PROTECTIONISM VS FREE TRADE

MPs tout supply management as fix for poor countries, aim to shelter from trade deals

Story by The Canadian Press • 

OTTAWA — Members of Parliament are rallying to bolster Canada's system of protecting dairy and poultry prices amid trade deals, and suggest developing countries do the same.


MPs tout supply management as fix for poor countries, aim to shelter from trade deals© Provided by The Canadian Press

The House of Commons trade committee is set to undertake its final, detailed review Thursday of a Bloc Québécois bill aimed at tying trade negotiators' hands so that new deals don't chip away at the system that controls quotas and prices for certain industries.

Since 1972, Ottawa and the provinces have regulated the supply and cost of eggs, dairy and poultry through steep tariffs on imports, with slight tweaks for trade deals in the last decade that have drawn the ire of Canada's powerful agriculture lobby.

The legislation would make it harder for negotiators to give ground on a system that proponents argue keeps a stable supply of goods and protects farms, but which detractors say drives up the cost of grocery bills and leads to farmers dumping millions of litres of perfectly good milk.

In a Tuesday report, the House agriculture committee called on Ottawa to further protect the system, and to use it as a model to "give vulnerable countries greater food sovereignty" by being less reliant on imports.

The committee urged the federal government to "consider ways its international development programming can promote the exchange of lessons learned in the areas of production and price stability with farmers in developing countries."

The idea stems from November testimony by Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food. He noted poorer countries' desire for stable food, which can be achieved by stockpiling food and by manipulating its price in the market.

"Canada has been really good at maintaining stable prices through systems of supply management," he testified. "The Canadian experience is something that can be shared."

Supply management is widely seen as a sacred cow in Canadian politics, with the agriculture sector using its clout across the country to push parties to maintain the status quo.

Conservative leaders who advocate for less market intervention often shy away from changing supply management, with current Leader Pierre Poilievre and former party leader Andrew Scheer both arguing changes to the regime would hurt farmers.

The legislation aiming to protect supply managed sectors in trade negotiations, Bill C-282, passed the Commons in second reading by a margin of 293 to 23, with those opposing the bill consisting mostly of Conservatives from the Prairies.

Lobbyists for the cattle and lentil industries have opposed the legislation, saying it will make countries push for concessions in trade deals that target agriculture sectors that aren't under supply management, particularly those that rely on exporting commodities.

Trade Minister Mary Ng says her government supports the bill, and played down the idea of retaliation.

"I believe we are able to negotiate strong agreements that provide good market access for our Canadian exporters while we protect supply management at the same time," she told the House trade committee last month.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2023.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM

Cuba's parliament ratifies President Díaz-Canel for new term

Cuba’s National Assembly ratified President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Wednesday for a new five-year term, in a decision to maintain continuity as the island faces a deep economic crisis.


Cuba's President Díaz-Canel 

More than 400 representatives to the assembly who were ratified by voters in March took office early Wednesday and then convened the chamber to elect the government’s leadership and the president.

Related video: Cuba's Diaz-Canel poised for second term in unopposed vote (France 24)
Duration 1:52  View on Watch

In his new term, Díaz-Canel must deal with soaring inflation and national shortages in food, medicine and energy as Cuba faces continued tough U.S. sanctions, as well as discontent among the population expressed in part through record rates of emigration to the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Associated Press

CYBER CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Robo-advisor Betterment settles tax charges with SEC for $9 million

Story by Greg Iacurci • CNBC - Yesterday 

The $9 million settlement between Betterment and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will be shared among roughly 25,000 of the robo-advisor's clients, with a median payout of under $100.

Betterment's alleged failures were related to "tax-loss harvesting," a technique common among financial planners whereby taxes on investment profits are reduced or eliminated by offsetting them with losses from other investments.

Affected customers will be notified of their compensation later this year when the SEC approves a distribution plan, the firm said.


The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters in Washington.

© Provided by CNBC

Robo-advisor firm Betterment agreed on Tuesday to settle charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $9 million over alleged failures related to an automated tax service.

The sum will be distributed among roughly 25,000 client accounts, which lost about $4 million in potential tax benefits from 2016 to 2019, the SEC alleged.

The median payout for investors will be less than $100, Betterment estimated. Affected customers will be notified of their compensation later this year when the SEC approves a distribution plan, the company said.

Betterment didn't admit or deny wrongdoing as part of its settlement agreement.

