The Supreme Court heard a case concerning LGBTQ rights and religious liberty about one week after Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench

Kelsey Vlamis,
INSIDER•November 5, 2020

SCOTUS hears case concerning LGBTQ rights and religious liberty about a week after Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench


About one week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case concerning discrimination against LGBTQ people on the basis of religious liberty.

The case involves the right of a Catholic group working as a city contractor to not place foster children into homes with same-sex couples. During arguments today, the court appeared likely to side with the group, CNBC reported.

"This is really as big as they come I think in terms of legal battles," one expert told Insider. He said the case could be "a serious blow to the rights of Obergefell," referring to the 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage in the US.

About one week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case concerning discrimination against LGBTQ people on the basis of religious liberty.

Related video: What’s at stake with Amy Coney Barrett as SC justice
https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-heard-case-concerning-080028722.html

The case involves Catholic Social Services, a group that worked as a contractor for the city of Philadelphia to place children into foster homes, but would not work with same-sex couples. The city of Philadelphia stopped working with the group, saying they were violating an anti-discrimination law, prompting the group to sue the city.

The case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, represents a "legal supernova clash" between the rights of LGBTQ people and the First Amendment right to religious liberty, according to Doron Kalir, professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

"This is really as big as they come I think in terms of legal battles," Kalir told Insider. He said the case could be "a serious blow to the rights of Obergefell," referring to the 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage in the US.

It is also the first major Supreme Court case to come before Barrett, whose record has raised concerns among LGBTQ advocates. During today's arguments, Barrett, along with other conservative-leaning justices on the court, appeared likely to side with Catholic Social Services, according to CNBC.

"If we are honest about what's really going on here, it's not about ensuring that same-sex couples in Philadelphia have the opportunity to be foster parents," Justice Samuel Alito said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "It's the fact that the city can't stand the message that Catholic Social Services and the archdiocese are sending by continuing to adhere to the old-fashioned view about marriage."

Alito's remarks were among other doubts raised by conservative justices, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh who said the city was "looking for a fight," and Barrett who proposed a hypothetical where the government takes over hospitals and asked whether it could then force doctors to perform abortions, CNBC reported.

The court's liberal-leaning judges raised different concerns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the case could severely weaken laws against discrimination, including against people of a different faith or race, The Journal reported.

Kalir said the court is likely to side with Catholic Social Services. But he said for Barrett, it would mean overturning an opinion written by her mentor, the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

The 1990 opinion, Employment Division v. Smith, held that when there is a generally applicable rule that is applied neutrally to everyone, the fact that it offends someone's religious belief is not enough to disqualify the law.

He said for the court to rule in favor of Catholic Social Services, it would likely mean the 30-year-old opinion, authored by Scalia, would be overruled.

"It would be very strange if her first case on the court will be overturning one of Scalia's most famous opinions," he said.

He also said there could be political consequences as a result of the case, saying that Democrats could use the outcome to justify increasing the number of justices on the Supreme court.

Kalir said Democrats could say: "Look, religious liberty has run amok, they are now reversing or overruling established precedent by Justice Scalia. That's how much they went to the right, Justice Scalia is too center for them."

He also said the justices may not come to a precedent-setting conclusion, as is what happened in 2018, when the court heard a case about a Colorado baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. In that case, Kalir said the court "punted," deciding in favor of the baker but on terms that did not set a precedent for future cases.

A decision is expected in the case before July, CNBC reported.

Read the original article on Insider

Nithya Raman, Progressive Hollywood Favorite, 

Wins Los Angeles City Council Seat

Marc Malkin,
Variety•November 6, 2020


Nithya Raman has won a fiercely contested race for Los Angeles City Council, beating incumbent council member David Ryu.

“The voters of district four have spoken, and I respect the outcome of this election,” Ryu said in a statement Friday.

Raman, an urban planner who also co-founded SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, mobilized an estimated 2,000 young and progressive voters to work on her campaign in a rare show of enthusiasm for a city council race.

Former councilman and supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told the L.A. Times that her election represents “a political earthquake” for City Hall.

With her platform, she argued that the council, which is made up of 13 Democrats and one independent, has failed to make significant changes to policing, homelessness, rent control and clean energy.

Raman is also the former director of Time’s Up’s entertainment division, which attracted a slew of celebrity and industry endorsements to her campaign.

Natalie Portman and Jane Fonda were both featured in videos supporting her candidacy. Mike Schur, Nick Offerman, Adam Scott and Aubrey Plaza took part in a virtual fundraiser in early September.

“Girls” writer Jenni Konner tweeted “The Nithya Raman win makes me feel so hopefully for the city.”

“I think I was guilty like a lot of people of focusing a bit too much on national-level issues,” Jesse Zwick, a film and TV writer who has volunteered on Raman’s campaign, told Variety in September. “But as the homelessness crisis kept getting worse, I felt I had to do something. Nithya has done a good job of showing how much we could be doing if we paid attention and expected more of city officials.”

Ryu was first elected five years ago, becoming the first Korean American on the city council. He captured 44.7% of the vote in the March primary, while Raman came in second with 41.1%.

