the world in secondhand clothing exports. In 2018, the U.S. exported nearly 719 million kilograms (1.58 billion pounds) in secondhand clothing, over 200 million kg higher than its runner up, Germany. These exports end up in secondhand markets around the world, particularly in the Global South, and often at a rate and volume higher than its recipients can handle.

This problem is especially pronounced across Africa, which counts six of the top 20 countries for secondhand clothing imports – Kenya, Angola, Tunisia, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda – and South Asia, where Pakistan and India receive the highest and second-highest volume of secondhand clothes worldwide.

Specifically in Africa, secondhand clothing from Western countries clogs local markets and landfills. The textiles travel from retail secondhand stores to private third parties and containers and are eventually sold to overseas entities, which upcycle – or revamp – the clothes before reselling them according to Sarah Bibbey, the co-founder and acting director of Make Fashion Clean, a non-profit organization working to make denim consumption more sustainable globally.

In Ghana, these clothes – which are called Obroni Wawu in the Akan language, or "Dead White Man's Clothes" — are purchased in bales by market traders who do not know what is in them for $25 to $500 each before being repaired and revamped as necessary and eventually making their way to Ghanian secondhand markets. However, the increasingly poor quality of fast fashion clothing makes it difficult for upcyclers (people who revamp and recycle used clothing) to give these clothes a new life, forcing them to be discarded at landfills which, in turn, has detrimental impacts on the local environment.

"Our landfills (in the U.S.) are equipped in such a way that they can process chemicals and they can kind of be contained whereas in other countries, including Ghana, it's not the same level of infrastructure around the landfill," Bibbey noted.

In terms of deciding where the clothes go after Americans discard them, power dynamics and colonial histories play a role in where secondhand clothes are diverted to.

"Any country that is [...] a formerly colonized country, or country that's not a global superpower, is going to be more vulnerable to clothing dumping in general," Bibbey said. "So any country that we know of is going to be more vulnerable to that just because the political power that they have in the global arena is not the same as the political power the U.S. has in the global arena – so that's the most important thing, I think."

Secondhand clothes are displayed to sell at Gisozi Market in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2018. (JACQUES NKINZINGABO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

While resistance to Western clothing dumping has taken root in East Africa, the U.S. has leveraged its global influence and financial aid to ensure that it can still export secondhand clothes to African markets.

In 2017, the East African countries of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Burundi tried to phase out imports of secondhand clothing and shoes because of the way they undermined domestic efforts to develop their own textile industries. The countries sought to ban these imports entirely by 2019.

However, in March of 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative threatened to remove four of these six East African countries from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a preferential trade deal intended to lift trade and economic growth across sub-Saharan Africa. Burundi and South Sudan had already been expelled from the trade deal under accusations of state violence.

A combination of factors make the U.S. a hotbed for fast fashion consumption above consumers in other wealthy countries. While Americans of all income levels contribute to the fast fashion crisis, Charlotte Tate – the Labor Justice Campaigns director for Green America, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes ethical consumption – points to America's model of capitalism and wage stagnation as some of the factors driving American overconsumption.

"I think one thing that's unique to American capitalism is how much we prioritize working to make more money and then you have more money to spend," she said. "And another factor to consider is fast fashion is much cheaper than higher quality goods. When you look at wages over the past few decades, they've really stagnated. And as Americans have become more productive, the wealth of productivity hasn't been distributed evenly. In that case, you know, it would be really challenging if you're not making enough money to make ends meet to then also buy higher quality clothes."

But consumers that don't have the means to buy higher quality goods are not the only group lining up at fast fashion stores. Americans of all income levels consume fast fashion, and higher priced clothes don't necessarily equate to more sustainably, ethically produced clothes.

Bibbey also highlights the culture around clothing donations as part of what fuels overconsumption and clothing dumping in the U.S., as consumers buy too much with the idea of being able to donate their clothes later.

"People might hear that their clothes ended up somewhere and they might think that that's always 100% a good thing, just because there's that mindset of American saviorism that we have here," Bibbey said. "We get the idea that that's a good thing, even when we see in reality it's putting local artisans and local clothing makers out of business because they're competing in a sense with this influx of secondhand clothes."

But Tate says that American consumers are not the principal blame for the fast fashion dumping crisis.