Betterment was among the initial crop of automated investment platforms — so-called robo-advisors — for retail investors that started cropping up around 2008, when the advent of the iPhone created a ubiquitous digital culture.

Betterment's alleged failures relate to "tax-loss harvesting."

In basic terms, this technique — common among financial planners — seeks to reduce or eliminate taxes owed on investment profits by offsetting them with losses from other investments. That might mean selling losing stocks to offset taxes on winners, for example.

The SEC alleged that Betterment "misstated or omitted several material facts" in client communications concerning its tax-loss harvesting service.
Software tweaks and coding errors found

Among other things, the company didn't disclose a software tweak related to the frequency with which it scanned customer accounts for tax-saving opportunities, and had two computer coding errors that prevented some clients' losses from being harvested, the SEC said.

"Betterment did not describe its tax loss harvesting service accurately, and it wasn't transparent about the service's changes, constraints and coding errors that adversely impacted thousands of clients," Antonia M. Apps, director of the SEC's New York regional office, said in a written statement Tuesday.

Betterment had fixed the related coding and customer disclosure issues by 2019, the company said. Since then, Betterment has "made significant investments to build and strengthen its compliance program," it said Tuesday in a written statement.

The tax-loss harvesting service saved hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes for more than 275,000 customers who have used it since it was introduced in 2014, Betterment said.

"[Betterment] fully cooperated with the SEC's inquiry and is pleased to have reached a resolution on these issues," it said.

PERVERSE CAPITALI$M

IBM boasts how AI can improve productivity, pays up to $260 million in ‘stranded costs’ after laying off thousands

Story by Wallace Witkowski • Yesterday

International Business Machines Corp. shares rose in the extended session Wednesday after Big Blue topped earnings estimates and software sales expectations, and played up the efficiency of its own AI, while axing thousands of jobs.

Related video: IBM Expects Strong Sales Growth in 2023 (Bloomberg)

Duration 2:50  View on Watch

IBM reported first-quarter net income of $927 million, or $1.02 a share, compared with $733 million, or 82 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings, which exclude stock-based compensation expenses and other items like “stranded costs,” were $1.36 a share, compared with $1.40 a share in the year-ago period.

Last quarter, IBM posted its biggest sales increase in nearly a decade, while trimming its workforce by nearly 4,000 jobs.

“In the first quarter of 2023, management initiated a workforce rebalancing action to address remaining stranded costs in the business as a result of portfolio actions taken over the last several years,” IBM said in a filing, adding that the rebalancing charges primarily included employee transition costs, severance and employee benefits. IBM reported a pre-tax charge of about $260 million in the first quarter for “stranded costs.”

IBM, which now receives about three-quarters of its revenue from tech services, reported its revenue barely rose to $14.25 billion from $14.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast $1.26 a share on revenue of $14.35 billion. Prior to the earnings report, one analyst had said IBM would have to turn in “nearly pristine” results to support the stock.

Prior to Wednesday’s report, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said artificial intelligence was well on its way to replacing humans for “clerical white-collar work.” On a call with analysts, Krisha gave examples of that in IBM’s own use, and told analysts that AI is projected to add $16 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

“In digital labor, we are helping finance, accounting, and HR teams save thousands of hours by automating what used to belabor intensive data-entry tasks,” Krishna told analysts. “These productivity initiatives free up spending for reinvestment and contribute to margin expansion.”

“We’re doing that in areas like HR and talent, finance, and end-to-end processes like quote-to-cash and source-to-pay,” said James Kavanaugh, IBM’s chief financial officer, on the call. “For example, in HR, we now handle 94% of our companywide HR inquiries, speeding up the completion of many HR tasks by up to 75%.”

Read: Meta begins cutting technical jobs in latest round of layoffs

IBM reported $5.92 billion in software revenue for the first quarter, while analysts forecast $5.83 billion; $4.96 billion in consulting revenue, versus the Street’s $5 billion; and $3.1 billion in infrastructure revenue, just below the consensus $3.19 billion.

IBM said it expects revenue growth will be “neutral” for the year compared with last year’s $60.53 billion, given current exchange rates, and reiterated its forecast of $10.5 billion in FCF. Analysts were laser-focused on free-cash flow, or FCF. For the first quarter, FCF came in at $1.3 billion, while analysts expected $1.6 billion.