The City Council 4 district runs from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks, covering many wealthy neighborhoods popular with industry insiders.

MIGRANT INDO AMERICAN 

Nithya Raman

Nithya Raman is an American urban planner and activist. Raman co-founded a homelessness nonprofit in Los Angeles, and was the executive director of Time's Up Entertainment. She is running against incumbent David Ryu for Los Angeles City Council in the 4th District in 2020.

• 
  Wikipedia
• 
  Official site

• Birthplace: Kerala, India
• Education: Harvard University · Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Born: Kerala · India

5 states just passed ballot measures to legalize marijuana, but policy experts say people already in prison on drug convictions have a hard path to freedom

Kelly McLaughlin,
Business Insider•November 4, 2020

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Five states — New Jersey, Mississippi, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota — voted to legalize marijuana in ballot measures during Tuesday's election.

Arizona, Montana, and New Jersey voted to legalize the recreational possession of marijuana by adults, while Mississippi voted to legalize the medical use of marijuana. South Dakota voted to legalize both.

Marijuana legalization policy experts told Insider that while the votes are a "huge step" toward national legalization, the decisions might have little impact on people behind bars on marijuana convictions.



Five states voted to legalize marijuana in ballot measures during Tuesday's election, though the decisions might have little impact on people behind bars facing drug convictions.

Marijuana legalization policy experts told Insider that the votes in New Jersey, Mississippi, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota were a "huge step" toward national legalization, but said the laws don't do enough to help criminal justice reform.

"It doesn't make sense for people to be rotting in jail for crimes that are now legalized," Morgan Fox, media relations director at the National Cannabis Industry Association, told Insider.

Arizona, Montana, and New Jersey voted to legalize the recreational possession of marijuana by adults in Tuesday's election, while voters in Mississippi approved the legalization of medical marijuana. Voters in South Dakota, meanwhile, approved both medical and recreational use of marijuana.

With Tuesday's votes, 35 states and Washington, DC, have now passed or voted to pass medical marijuana access laws, while 15 and Washington, DC, have passed or voted to passed recreational marijuana access laws.

But in many states, there isn't an automatic process to expunge — or seal — prior marijuana convictions from a person's criminal record. Further, some states require inmates behind bars to file petitions for re-sentencings or dismissals of marijuana charges.
Getting a marijuana conviction expunged is difficult in many states where the drug is legalized

Sixty-seven percent of Americans polled by Pew Research last year said marijuana should be legalized, and while the legal marijuana industry could be a multi-billion dollar industry in the US, Insider reported last year that it's currently costing Americans billions of dollars annually through possession arrests, court cases, and incarceration rates.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports on its website that only five states — New Jersey, California, Illinois, New York, and Vermont — have an automatic expungement process, which allows people with prior marijuana convictions to have the charges sealed on their criminal record. Other states require people to petition the conviction in court.

A woman holds marijuana for sale at the MedMen store in West Hollywood Reuters

Arizona and Montana provided language about expungement or re-sentencings in their ballot measures for Tuesday's election, both require petitioning.

Sarah Gersten, executive director and general counsel at the Last Prisoner Project, an organization dedicated to bringing restorative justice to the cannabis industry, told Insider that the process of getting re-sentenced or having a retroactive release is also difficult because of petition laws.

She said privacy laws create further barriers between inmates and re-sentencing and retroactive release programs, and petitions are made more difficult for inmates to understand through legal jargon, language barriers among inmates for which English is not their first language, and by a lack of finances among inmates that could help fund legal representation.

"If you're currently incarcerated, especially right now during the pandemic, there are so many restrictions on communication, on accessing this type of information," Gersten added. "It might be really, really difficult to know what you would be eligible for with this type of law."
New legalization laws could help communities disproportionately impacted by marijuana arrests

While it could take a long time for prisoners charged with marijuana crimes to feel the impact of the new laws, Gersten and Fox said that legalizing marijuana can help prevent arrests in marginalized and minority areas.

They said states should use tax revenue from newly legal cannabis industries to provide capital and programs to people in communities disproportionately impacted by marijuana arrests so they can actually access the legal industry.

"The best way to address that is making sure there are low barriers to entry like low license fees, no license caps, which introduce competition in the license phase instead of the market where it belongs, and investing in community programs and providing resources," Fox said.

Federal laws still prohibit interstate commerce of marijuana, but Fox said that it will be interesting to watch how more rural states like South Dakota and Montana take on their marijuana market.

"There might be a lot of people that are very interested in getting into the cultivation side in all of these states, but it's limited in that they can only operate in that state market. It's limited to the consumer base," he said.

Ultimately, the legalization in five new states is a sign of what could come, Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of NORML, told Insider in a statement.

"Voters' actions last evening were an unequivocal rebuke to the longstanding policy of federal marijuana prohibition, and is an indication that marijuana legalization is far from a 'fringe' issue, but rather one that is now embraced by mainstream America," he said. "For over two decades, the public has spoken loudly and clearly. They favor ending the failed policies of marijuana prohibition and replacing it with a policy of legalization, regulation, taxation, and public education. Elected officials — at both the state and federal level — ought to be listening."