"I think that corporations know that they're producing cheap clothing that won't last long and that often can't be reused – and they've known it for a while," she said. "So I would say a bulk of the responsibility falls on corporations and our practices, and then also to some extent it would fall on our government that has the power to regulate, that maybe hasn't."

Because of the unique intensity at which Americans consume and dump clothes – with news reports citing a fivefold increase in the amount of clothing Americans have purchased over the past three decades and an average of only seven uses per item – the U.S. requires unique solutions to the global fast fashion crisis.

With the U.N. Climate Conference coming to a close, coming up with solutions to these pressing environmental problems is a top priority, advocates say. And, just as the blame for this crisis cannot fall solely on consumers, environmental activists say solutions need to be sought beyond the consumer level, too.

On a smaller scale, Bibbey points to upcycling both in the U.S. and in developing countries as a way to mitigate the impacts of fast fashion on the environment, highlighting Make Fashion Clean's partnership with the Ghana-based MFI Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to upcycling clothes in partnership with local artisans in Ghana, as an example of this. But they say the more global, overarching solutions still need to be "studied" and "examined."

"Consumers have a lot of power, so while they're not directly responsible for some of the problems facing society today, they do have a lot of power to change market demands and to change their shopping habits," Tate said. "We have found that when consumers speak and reach directly to corporations, they do change their practices. Collective action is very powerful. So, if we all act and change our practices, we do have the power to reform."

TO SEE INFOGRAPHICS  How ‘Dead White Man's Clothing’ is Clogging the Global South | Best Countries | US News

U.S. Senator Warren Calls for Probe of Soaring Poultry Prices

A truck laden with chicken leg quarters leaves Sanderson Farms poultry processing plant enroute to Mexico, in Palestine, Texas, U.S., January 17, 2018. 

REUTERS/Jason Lange/File Photo

By Tom Polansek
Nov. 22, 2021, 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday called on the Justice Department to open a broad investigation on the impact of price- fixing and consolidation in the poultry sector on consumers and farmers.

The former Democratic presidential candidate also urged the department's Antitrust Division to review "with suspicion" any large mergers in the industry, after Cargill Inc and Continental Grain said in August they would buy chicken company Sanderson Farms for $4.53 billion.

Warren said in a letter that consumers are paying higher prices because of excessive consolidation, price-fixing and "plain-old corporate greed."

Prices for chicken breasts have jumped 26% over the past year, according to U.S. Labor Department data, while turkey prices were up 24% in an annual American Farm Bureau Federation survey ahead of Thanksgiving.

The meat industry has said increased demand and the labor shortage have boosted prices. Four processors control 54% of the chicken market, up from 35% in 1986, according to the Biden administration.

"Lack of competition in the poultry industry is allowing these massive companies to squeeze both American consumers and farmers to fuel record corporate profits and payouts to shareholders," Warren said.

The Justice Department is investigating price-fixing among some chicken producers. The Biden administration is also promising a tougher stance toward four companies that control the U.S. beef market as a way to rein in prices.

In February, chicken company Pilgrim's Pride Corp pleaded guilty and settled federal charges that it conspired to fix prices and passed on the costs to consumers.

A month earlier, Tyson Foods Inc settled civil litigation by three groups of plaintiffs that accused it of illegally conspiring to inflate chicken prices.

Warren asked the Justice Department to report by Dec. 20 on how price-fixing and consolidation have contributed to higher poultry prices.

Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley previously raised concerns about the takeover of Sanderson Farms, the third-largest U.S. chicken producer.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Air Canada Agrees to $4.5 Million Settlement Over Delayed U.S. Passenger Refunds


FILE PHOTO: Air Canada signage is pictured at Vancouver's international airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Ben Nelms

By David Shepardson

Nov. 22, 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Air Canada has agreed to a $4.5 million settlement to resolve a U.S. government investigation into claims thousands of air passenger refunds were delayed, the Transportation Department said.

The proposed settlement, which still must be approved by an administrative law judge, would resolve the U.S. Transportation Department investigation into what it said were "extreme delays in providing refunds to thousands of consumers for flights to or from the United States that the carrier canceled or significantly changed".

Of the $4.5 million settlement, $2.5 million would be credited to Air Canada for refunding passengers and $2 million would be paid to the U.S. Treasury.

In June, the department said it was seeking a $25.5 million fine from Air Canada over the carrier's failure to provide timely refunds.