Analysts had estimated $2.07 a share on revenue of $15.78 billion for the second quarter, and $9.45 a share on revenue of $62.7 billion for the year. Analysts currently expect $10.45 billion in FCF for the year.

Over the past year, IBM has warned about currency headwinds because of strength in the dollar, with the U.S. Dollar Index reaching a 52-week high in mid-September. Currently, the dollar index is only up 1%, compared with 12 months ago.

IBM shares rose 3% after hours, following a 1.1% decline in the regular session to close at $126.32. Shares have slipped 2.2% over the past 12 months, and are down 10.3% year to date. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average which counts IBM among its 30 components, is up 2.3% year to date, while the S&P 500 index is up 8.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has gained more than 16%.

Meta lays off tech teams, battering employee morale

Story by By Katie Paul and Yuvraj Malik • Yesterday 

Headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View© Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) - Meta Platforms Inc on Wednesday carried out another round of job cuts, this time hitting engineers and adjacent tech teams, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg further moved to streamline the business in a bid to make 2023 a "year of efficiency."

Meta in March became the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs, which it said would take place in three main batches over several months and impact 10,000 employees.

Wednesday's cuts, though expected, prompted expressions of frustration from Meta employees. Layoffs were the subject of the most popular questions posted on an internal company forum on Wednesday ahead of an upcoming employee town hall.

"You've shattered the morale and confidence in leadership of many high performers who work with intensity. Why should we stay at Meta?" read one question seen by Reuters.

The question references comments Zuckerberg made last year urging employees to work with more "intensity" to meet the Facebook and Instagram parent company's business challenges.

Related video: Meta Prepares For More Layoffs Across Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Say Reports | Business Lunch (CNBCTV18)  Duration 1:40  View on Watch

WIONAnother round of layoffs at Meta

1:49

WIONAfter job cuts, Facebook owner Meta is now preparing to reduce bonus for some employees : Report

1:10

CheapismMeta Announces Another Round of Layoffs

1:00

The company declined a Reuters request for comment.

Meta's first round of layoffs in the fall hit more than 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce at the time, and preceded other major tech companies shedding thousands of employees after a pandemic-led boom in digital advertising and cloud computing.

With the restructuring, Meta is also shelving lower-priority projects and "flattening" layers of middle management.

Investors have rewarded the company for downsizing.

Meta shares have surged about 80% this year, outperforming the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite's 16% rise in the period.

The company, which will announce its first-quarter results on April 26, is expected to benefit from a modest pickup in the digital advertising market and regulatory pressure on chief rival TikTok.

(Reporting by Katie Paul in New York and Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Bill Berkrot)

Confidence in childhood vaccines dropped around the world during pandemic: UNICEF

Story by Jared Gans, The Hill , Yesterday 

Confidence in childhood vaccines dropped internationally during the COVID-19 pandemic, falling by as much as 44 percentage points in some countries, according to a report from UNICEF.

The report, entitled “The State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination,” found that confidence dropped in 52 of the 55 countries surveyed, with China, India and Mexico being the only three countries where the perception of the importance of vaccines stayed the same or improved. Confidence dropped by more than a third in South Korea, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Senegal since the pandemic began.

Researchers did still find that confidence in childhood vaccines overall remains mostly strong, with more than 80 percent of those surveyed in nearly half of the 55 countries saying vaccines are important for children to have.

But they warned that factors like uncertainty about the response to the pandemic, access to misleading information, declining trust in experts and political polarization could be allowing vaccine hesitancy to grow.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a release that the data is a “worrying warning signal.” She said officials must not allow confidence in vaccines to become “another victim of the pandemic” or many children could die from preventable diseases like measles or diphtheria.


“At the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed vaccines that saved countless lives. But despite this historic achievement, fear and disinformation about all types of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself,” Russell said.

The release states that the drop in confidence coincides with the largest sustained decrease in childhood immunizations in three decades, which was caused by the pandemic. It states that the pandemic disrupted childhood vaccinations in almost every country because of “intense demands” on health care systems, stay-at-home measures, workforce shortages and immunization resources being diverted to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

The report states that 67 million children missed vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, and children born just before or during the pandemic are getting past the age where they would normally be vaccinated for a wide range of diseases.

Researchers also found that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities, as the children who were most impacted by the drop in childhood vaccines were those living in the poorest, most remote and most marginalized communities.