The ultimate guide to marijuana legalization

Jeremy Berke,Yeji Jesse Lee,
Business Insider•November 5, 2020

 

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider


Five states voted on Tuesday to loosen restrictions on marijuana.


New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota, and Montana all voted to legalize cannabis for all adults over the age of 21.


South Dakota and Mississippi voted to establish medical-marijuana programs.


Business Insider has put together a comprehensive ballot tracker, based on a variety of sources, to explain the various ballot measures. It's available exclusively to subscribers.

Cannabis legalization racked up a slew of victories in Tuesday's elections.

New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota, and Montana voted to legalize cannabis for all adults over the age of 21. South Dakota also voted to create a medical-cannabis program, as did Mississippi. It will take time for legalization to take effect in each of the states.

Colorado and Washington broke ground in 2012 as the first US states to legalize recreational cannabis. Thirteen states and Washington, DC, have now joined them. Medical marijuana will be legal in 35 states, meaning a majority of Americans will have some form of access to legal marijuana.

Ballot initiatives have played a major role in the spread of legal cannabis, and 13 of the states that legalized recreational marijuana did so through referendums.

Business Insider put together a ballot tracker to help you understand everything you need to know about the far-reaching implications of the cannabis measures voters approved.

To put the tracker together, we tapped a variety of sources to explain the nuances of each state's ballot measures, including analysts from the investment bank Cowen.
Click here to see the full map, along with insights like the timelines for legalization, market-size predictions, and exclusive analysis.

This article was updated on November 4 with election results.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Read more:

All the states where marijuana is legal — and 5 more that just voted to legalize it

The racist origins of marijuana prohibition

Cannabis stocks drop as the possibility of a Republican Senate dims federal legalization hopes

Edmonton unemployment rate highest among Canada's major cities again at 12 per cent

UCP AUSTERITY IS AN OXIDIZER FOR THIS

Jeff Labine EDMONTON JOURNAL

 

© Provided by Edmonton Journal

 Canada added 84,000 jobs last month, significantly lower than September's 378,000 gains.

Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)

Edmonton’s unemployment rate was the highest among major Canadian cities in October, the second time the city has reached that milestone in four months.

The city gained roughly 6,800 jobs last month, causing the unemployment rate to drop 0.6 per cent to 12 per cent, Statistics Canada reported Friday in its Labour Force Survey Friday . However, it wasn’t enough to put the city below any other major municipalities. Peterborough, Ont. had the second-highest unemployment rate in the country at 11.7 per cent.

In June, Edmonton had an unemployment rate of 15.7 per cent, the highest for a major Canadian city at the time and on record, but it has dropped over the past four months.

Janet Riopel, president and CEO of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, said in an email the city’s slow employment growth is a major cause for concern.

“We still have the highest unemployment rate of any major city in Canada and our members are telling us they’ve only had a trickle of customers returning,” she said. “We continue to urge Edmontonians to wear a mask and support our job creators by shopping safely at your favourite local retailers and service providers. It’s the best thing you can do to help boost our economic recovery.”

In total, Edmonton has added 60,000 jobs since the summer while Calgary has gained more than 101,000.

Edmonton’s acting chief economist Felicia Mutheardy said the consecutive job gains show the city is still on the path to recovery. She said June had the highest unemployment rate on record.

“In terms of where we saw growth, initially we saw more strength in part-time employment but the latest data in October suggests some increases in terms of full-time employment, which we see as a positive signal,” she said. “I’ve been encouraged by four consecutive months of employment gains. However, there still remains risks that could hold back employment recovery, especially as we’re looking at rising case counts.”

Meanwhile, Alberta added 23,400 jobs in October, continuing a six-month streak, which brought the unemployment rate down a whole percentage point to 10.7 per cent.

Jobs were spread across several sectors, including the health care, social assistance, transportation and warehouse industries.

Wholesale and retail did particularly well, with Alberta contributing 7,100 of Canada’s 15,000 total last month. This was offset somewhat in the information, culture and recreation industry, which lost 7,200 jobs in Alberta.

Although Alberta has consistently been adding jobs over the past few months, the province continues to be the farthest away from its pre-COVID levels.

Calgary, which added 17,000 jobs in October, has the fourth-highest unemployment at 11.3 per cent, down by 1.3 per cent.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said she was happy to see Albertans are getting back to work.

“I’m pleased to see we’re moving upwards but I’m concerned they (will) undo that progress if this government doesn’t address the very real health effects of COVID-19,” she said. “We have not recovered the vast majority of jobs lost from COVID-19.”

Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer said in an email statement the numbers show the province is on the road to recovery although more work is still needed. He said the province has recovered 258,400 jobs that were lost during the pandemic, the majority of which were full time.

“Alberta’s recovery plan is a bold vision to create jobs, diversify our economy, and build Alberta to a better future,” Schweitzer said. “In the weeks and months to come, our government will continue our tireless work to ensure that we are creating the best conditions to get Albertans back to work.”

Canada added 84,000 jobs last month, significantly lower than September’s 378,000 gains. The national unemployment rate remained relatively unchanged at 8.9 per cent. The gains in October continue to fill the employment gap caused by the pandemic with hundreds of thousands of jobs yet to be recovered.