Air Canada did not immediately comment, but said in a U.S. government filing it agreed to the settlement "to avoid protracted litigation, as it focuses together with all stakeholders on rebuilding itself and doing its part to support the recovery of the airline industry". Air Canada added it did not admit any violation as part of the agreement.

The department alleged in June Air Canada continued its no-refund policy in violation of U.S. law for more than a year.

Air Canada said in June it has been refunding non-refundable tickets as part of the Canadian government's financial package. The Transportation Department in June disclosed it was also "actively investigating the refund practices of other U.S. and foreign carriers flying to and from the United States" and said it would take "enforcement action" as appropriate. It reiterated those comments Monday.

In May, a trade group told U.S. lawmakers that 11 U.S. airlines issued $12.84 billion in cash refunds to customers in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic upended the travel industry.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Copyright 2021 Thomson Reuters.

Report: Racial Health Inequities Persist in U.S.

States Have Large Racial Disparities in Health Care Equity, Study Finds

‘We don’t really see health equity anywhere in the country,’ says the lead author of a new study from the Commonwealth Fund.

By Steven Ross Johnson
Nov. 18, 2021,

The report by the Commonwealth Fund found racial and ethnic inequities in every state for Black, Latino, American Indians and Alaskan Native residents.(GETTY STOCK IMAGES)

Racial and ethnic health inequities are pervasive throughout the U.S., according to a new analysis that found some of the widest disparities occur within states known for having high performing health care systems.

A new report released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to improve health care systems for the most vulnerable, assessed the performance of the health system in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on health care access, quality of care, and health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority residents.

The report evaluated state health system performance for Black, white and American Indian/Alaskan Native residents, as well as for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Latino populations using 24 data indicators grouped into three areas: health outcomes, health care access, and quality and use of health care services. Racial and ethnic inequities were found in every state for Black, Latino, American Indians and Alaskan Native residents.

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“We don’t really see health equity anywhere in the country,” says study lead author, David Radley, a senior scientist for tracking health system performance for the Commonwealth Fund, adding the racial and ethnic health care gap is much wider than previously thought.

Health system performance for white residents scored above the national average in all but three states – Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia. In those states that scored below average, health system performance was much lower for non-white residents compared to white residents.

Health care coverage, preventable deaths, and rates of health care utilization and preventive care services like breast cancer screenings were some of the factors used to calculate state health system performance scores.

Only six states had health systems that scored above the national average for all racial and ethnic groups studied – Oregon, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Yet large disparities were also found in those states, where health system performance for white residents was scored the best of any group except in Massachusetts, where it was slightly higher among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander residents.

Some of the largest racial health disparities were found in states with health systems that have historically received high grades. In Minnesota, the health system ranked third in the country by the Commonwealth Fund in its most recent edition of its annual Scorecard on State Health System Performance released in 2020. Yet the state’s health system only scored in the 36th percentile out of 100 for Black residents, 24th for its Latino population, and in the 6th percentile for American Indian and Alaskan Native residents in the new equity report.

Similarly, Iowa ranked fourth in the U.S. for overall health system performance, according to the 2020 Commonwealth Fund state scorecard, yet scored well below the national average on performance for Latino and Black residents, according to the equity analysis.

“When you look at state averages, you’re really masking what’s going on beneath the surface,” Radley says. “It takes this deeper dive to see exactly where and for who the system is performing better and where the system is not performing as well.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Commonwealth Fund President Dr. David Blumenthal said people of color are having vastly different experiences than white residents within the same health system, which has led to a range of deep-seated inequities.

Blumenthal said health care disparities have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted people of color. Latino, Black, American Indian and Alaskan Native people are at least twice as likely as white people to die from COVID-19, with American Indian and Alaskan Native residents more than three times as likely to be hospitalized from the disease, according to an Oct. 8 research brief by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Blumenthal said narrowing the ethnic and racial health gap will require health policies aimed at expanding health care access and addressing socioeconomic factors like poverty, food insecurity and housing instability that can negatively impact health outcomes.

“Health policies matter for peoples’ day-to-day lives,” Blumenthal said. “For generations, federal, state and local leaders have made policy choices that have produced worse health care outcomes for people of color.”