UNICEF concluded that governments must “double-down” on increasing funding for vaccination efforts and free up available resources, including COVID-19 funds, to accelerate these efforts.

The report calls on world governments to identify and reach all children who missed vaccinations during the pandemic, build greater confidence in vaccines and prioritize funding for immunizations and primary health care. It also states that governments should invest in female health care workers, “innovation” and local manufacturing to build up more resilient health care systems.

“We know all too well that diseases do not respect borders. Routine immunizations and strong health systems are our best shot at preventing future pandemics, unnecessary deaths and suffering,” Russell said.

Judicial record undermines Clarence Thomas defence in luxury gifts scandal

Story by Ed Pilkington in New York • Today
The Guardian


Earlier this month, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas put out a statement in which he addressed the storm of criticism that has engulfed him following the blockbuster ProPublica report that revealed his failure to disclose lavish gifts of luxury vacations and private-jet travel from a Texan real estate magnate.


Photograph: Chris Kleponis/EPA© Provided by The Guardian

Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”.

Related: Clarence Thomas defends himself after undisclosed gifts revelation

The justice, who is the longest-serving member of the nation’s highest court and arguably its most staunch conservative, insisted he had taken advice that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends” did not have to be reported under federal ethics laws. He emphasized that the friend in question “did not have business before the court”.


But a close look at Thomas’s judicial activities from the time he became friends with Crow, in the mid-1990s, suggests that the statement might fall short of the full picture. It reveals that a conservative organization affiliated with Crow did have business before the supreme court while Thomas was on the bench.

In addition, Crow has been connected to several groups that over the years have lobbied the supreme court through so-called “amicus briefs” that provide legal arguments supporting a plaintiff or defendant.

In 2003, the anti-tax group the Club for Growth joined other rightwing individuals and organisations, including the Republican senator Mitch McConnell and the National Rifle Association (NRA), in attempting to push back campaign finance restrictions on election spending.

At the time of the legal challenge, from at least 2001 to 2004, Crow was a member of the Club for Growth’s prestigious “founders committee”. Though little is known about the role of the committee, it clearly commanded some influence over the group’s policymaking.

During the course of a 2005 investigation into likely campaign finance violations by the Club for Growth, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) noted that rank-and-file club members could “vote on an annual policy question selected by the founders committee”.

Crow has also been a major donor to the club, contributing $275,000 to its coffers in 2004 and a further $150,000 two years later.

The 2003 legal challenge championed by the Club for Growth targeted the McCain-Feingold Act, which had been passed with cross-aisle backing the previous year. The legislation placed new controls on the amount of “soft money” political party committees and corporations could spend on elections.

On appeal, a consolidated version of the lawsuit, Mitch McConnell v FEC, was taken up by the supreme court. In a majority ruling, the court allowed the most important elements of the McCain-Feingold Act to stand (though they were later nullified by the supreme court’s contentious 2010 Citizens United ruling).

Thomas was livid. He issued a 25-page dissenting opinion that sided heavily with the anti-regulation stance taken by the Club for Growth and its rightwing allies. Thomas began his opinion by breathlessly accusing his fellow justices of upholding “what can only be described as the most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the civil war”.

Related video: McConnell defers to Supreme Court on Clarence Thomas ethics (The Washington Post)

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MSNBCEugene Robinson: Clarence Thomas is just laughing at us

6:05

Scripps NewsJustice Clarence Thomas to account for 2014 real estate deal

0:59

MSNBCShaub: ‘No excuse’ for Justice Clarence Thomas's failure to disclose financial deals

5:51

By the time Thomas issued his opinion in December 2003 he had already forged his deep relationship with Crow. According to the billionaire, they first met at a conference in Dallas in 1994 – by which time Thomas had already been nominated by George HW Bush to the most powerful court in the land.

The businessman had already showered Thomas with several lavish gifts before the McCain-Feingold challenge reached his court. Thomas disclosed for instance a 1997 flight from Washington to northern California on Crow’s private jet to attend an all-male retreat at Bohemian Grove at which the justice went on to become a regular guest.

There was also a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglass, then valued at $19,000. In 2001 Crow made a $150,000 donation to create a Clarence Thomas wing within the Savannah, Georgia, library the justice frequented as a child.

The federal law 28 US Code section 455 requires any federal judge – including the nine supreme court justices – to recuse themselves from any proceeding “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”.