Full-time employment made up the majority of the gains in Canada while the number of people working part-time stayed nearly the same from September.

Self-employment also rose by 33,000 or 1.2 per cent in October for the first time since the initial economic shutdown in March. There were some jobs recovered over the spring and summer but the number of self-employed workers remained flat.

jlabine@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jefflabine


TOPICS FOR YOU

(WSJ) WASHINGTON—The Small Business Administration must release detailed information for all Paycheck Protection Program loans, including names of borrowers and precise loan amounts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The SBA had previously released detailed information only for PPP loans above $150,000, a fraction of the loans issued. The ruling also applies to loans under the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

Private Equity Fortunes Soar on Prospect of Washington Gridlock

Tom Maloney
Thu, November 5, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- For some, gridlock isn’t always bad news.

Private equity managers and their investors, who were concerned about progressive plans to increase taxes and regulation on their industry, are relieved the expected “blue wave” scenario that would have handed Democrats control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress now looks unlikely.

That’s led to jumps in the fortunes five of the wealthiest private equity titans at publicly traded firms since the election as stock prices rose. Apollo Global Management Inc.’s Leon Black, Blackstone Group Inc.’s Steve Schwarzman, Carlyle Group Inc.’s David Rubenstein, Ares Management Corp.’s Tony Ressler and KKR & Co.’s Henry Kravis all saw gains.

The combined increase of the stakes of those five was worth $2.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The firms’ share prices increased anywhere from 6% to 12% since Tuesday, outperforming the 3.3% advance of the Russell 1000 Index Financials index.

“Part of the reason why some may view the potential for a Joe Biden presidency and a GOP-controlled Senate as a positive for the private equity industry is because that scenario brings gridlock,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Dean said. “And gridlock may not be a bad thing when you look at the potential policies that could have happened under a blue wave.”

In that scenario, a sweeping overhaul of private equity regulation -- including elimination of interest tax deductability and carried interest --probably won’t happen, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. said Thursday in a report.

Earnings ‘Bite’

Regulatory changes and tax increases favored by Democrats could have hurt buyout firms in multiple ways, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Paul Gulberg. Raising corporate taxes for private equity managers “would bite into their earnings,” he said, but also “hit portfolio companies they own in their funds, who’d be taxed at a higher rate.”

Capital gains tax increases could also have had implications for fund returns, he said.

Some private equity founders spent big this election cycle, with Schwarzman donating $30.5 million to conservative causes, making him the fifth-largest individual GOP donor.

Still, support for conservatives wasn’t universal. Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer, gave about $3.1 million to Democrats, and also hosted a Biden fundraiser.


©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

THIRD WORLD USA

Roubini lashes out at post-election gridlock: No stimulus means 'lots of people are going to suffer'

'Lots of people are going to suffer': Nouriel Roubini on the possibility of a double dip recession and its impact on the labor market

Julia La Roche
·Correspondent
Fri, November 6, 2020

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini warned on Friday that legislative gridlock and an inadequate fiscal stimulus package — at a time when coronavirus cases are climbing — may tip the economy into a double-dip recession.

VIDEO https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nouriel-roubini-sees-risk-of-double-dip-recession-223038346.html

As of late Friday, former Vice President Joe Biden appeared increasingly likely to prevail in his quest for the White House, with President Donald Trump lagging in both the popular vote and Electoral College numbers as key states finalize ballot counts. Meanwhile, Republicans appear to have an edge on retaining the Senate majority.

Some on Wall Street have suggested Trump and the Senate GOP could hash out a “lame duck” stimulus before the January inauguration.

However, Roubini suggested the incumbent has “no incentive” to relent on Republican demands for a smaller bill — especially if Biden is formally declared the election’s winner.

“Remember, when [former President Barack] Obama came to power during a severe recession, there was not a single Republican who voted for that stimulus. This time around, the Republicans are going to say, 'We're not going to help Biden. Let the economy rot because we are going to have a chance in 2022,’” the New York University economist told Yahoo Finance in a wide-ranging interview.

Roubini — widely known as “Dr. Doom” for his dark prognostications — cast doubt on prospects for bipartisan accord on a fresh injection of cash for the winded economy. He added that any stimulus would need to be "well-above a trillion to make a difference."

In light of that, “we are going to have gridlock like the past — we're not going to have enough fiscal stimulus, the economy is going to weaken, and that's going to be something that eventually is going to bear negatively on the market," he added.
Market defies uncertainty, but lots will ‘suffer’

The United States Capitol Building at night in Washington DC

As investors began to digest the election, the S&P 500 posted its best week since April, largely because Biden’s narrow Democratic majority means less prospect for major tax hikes and expensive government initiatives, if he’s formally declared the winner.

"In the short-run, of course, this week the stock market rallied because they believe that divided government is good and whey they believe the divided government is good is because Biden wanted to increase taxes,” Roubini said.

Those initiatives include hiking corporate taxes from 21 to 28 percent, closing favorable tax loopholes, and raising taxes on those who make more than $400,000, among other things. Those proposals would be anathema to Congressional Republicans, and would come as the economy suffers the after-effects of the COVID-19 crisis.