It’s complicated: Social media and well-being during COVID-19

Social media use associated with mixed outcomes when it comes to college students’ well-being during pandemic

New research from the lab of Renee J. Thompson shows social media use by college students increased during the first month of COVID-19 restrictions. The results were a mixed bag. (Photo: Shutterstock)

By Brandie Jefferson November 22, 2021


When students were told to stay home after COVID-19 began to spread stateside, it’s not surprising that their social media use increased — there wasn’t much else to do. But was it all doom scrolling and catastrophizing or was social media living up to its promise to keep people connected and strengthen our ties to one another?

Research from the lab of Renee J. Thompson, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, suggests the answer depends on how you’re using it.

Thompson

The results were published online recently in the journal JIMR Formative Research.

“Social media use has mixed associations,” said first author Alison Tuck, a PhD student in Thompson’s lab. “Depending on whether you’re interested in social versus emotional well-being, we see different things.”

For the study, 176 college students participated in online surveys between April 14-24, 2020, just one month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

To understand the basics of how social media use changed since before the arrival of COVID, participants were asked about their usage a month before spring break and the month or so after. This provided a clear line between “before COVID” and “during COVID” that was shared by all the participants; they all found out on the same day of their spring break that in-person classes would be canceled.

The surveys asked participants how much time they spent on social media pre- and post-spring break as well as basic questions about how much they engaged with and enjoyed the sites they visited; how content affected them emotionally; and how much COVID-related content they were exposed to after.

The pandemic had only just hit U.S. universities, so students could easily report on changes in their use, Tuck said.

There were not many surprises in the basic ways that social media use changed during COVID.

“We did see a significant increase in time per day spent on social media,” Tuck said. Average time spent on social media increased from about two hours a day before COVID restrictions, to three or more hours a day after. At the same time, people reported getting less enjoyment from social media and reported more negative emotions from social media use during COVID than before.

And, Tuck said, there was a significant increase in problematic social media use, measured by how impulsive and uncontrollable people’s use of social media was and how much it interfered with their lives.

To better understand how changes in social media use were related to people’s social and emotional well-being, participants were asked about how socially supported they felt before and after COVID restrictions were in place, as well as about their levels of emotional well-being, as assessed by stress and anxiety. Tuck was able to look at the changes in people’s well-being and compare them to their changes in social media use.

These results were not particularly straightforward.

“There were some positives in terms of social well-being,” Tuck said. The more frequently people used social media and the more time they spent on it, the more socially supported they reported feeling.

Other findings of interest

Higher social media addiction and increased exposure to COVID-related content was associated with lower social and emotional well-being.
Those who were lonelier during COVID engaged with social media less and used it less habitually.

“But some of those same factors are also associated with higher stress and anxiety related to the pandemic,” she said.

The results, Tuck said, held some surprises, but the overall trend revealed a more negative association with emotional well-being as social media use increased.

“When a client comes to me, or when a friend says, ‘Hey, I’m concerned about my social media use,’ it doesn’t really seem like the right answer is to say ‘Stop social media,’” Tuck said. Nor is the answer to go overboard and immerse yourself in your feed.

The right answer, she said, may depend on a person’s goals.

“Many, though not all, components of social media use are positively correlated with feeling more socially supported. So if your goal is to feel more socially supported, at least during the pandemic, maybe social media use is good. On the other hand, if you’re concerned about your stress or your emotional well-being, we’re also seeing social media use associated with feeling more negative, more stressed.”

No matter a person’s goals, it’s apparent that social media use is ubiquitous, pandemic or no pandemic.

In the years that Tuck has been looking into how social media affects well-being, she said, “I’ve yet to have a survey respondent say that they don’t use it.”

Biden to keep Powell as Fed chair, Brainard gets vice chair

Federal Reserve Governors Jerome Powell, from left, Daniel Tarullo and Lael Brainard, talk before the start of a Federal Reserve System Board of Governors open meeting in Washington, Friday, June 3, 2016. President Joe Biden announced Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 that he’s nominating Powell for a second term as Federal Reserve chair, endorsing his stewardship of the economy through a brutal pandemic recession in which the Fed’s ultra-low rate policies helped bolster confidence and revitalize the job market. Biden also said he would nominate Brainard, the lone Democrat on the Fed’s Board of Governors and the preferred alternative to Powell for many progressives, as Vice Chair. 