ProPublica’s explosive investigation earlier this month exposed undeclared gifts and travel that have continued to be bestowed by the billionaire on Thomas to this day. They included a nine-day vacation with Ginni in Indonesia in the summer of 2019 the cost of which probably exceeded $500,000.

In a later report, ProPublica revealed that in 2014 Thomas sold his mother’s home in Savannah to Crow. That transaction was also left undisclosed.

The Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, pictured in 2015. 

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

The ProPublica disclosures have prompted a debate about the need for greater scrutiny of the conduct of supreme court justices. Top Democrats have called for an official inquiry into Thomas’s behavior and for all the justices to be subject to a strict ethics code.

The progressive Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking on CNN, decried Crow’s largesse as “very serious corruption” and called for Thomas to be impeached.

Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a non-partisan group which advocates supreme court reform, said that a crisis of trust in Thomas’s ethical judgments had been bubbling below the surface for some time. “The reason that it is so salient now is that the supreme court has grown exponentially in power since Justice Thomas took that first private plane ride in 1997 – when the court becomes the most powerful government body, then ethics issues become all the more critical.”

The Guardian contacted Thomas at the supreme court but did not receive a response.

This week, the normally media-shy Crow, who has assets valued at $30bn and who has donated at least $13m to Republicans, gave an in-depth interview to the Dallas Morning News. He claimed the furore around his relations with Thomas was a “political hit-job” by the liberal media.

He insisted he and Thomas were just friends who spent their time talking about their kids and animals. “We talk about dogs a lot,” he said.

Asked whether he ever considered their friendship as a ticket to quid pro quo, he replied: “Every single relationship – a baby’s relationship to his mom – has some kind of reciprocity.”

Crow’s office, in a statement to the Guardian, disputed any relevance of Crow’s links with the Club for Growth, his friendship with Thomas, and the justice’s opinion in the McConnell v FEC case. “Harlan Crow was not a party to the litigation, was only a financial supporter of Club for Growth, and had no role whatsoever in any Club for Growth litigation decisions.”

The statement continued: “Any insinuation that Justice Thomas wrote his opinion in this case because Harlan Crow was a supporter is ridiculous as Justice Thomas had already expressed these same views in a previous case, Nixon v Shrink MO PAC.”

The billionaire’s office insisted that Thomas’s skepticism of the constitutionality of campaign finance regulation “was established before he had even met Harlan Crow”.

Crow has never personally come before the supreme court, and denies ever trying to influence Thomas on any legal or political issue. But he has served on the boards of at least three conservative groups that have lobbied the supreme court through amicus briefs. Early in his friendship with Thomas, Crow sat on the national board of the now defunct Center for the Community Interest, which filed at least eight amicus briefs in supreme court cases backing rightwing causes such as sweeping crime off the streets and countering pornography.

He has also been a trustee for more than 25 years of the American Enterprise Institute, a thinktank advancing free enterprise ideas that has filed several supporting briefs to the court. In 2001 AEI gave Thomas a bust of Abraham Lincoln then valued at $15,000.

Crow is an overseer of the Hoover Institution, a conservative thinktank based at Stanford University. In February, Hoover senior fellows led an amicus brief filed to Thomas and his fellow justices challenging the $400bn student loan debt-relief program introduced by Joe Biden.

The supreme court is likely to rule on whether the scheme can go ahead this summer. In oral arguments in February, Thomas was among the rightwing justices who hold the supermajority who indicated they were skeptical of the program, raising the possibility that the court will scupper the hopes of more than 40 million Americans eligible for the debt relief.

 Bracing For The Bloodbath: Disney Layoffs To Resume Monday

Story by Lynette Rice • Yesterday 1:28 p.m.






It was originally described as the “big one,” or even more pointedly, a straight-up “bloodbath.”

Either way, the lion’s share of layoffs at Disney are expected to begin Monday. From April 24-27, there will be Mouse House employees in film and TV losing their jobs every single day (except Friday), we hear. A rep for Disney declined comment.

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To say that anxiety is high is an understatement. Just about everyone who works on Buena Vista Street in Burbank is on high alert, wondering whether their number is up.

“There is a sense of foreboding that the cuts are going to be wide, large-scale and very meaningful,” an industry source said, noting how low company morale is right now amid persistent rumors that at least one person from each department would have to go.

The sweeping layoffs are among the first major moves for Bob Iger since his surprise return as Disney CEO in late November.