As the virus spreads, the prospects for the economy look increasingly dim. Roubini estimated that Europe is already going into a double-dip recession in the fourth quarter, and the first quarter of 2021.

"In the United States, even if you don't have Draconian lockdowns like they're going to have in Europe,” surging infections means people and companies “are more risk-averse, more uncertain, they spend less, they save more,” he said. The uncertainty weighs on employment, personal spending and business investment.

In the U.S., without adequate fiscal stimulus, "that could be bearing negatively on the market over time, not in the short-run, but over time once we realize that we have a ‘V’ that becomes more like a ‘U’ with a risk of a double-dip recession," Roubini added, referencing the pace and scope of a recovery.

For now, his baseline is "mediocre, anemic, subpar, below-trend recovery that means lots of people are going to suffer."

While the October jobs report on Friday showed the economy added 638,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.9% from 7.9% a month ago, 10 million people are still out of work since the beginning of the pandemic.

To be sure, while the economy has improved, for many Americans, it's "not a good economy," the economist said.

One of the challenges out-of-work Americans might face, according to Roubini, is when companies rehire, rather than bringing back full-time jobs with full wages and benefits. Once they do, they'll likely opt for more part-time, freelancer, contractor, and gig workers, with low wages, he estimates.

"The corporate sector wants to have flexibility. That means that these precarious jobs will become the new norm, leading to economic fragilities, more uncertainty, more income and wealth insecurity,” Roubini said.

• STOCK MARKET TODAY

Dow Jones Stalls As McConnell Resists Bigger Stimulus

MICHAEL LARKIN
 11/06/2020

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rally stalled Friday as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said stronger-than-expected jobs data justifies a smaller stimulus relief bill. But indexes continued to rise from session lows. Meanwhile, Joe Biden looks on the verge of winning the White House. Leaderboard stock Nvidia (NVDA) passed a buy point.

New Labor Department figures showed the U.S. jobless rate slid by a percentage point to 6.9% in October. The U.S. economy added 638,000 jobs in the month, with private-sector payrolls growing by 906,000. This was better than analysts expected.

"That clearly ought to affect the size of any additional stimulus package we do," McConnell told reporters in Kentucky Friday. Senate Republicans have mooted a $500 billion relief plan.

The Trump administration is also against a bigger stimulus. White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow also said the jobs report is a reason to oppose a bigger coronavirus relief package.

House Democrats had been pushing for a $2.4 trillion package before the election. Negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin repeatedly failed to bear fruit.

America’s divisiveness will 'make it a lot harder on the working class': Ian Bremmer

Akiko Fujita
·Anchor/Reporter
Fri, November 6, 2020

VIDEO https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americas-divisiveness-will-make-it-a-lot-harder-on-the-working-class-ian-bremmer-143656282.html

The U.S. presidential election exposed deep divisions among voters, on the issues of the economy, coronavirus, and social justice. Now, that division is likely to weigh on the working class, as a new wave of coronavirus cases threatens to slow the economic recovery.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance Live, Eurasia Group founder and President Ian Bremmer said a divided electorate coupled with a divided Congress will make the passage of additional fiscal relief an uphill battle.

“I think it's going to make it a lot harder for the working class for those who have been furloughed and those furloughs are being made permanent, because the amount of stimulus that will be on offer, will be so much less,” he said. “There's the ability to start to bring red and blue together, but that's not what we just saw.”

More than three months after the expiration of federal enhanced unemployment benefits, Congress remains at a stalemate over a coronavirus stimulus package, even as more than 20 million Americans remain unemployed. And recent data suggests the pace of the economic recovery is slowing.

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report Friday showed, that 638,000 jobs were added in the month of October, down from 661,000 in the previous month. Private payrolls slowed to 365,000 jobs in October, well below the 600,000 estimate.

But reaching a compromise on a larger fiscal stimulus appears unlikely, with an increasingly divided Congress. Democratic lawmakers, who pinned their hopes for a “blue wave” in Tuesday’s election, faced a stunning disappointment, after the party lost more than half a dozen seats in the House of Representatives. They failed to re-take the majority in the Senate.

The results came as the U.S. reported a record 100,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day Thursday, for the first time since the pandemic began.

Bad for a lot of Americans

“In Europe, you have pretty much the same coronavirus crisis. The case levels in hospitalizations are higher right now per capita than the United States. But in Europe, unlike in 2008 or 2010, they are responding to this crisis, collectively,” Bremmer said. “In fact, 27 European countries voted unanimously for a massive relief package that will take money from the wealthy countries and send it to the poorest countries, and that will actually start to address the kind of issues in Europe that... [would help] people that otherwise would be hardest hit by this crisis.”

People wait in line at a free COVID-19 testing site provided by United Memorial Medical Center, at the Mexican Consulate, Sunday, June 28, 2020, in Houston. Confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Texas continue to surge. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, on Friday, shut down bars again and scaled back restaurant dining as cases climbed to record levels after the state embarked on one of America's fastest reopenings. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)More

The lack of fiscal relief threatens to push millions of Americans into poverty. Still, the U.S. electorate remains fundamentally divided on how to pursue financial and economic reforms and tackle the public health crisis. Exit polls from Tuesday showed the opinions differed right along political fault lines, with 51% of the voters, saying it was more important to contain the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy, according to Edison Research for the National Election Pool. Forty-two percent of voters said rebuilding the economy should be a priority, even if it hurts efforts to contain the virus.