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Monday he’s nominating Jerome Powell for a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chair, endorsing Powell’s stewardship of the economy through a brutal pandemic recession in which the Fed’s ultra-low rate policies helped bolster confidence and revitalize the job market.

Biden also said he would nominate Lael Brainard, the lone Democrat on the Fed’s Board of Governors and the preferred alternative to Powell among many progressives, as vice chair.

A separate position of vice chair for supervision, a bank regulatory post, remains vacant, along with two other slots on the Fed’s board. Those positions will be filled in early December, Biden said.

His decision strikes a note of continuity and bipartisanship at a time when surging inflation is burdening households and raising risks to the economy’s recovery. In backing Powell, a Republican who was first elevated to his post by President Donald Trump, Biden brushed aside complaints from progressives that the Fed has weakened bank regulation and has been slow to take account of climate change in its supervision of banks.

“If we want to continue to build on the economic success of this year, we need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve — and I have full confidence after their trial by fire over the last 20 months that Chair Powell and Dr. Brainard will provide the strong leadership our country needs,” Biden said in a statement.

In a second term, to begin in February, Powell would face a difficult and high-risk balancing act: Inflation has reached a three-decade high, causing hardships for millions of families, clouding the recovery and undercutting the Fed’s mandate to keep prices stable. But with the economy still 4 million-plus jobs shy of its pre-pandemic level, the Fed has yet to meet its other mandate of maximizing employment.

Next year, the Fed is widely expected to begin raising its benchmark interest rate, with financial markets pricing in two increases. If the Fed moves too slowly to raise rates, inflation may accelerate further and force the central bank to take more draconian steps later to rein it in, potentially causing a recession. Yet if the Fed hikes rates too quickly, it could choke off hiring and the recovery.

If confirmed, Powell would remain one of the world’s most powerful economic officials. By either raising or lowering its short-term interest rate, the Fed seeks to either cool or stimulate growth and hiring, and to keep prices stable. Its efforts to direct the U.S. economy, the largest in the world, typically have global consequences.

The Fed’s benchmark rate, which has been pegged near zero since the pandemic hammered the economy in March 2020, influences a wide range of consumer and business borrowing costs, including for mortgages and credit cards. The Fed also oversees the nation’s largest banks.

Powell’s renomination must be approved by the Senate Banking Committee and then confirmed by the full Senate, which is widely expected.

He has won support from some liberal Democrats such as Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, chair of the Banking Committee, and moderate Democrats such as Jon Tester of Montana. He was also endorsed Monday by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Banking panel, and will likely receive widespread support from Republicans.

“I look forward to working with Powell to stand up to Wall Street and stand up for workers, so that they share in the prosperity they create,” Brown said.

Three Democratic senators, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have said they will oppose Powell’s renomination. Warren called him a “dangerous man” because of his efforts to loosen bank regulations while Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said he was insufficiently committed to using the Fed’s oversight of the financial system to combat climate change.

Biden and his staff have been consulting members of Congress on Powell’s appointment, a White House source said, insisting on anonymity to discuss private conversations in the administration. Biden recently met with Warren at the White House for her input, the source said, and the president talked with both Brainard and Powell on Friday.

Wall Street cheered the renomination, with stock prices rallying and measures of fear in the market easing immediately after the announcement. The S&P 500 is on pace to close at another record.

Powell, a 68-year-old lawyer by training, was nominated for the Fed’s Board of Governors in 2011 by President Barack Obama after a lucrative career in private equity and having served in a number of federal government roles.

Unlike his three immediate predecessors, Powell lacks a Ph.D. in economics. Yet he has earned generally high marks for managing perhaps the most important financial position in the world, especially in his response to the coronavirus-induced recession.

Still, this year’s spike in inflation has forced the Powell Fed to dial back its economic stimulus sooner than it had envisioned. At its latest meeting in early November, the central bank said it would start reducing this month its $120 billion monthly bond purchases and likely end them by mid-2022. Those purchases have been intended to keep longer-term borrowing costs low to spur borrowing and spending.

Powell has avoided much of the blame for inflation, at least on Capitol Hill, even though one of the Fed’s mandates is to maintain stable prices through its control of interest rates. Republicans in Congress have instead pointed to Biden’s economic policies as the main culprit. Most economists blame a surge in demand for goods like cars, furniture and appliances along with supply shortages for pushing up prices.