“It sucks, to be honest,” a longtime film exec at the company said. “Iger coming back got everyone’s hopes up for investment in people as well as creativity. Truth is if you’re not operating a ride at the parks, you could be on the chopping block. Maybe the worst part is still not knowing who is being let go, no matter how much time you put in.”

One employee even begged a Deadline reporter to find out if their job was safe.

“Pray 4 me,” another texted.

Iger confirmed in March that three rounds of layoffs would occur as the company looks to reduce its workforce by about 7,000 employees in an effort to to reach $5.5 billion in overall cost savings. The initial round came a few days before the company’s annual shareholder meeting April 3 and involved a consolidation of production operations across Disney TV Studios, Hulu, Freeform and FX and the shutdown of the studio operations’ Creative Acquisitions department. (A small business unit that was focused on exploring the metaverse was also axed.)

The second, much bigger wave of layoffs next week will get Disney close to the 7,000 goal, we hear. Virtually every Disney Entertainment entity — TV networks and studios and film studios — is expected to be affected in a significant way. According to sources, the various division heads were given cost targets. They translate to different percentages of the workforce for each unit, which could amount to 5%, to 10%, 15% and even more in some cases, we hear.

Network programming and studio marketing are believed to be among the areas that will take a hit this time, and there will be a new round of cuts at ABC News (which already underwent layoffs last month), sources said. The remnants of the dismantled Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution are an obvious target, too.

And then there is Hulu.

The parts of the company focused on streaming are particularly on edge given the mounting intrigue about Disney’s plans for Hulu, particularly since it contributed to overall losses in streaming of $1.5 billion in the most recent quarter. The company took full operational control of Hulu in 2019, but Comcast still has a 33% financial stake. In a “put/call” arrangement slated to take effect in early 2024, Disney can buy out Comcast, but Iger has recently said that “everything is on the table.” The agreement states that the minimum value of Hulu will be $27.5 billion at the time of a transaction. That means Disney would have to commit to shelling out at least $9 billion at the same time it is cutting staff and planning to restore its stock dividend after suspending it during Covid.

“Hulu will definitely be one place to watch with these cutbacks,” observes one high-level exec at another media company. “Since they took control, they have kept it U.S. only and managed it pretty conservatively, meaning it’s either going to get beamed up into Disney+ or they could just let it go entirely. My money’s on the former, but that means they could operate it a lot more efficiently.”

In one precursor of what could lie ahead, Joe Earley was upped this month from his role as president of Hulu to broader oversight of direct-to-consumer streaming at Disney Entertainment. Departing in that shuffle was Michael Paull, a onetime Amazon veteran whose six-year Disney run followed the company’s acquisition of BamTech, which Paull ran as CEO when it was owned by Major League Baseball. “There was zero room for Michael in the new structure,” one former Disney exec said.

ESPN, now one of three business units at the company — a new structure implemented under Iger after he re-took the controls from Bob Chapek — will also be under the microscope in terms of cutbacks. A major wrinkle: Disney and ESPN face a looming renewal of multibillion-dollar NBA rights. While there is consistent chatter of other top professional sports following the model of Major League Soccer’s venture with Apple, one exec who negotiates sports-rights deals says leagues would prefer maintaining the kind of cash flow they do with more traditional licensing deals.

“Why do you think MLB sold BamTech off in the first place? They didn’t want to be in the direct-to-consumer business,” the exec says. “For Disney, they put their chips into the middle of the table by bringing BamTech in. In this environment, though, they have to take another hard look at their costs in running all of that infrastructure as they look to keep cash available for rights.”

That “hard look” will likely cost veteran employees their jobs next week, with former longtime ESPN anchor Bonnie Bernstein lamenting the pending layoffs on Twitter.

“I love our industry. It’s brought so many amazing things to my life. But my heart aches for my friends at ESPN/Disney awaiting the next round of cuts,” she wrote. “Many have been there 20, 30 yrs. It’s all they know. The anxiety of ‘what’s next’ for lifers in any line of work… so tough.”

Dominic Patten contributed to this report.