“The fact is that 2008 feels quaint,” Bremmer said, referring to the Great Financial Crisis. “It's a memory that feels like it's not just from a different time but from a different country... 2021 I think is going to feel very bad for an awful lot of Americans.”

Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @AkikoFujita

THIRD WORLD USA 

Coronavirus stimulus: 'That's the only way we actually survived'

JUST ANOTHER SHIT HOLE COUNTRY

Akiko Fujita
·Anchor/Reporter
October 7, 2020·

Davina Kelly, 39, knew she was taking a risk when she left her Florida home to see her daughter in Ohio at the start of a pandemic. She never expected it would leave her homeless.

The downward spiral began in late March, with a text message from her daughter threatening to commit suicide because of an abusive relationship. That sent Kelly scrambling to find a one-way Greyhound bus ticket from Jacksonville, Florida, to Youngstown, Ohio.

Within days of her arrival, non-essential businesses were shut down. Travel was dramatically scaled back, effectively stranding her there. With Kelly’s daughter and her two infant grandkids fearful of returning to an abusive home, the family opted to move into a nearby hotel, where they hoped to ride out the pandemic.

Davina Kelly, her two grandchildren, and her daughter.

“The stimulus check is what got us through those two months. It’s why we could stay in the hotel, because I received one and my daughter received one. And that's the only way we actually survived,” Kelly said.

By July, those reserves had dried up. A local church raised money to buy train tickets for her family to return to Florida.

But that only proved to be a temporary fix. By the time she returned to Jacksonville, Kelly’s job at Honeybaked Ham had been eliminated. Health concerns from the pandemic severely limited her options for emergency shelter, while friends politely declined her family’s requests to stay with them at the height of COVID-19 infections. She turned to the only certain choice in front of her — living on the street.

“We would just spend all day with our stuff, walking around until we just couldn't do it anymore,” Kelly said. “Then we would just find where it looked to be a safe spot to sleep, mainly for my daughter and the babies. I couldn't sleep knowing that, you know, somebody can just come up [to us].”

Housing advocates worry Kelly’s story is becoming an increasingly familiar one, with the government now in its third month without additional fiscal bill. A report published by the National Economic Bureau of Research estimates enhanced unemployment insurance and stimulus checks distributed at the start of the pandemic effectively staved off an additional 13.2 million people from falling into poverty.

While federal and statewide eviction moratoriums have largely kept the most vulnerable families in their homes, advocates worry that has only masked the extent of poverty brought on by the crisis. Those like Kelly, who had little savings at the start of the pandemic, relied on government stimulus to make ends meet. With a challenging job market, and prospects of additional fiscal stimulus before the November election waning in Congress, those most in need are faced with a reality void of that lifeline.

“So many of our clients were not working. They were crossing our threshold, virtually during this time, excited to work and they're facing all these additional barriers to work because of COVID,” said Aaryn Manning, executive director of Project Place in Boston, a non-profit group that provides job training and related services to low-income and homeless individuals. “Now transportation is so difficult. Then there's all of these additional health barriers in order for them to be working in, in many of the types of positions that they would be working in.”

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 24: Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary, Department of the Treasury during the Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing examining the quarterly CARES Act report to Congress n September 24, 2020 in Washington, DC.

 (Photo by Toni L. Sandys-Pool/Getty Images)More

One paycheck away from tragedy

The eviction moratorium didn’t protect Lakisha Cohen in Galveston, Texas, but government funds did help keep the 43-year-old mother of five in her temporary home — a 2006 Buick Rendezvous.

In April, her landlord kicked her family out of their house, claiming he was selling the home.

Cohen was out within three weeks, loading her youngest kids, 7- and 9-year-old boys into the “old clunker” to map out her next course of action.

“I didn't sleep because my brain was going a million miles a second, trying to figure out, trying to pinpoint the moment everything turned wrong,” Cohen said. “Then I had to figure out okay, how do I get out of this. Because I have my babies now. There's no school, there's no nothing.”

For months, she took her young kids with her to work at Long John Silver’s, where they had access to free internet to conduct their remote classes. When her car broke down, Lakisha tapped into her stimulus funds to fix the vehicle and search for a new place to live.

She visited more than a dozen apartments, but no landlord wanted to take the risk of moving a family in when concerns about COVID-19 infections were so high. So, Lakisha moved her family into a hotel temporarily, until her stimulus funds dried up.

“Pre-pandemic, I was pretty much like everybody else. I had a little bit of money in the bank. I worked. I paid my bills. But I was one paycheck away from being in a tragedy ... If the powers that be had to live a day in the lives of people like me, then their argument wouldn't be so great,” Cohen said, referring to lawmakers pushing back against a larger stimulus package.
‘We are real people’

With President Trump stamping out any hopes of additional fiscal stimulus until after the November election, the burden to help is increasingly falling on non-profit groups like Family Promise.