For months, Powell characterized inflation as “transitory,” but more recently, the Fed chair conceded that higher prices have persisted longer than he had expected. At a news conference this month, Powell acknowledged that high inflation could last into late summer 2022.

Brainard’s elevation to the Fed’s No. 2 position follows the key role she played in the Fed’s emergency response to the pandemic recession. She is part of a “troika” of top policymakers that includes Powell and Richard Clarida, whom she will replace as vice chair in February.

Brainard was also an architect of the Fed’s new policy framework, adopted in August 2020, under which it said it would no longer raise rates simply because the unemployment rate had fallen to a low level that could spur inflation. Instead, the Fed said it would await actual evidence that prices are rising. That reflects a view among some Fed officials that low unemployment and even rising wages no longer necessarily accelerate inflation.

Yet that new policy approach, which was crafted in an atmosphere of persistently low inflation, has come under heavy pressure.

Brainard also played a key role in the Fed’s re-definition of its maximum employment goal as “broad and inclusive.” That means it now takes into account such measures as the unemployment rate for African Americans, and not just for Americans as a whole, in its policy decisions.

She has also carved out a distinct role as an opponent of the Fed’s moves in the past four years to loosen banking regulations that had been tightened after the 2008 financial crisis. Since 2018, she has been the lone dissenter on 20 votes related to financial rules.

In March 2020, for example, she opposed a regulatory change that she said would reduce the amount of reserves large banks were required to hold to guard against losses.

Brainard also has taken a leading role in assessing how the Fed could more directly take account of climate change in its supervision of banks.

In a speech last month, Brainard said the Fed would likely provide guidance to the banks it supervises on how they can better assess the risks that climate change poses to their loan portfolios, though she did not provide a timeline. Many environmental groups say loans to oil and gas companies, as well as to commercial real estate developers, could default and cause large losses at banks, should environmental damage worsen or renewable energy provide a greater share of power generation.

“Climate change,” she said, “is projected to have profound effects on the economy and the financial system, and it is already inflicting damage.”

___

Associated Press Writer Josh Boak contributed.

Biden Lauds Republican Powell's 'Independence,' Including From Trump, in Nomination

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listens as President Joe Biden nominates him for a second four-year term in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 22, 2021. 

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

Reuters
Nov. 22, 2021,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden cited unprecedented pressure that former President Donald Trump directed at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as one reason to renominate him on Monday.

Bucking critics in his own Democratic party, Biden said the Republican appointee's independence made him the best choice to lead the U.S. central bank with Lael Brainard, who had also been under consideration for the top job, as vice chair.

Biden laid out his reasoning for his decision during remarks to reporters that included multiple references to the chairman by the first name "Jay" that he is also known by.

"We need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve. Jay has proven the independence that I value in .. the Fed chair," Biden said. "In the last administration, he stood up to unprecedented political interference and, doing so, successfully maintained the integrity and credibility," of the Fed, Biden said.

Trump in tapping Powell for the post in 2017 became the first president since Democrat Jimmy Carter not to reappoint a Fed chief installed by his predecessor and then quickly soured on his choice.

Within months https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/powells-rollercoaster-ride-fed-enemy-economic-savior-2021-11-22 of Powell taking the helm in February 2018, Trump began regularly castigating him in public as Powell continued with a slate of interest rate increases begun under former chair Janet Yellen.

Trump believed Powell was not doing enough to boost the economy https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-trump-reaction/trump-says-feds-powell-let-us-down-on-interest-rate-decision-idINKCN1UQ2PK and, along with it, Trump's political prospects, and explored firing him. The episode was seen as one of the most significant threats to the central bank's independence in a generation.

Biden's commitment to the Fed's independence is likely to be tested in the coming months.

Expectations are building in financial markets that the Fed will be forced to address high inflation with as many as three interest rate increases over the course of next year. These hikes could slow the pace of the economy and the job market's recovery, results that could hurt Biden politically.

Biden noted that Powell was confirmed to the position of Fed chair by 84 votes in the 100-member U.S. Senate in 2018.

"I believe that having Fed leadership with broad bipartisan support is important, especially now," with such a "politically divided" nation, Biden said.

"I believe we need to do everything we can to take the bitter partisanship of today's politics out of something as important as the independence and credibility of the Federal Reserve," he said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Chris Reese, Heather Timmons and Andrea Ricci)

Copyright 2021 Thomson Reuters.