Disney To Open Affordable Housing Near Walt Disney World, Company Notes After Pounding By Gov. DeSantis; New Reedy Creek Board Has A Plan

Story by Jill Goldsmith • Yesterday 

Disney To Open Affordable Housing Near Walt Disney World, Company Notes After Pounding By Gov. DeSantis; New Reedy Creek Board Has A Plan© Provided by Deadline

Disney said Wednesday that “affordable and attainable housing” around Walt Disney World, which it first announced a year ago, will be ready to open in 2026. “This type of land contribution is unique and is one of many ways we are making a lasting impact in Central Florida,” according to a post on the Disney Parks Blog. It comes two days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis included a lack affordable housing in the area on his list of reasons to slam the House of Mouse.

The governor even threatened to consider building a new state prison near WDW in an ongoing feud over who has operational control over thousands of acres in south Florida — Disney or the state.

Said Disney: “We’ve been making more and more progress on this initiative every day, and now, we’re thrilled to share that groundbreaking on this development is targeted for next year, with the first units anticipated to be completed in 2026.” It has expanded the project by 100 units to about 1,400.

“To be able to offer more units means even more Florida families will get access to attainable housing, in addition to creating new Florida jobs as part of the construction and operation.” It said the property is several miles from Magic Kingdom, near schools and shopping. The development will be privately financed and limited to applicants within a certain income range.

WDW President Jeff Vahle met earlier this week with developer The Michaels Organization “and we discussed how we hope this development inspires others in the community and across the country to support this important issue in innovative ways.” Disney also noted it recently joined Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida for the opening of a newly renovated youth center that included a $100,000 Disney grant. It also said Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort donated more than $300,000 to local community food banks.

The governor has drawn fire for retaliating against Disney after the conglom spoke out last year against a new state law critics dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” that forbids discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools through third grade. Lawmakers rescinded Disney’s longstanding autonomy over what was called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, but appeared to have been outmaneuvered by a separate development deal that was a parting gift from the outgoing Disney-appointed Reedy Creek board. DeSantis vows to overturn that contract and assert control over the company, taking an aggressive stance against the state’s biggest taxpayer and one of its biggest employers.

“We’ve always respected and appreciated what the state has done for us, but it’s kind of been a two-way street,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said recently.

DeSantis’ new handpicked board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District met earlier today and discussed how they might proceed. The board will apparently argue that procedural flaws around public notice nullify the agreement that gave Disney exclusive development rights, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The deal was made publicly and out in the open, as Disney has said. But an attorney for the board today said state law requires notice to be mailed to all affected property owners ahead of time, which didn’t happen.

“The bottom line is that Disney engaged in a caper worthy of Scrooge McDuck to try to evade Florida law,” said David H. Thompson, a lawyer with the Cooper & Kirk law firm, according to the Sentinel.

A Disney rep wasn’t immediately available for comment.

As the battle in Florida continues, Disney staffers brace for company-wide layoffs next week.

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Navy chief defends nonbinary officer from GOP attacks over poem reading

Story by Julia Mueller • Yesterday 

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday on Tuesday defended a nonbinary officer from Republican criticism at a Senate Armed Services committee hearing.

Navy chief defends nonbinary officer from GOP attacks over poem reading© Provided by The Hill

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said during the hearing he had a lot of problems with a video on the Navy’s social media last week in which a nonbinary junior officer, Lt. j.g. Audrey Knutson, said the “coolest thing” about their deployment aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford last year was reading during an LGBTQ spoken-word poetry night.

Tuberville said he hopes officers are trained “to prioritize their sailors, not themselves” and asked Gilday whether it surprised him that the junior officer’s highlight was “about herself and her own achievement.”

The navy chief countered that he’s “particularly proud” of the sailor.

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NOT A PEEP OUT OF GOP

“Her grandfather served during World War II, and he was gay and he was ostracized in the very institution that she not only joined and is proud to be a part of, but she volunteered to deploy on Ford and she’ll likely deploy again next month when Ford goes back to sea,” Gilday said.

The Navy asks “people from all of the country, from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds to join,” and commanding officers have to build a “cohesive war-fighting team” based on trust, dignity and respect, he noted.

“That level of trust that a commanding officer develops across that unit has to be grounded on dignity and respect,” the navy chief added. “And so, if that officer can lawfully join the United States Navy, is willing to serve, and willing to take the same oath that you and I took to put their life on the line, then I’m proud to serve beside them.”

Tuberville parried that “the problem that I’m having is the obsession with race, gender, sex” and knocked what he perceived as a focus on self over team.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) shared the video on Twitter and wrote, “While China prepares for war this is what they have our @USNavy focused on.”