CEO Claas Ehlers says the needs vary widely, from housing assistance to internet connectivity, particularly for families with school-age children. Affiliated organizations have responded by turning buses into internet hot spots in low-income communities, setting up learning centers for parents who cannot tend to their children, while working to make ends meet.

“The parents of children in poverty are actually demonstrably more invested in their children's remote education than affluent parents are, but the resource gap is so profound, it obliterates that extra concern on the part of the parents,” Ehlers said. “Add to the fact that you have single parents who are working long hours. You've got all of those stresses and everything. We have just accelerated that divide between affluence and poverty among children.”

Kelly and Cohen credit Family Promise for taking their families off the streets. Since the organization took on their cases this summer, both have found temporary homes. Kelly still lives in a hotel, though her daughter and grandkids are now in a house. Cohen recently moved from a temporary church shelter into a new apartment.

With plans to return to school in hopes of finding a more stable job, Cohen is more optimistic about her future than she was in May. But she has a message for lawmakers whom she says are dragging their feet on additional funding for people like her.

“It's not not a waste of money because we are real people. My children are real children who don't have [a lot]. And it's not from a lack of me trying, it is not from me being too lazy to want to get up and go to work,” she said. “I've worked every day that I could possibly work during this pandemic.”

Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter

 

New findings for viral research on bicycle crashes at railroad crossings

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE

Research News

 

New research by Professor Chris Cherry follows his previous research that drew worldwide attention to the frequency of bicycle crashes at a railway crossing near his UT office.

His new work, "A jughandle design will virtually eliminate single bicycle crashes at a railway crossing," was published in the Journal of Transport & Health and provides a unique opportunity to assess the before and after safety performance of fixing a skewed rail crossing for single bicycle crashes.

A jughandle design realigns the bicycle approach to about 60 degrees, virtually eliminating the risk of a rider's tire being caught in the gap between the rail and the pavement, a cause of serious crashes. This significant finding varies from previous design recommendations of a 90-degree approach.

The initial study conducted in 2017 evaluated video data, shown below, that was collected for two months, capturing 13,247 cyclists crossing two sections of the railway along Neyland Drive in Knoxville. The footage captured such a high rate of bicycle crashes attempting to cross the railroad tracks at a narrow approach that in 2015 the City of Knoxville made improvements, diverting the bike lane (in the shape of a jughandle) to create a safer approach.

The jughandle design was installed in the spring of 2015. The post-project data was collected presumably after riders were familiarized with the design, using the same two months in 2017 that had been analyzed in 2014.

The outcomes of a 2020 study show that a low-cost jughandle realignment reduces crash risk of single bicycle crashes by 98 percent while crossing the rails, and that most riders comply with the realignment by following the new recommended path over the railroad tracks.

Design guidance should encourage any intervention that approaches 60 degrees while limiting emphasis on 90-degree crossings-- which can be impossible to achieve in many environments--that are used in current practice.

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Paleogenomics -- the prehistory of modern dogs

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN

Research News

 

An international team of scientists has used ancient DNA samples to elucidate the population history of dogs. The results show that dogs had already diverged into at least five distinct lineages by about 11,000 years ago and that their early population history only partially reflects that of human groups. Dogs were the first species to be successfully domesticated by humans, and they have been our close companions for at least 15,000 years. In spite of the long and intimate relationship between the two species, little is known about how dog populations diversified and dispersed around the world - or to what extent these developments were linked to human migrations. A large-scale international collaboration now sheds new light on these issues. "With the aid of genetic and statistical analyses, we were able to reconstruct the population history of prehistoric dogs, and investigate its relationship to that of humans," says Laurent Frantz. Frantz (formerly at Queen Mary University of London) was recently appointed Professor of the Paleogenomics of Domesticated Animals at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and is one of the lead authors of the new study. "Our results revealed that the migration patterns of humans and dogs did not always coincide," he adds.

Frantz and his colleagues sequenced a total of 27 ancient dog genomes from Europe, the Near East and Siberia, the oldest of which dates to 10,900 years ago. Their results demonstrate that dogs had already diversified into distinct populations prior to that time. Five separate lineages can be distinguished in the data: Arctic, American, Near Eastern/African, Asiatic and European. The European lineage, to which the great majority of today's most popular breeds belong, is the result of hybridization between the Arctic and Near Eastern/African lines. "One of the biggest surprises for me was that we detected only a minor amount of gene flow from wolves to dogs," Frantz says. "In contrast to the case with many other domesticated pets, the genetic contribution of the wild ancestors of dogs left very little sign in their genomes following their initial domestication. He speculates that this might reflect strong selection on the part of humans against wolf hybrids - which were perhaps more aggressive.

In order to trace the relationships between the population histories of dogs and humans, the team compared the ancient dog genomes with genetic datasets for humans, obtained from DNA samples that were of comparable age, geographical origin and cultural context to those of the canine samples. This comparison revealed that certain aspects of the population history of the dog could indeed be correlated with that of their human contemporaries. For instance, the first farmers, who migrated to Europe and Africa from the Levant during the Neolithic period, were apparently accompanied by their dogs. These then interbred with dogs domesticated by the hunter-gatherer cultures that they encountered in their new homes. However, the resulting diversification of prehistoric dogs has left hardly any traces in the genomes of their modern European descendants. "A process of homogenization subsequently set in, the causes of which remain unknown. In fact, we found that the genome of a dog found at a 5000-year-old site in Southern Sweden can explain practically all of the genetic heritage of modern European dogs. This means that a single population with ancestry similar to that of this individual replaced all other populations on the continent," Frantz explains.

In other cases, however, the migratory patterns of humans and their hounds do not run in parallel with each other. For instance, the migration of peoples from the Eastern steppe zones during the Bronze Age not only led to a dramatic cultural transition, it also left a clear imprint on the genomes of the European populations of that era - but not on those of their dogs. In other words, the arrival of migrants from the steppes did not lead to large-scale and long-term shifts in the genetic heritage of European dogs. The researchers suspect that factors such as trading patterns, preferences for particular types of dog, variations in susceptibility to infectious diseases, or the adoption of local breeds by the incoming population could account for this striking finding. When, where and how often wolves were domesticated by humans are issues that remain controversial. The fact that dogs had already diversified into several different lineages prior to 11,000 years ago points to a long prehistory during the Paleolithic period. "Our data support the idea that dogs were domesticated only once, and subsequently dispersed across the globe together with humans," says Frantz. In his view, the question of where the initial domestication took place is still an open one, which requires further investigation.

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Baby dinosaurs were 'little adults'

Paleontologists describe skeleton of a juvenile Plateosaurus for the first time

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

Research News

 

IMAGE: MOUNTED SKELETON OF PLATEOSAURUS "FABIAN " IN THE SAURIERMUSEUM FRICK, WITH THE 20 INCH (50 CM) LONG THIGH BONE (FEMUR) OF A LARGER PLATEOSAUR AS SIZE COMPARISON. view more 

CREDIT: © SAURIERMUSEUM FRICK, SWITZERLAND

Long neck, small head and a live weight of several tons - with this description you could have tracked down the Plateosaurus in Central Europe about 220 million years ago. Paleontologists at the University of Bonn (Germany) have now described for the first time an almost complete skeleton of a juvenile Plateosaurus and discovered that it looked very similar to its parents even at a young age. The fact that Plateosaurus showed a largely fully developed morphology at an early age could have important implications for how the young animals lived and moved around. The young Plateosaurus, nicknamed "Fabian", was discovered in 2015 at the Frick fossil site in Switzerland and is exhibited in the local dinosaur museum. The study was published in the journal "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica".

In order to study the appearance of dinosaurs more closely, researchers today rely on a large number of skeletons in so-called bone beds, which are places where the animals sank into the mud in large numbers during their lifetime. However, juvenile animals had hardly been found in these until now. Researchers described fossils of still juvenile plateosaurs for the first time just a few years ago, but these were already almost as large as the adults. One possible reason: "The smaller individuals probably did not sink into the mud quite as easily and are therefore underrepresented at the bone beds," suspects study leader Prof. Martin Sander of the University of Bonn.

He and his team used comparative anatomy to examine the new skeleton, which was immediately remarkable because of its small size. "Based on the length of the vertebrae, we estimate the total length of the individual to be about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters), with a weight of about 90 to 130 lbs. (40 to 60 kilograms)," explains Darius Nau, who was allowed to examine the find for his bachelor's thesis. For comparison: Adult Plateosaurus specimens reached body lengths of 16 to 33 feet (five to ten meters) and could weigh more than four tons. Because of its small size alone, it was obvious to assume that "Fabian" was a juvenile animal. This assumption was confirmed by the fact that the bone sutures of the spinal column had not yet closed. Background: Similar to skull sutures in human babies, bone sutures only fuse over the course of life.

Young and old resembled each other anatomically and in their body proportions

Researchers found that the young dinosaur resembled its older relatives both in anatomical details, such as the pattern of the laminae on the vertebrae (bony lamellae connecting parts of the vertebrae, which are important anatomical features in many dinosaurs), and in the rough proportions of its body. "The hands and neck of the juveniles may be a little longer, the arm bones a little shorter and slimmer. But overall, the variations are relatively small compared to the variation within the species overall and also compared to other dinosaur species," stresses Nau. The juveniles of the related Mussaurus for instance were still quadrupeds after hatching, but the adults were bipeds.

"The fact that the Plateosaurus juvenile already looked so similar to the adults is all the more remarkable considering that they were ten times heavier," emphasizes paleontologist Dr. Jens Lallensack from the University of Bonn. It is however conceivable that the morphological development differed greatly from animal to animal, depending on the climatic conditions or the availability of food. Such differences are still seen in reptiles today.

The well-known descendants of Plateosaurus, the sauropods, are the subject of a current exhibition at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn. The largest Plateosaurus skeleton ever found can be seen there.

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Publication: Darius Nau, Jens N. Lallensack, Ursina Bachmann, P. Martin Sander: Postcranial Osteology of the First Early-Stage Juvenile Skeleton of Plateosaurus trossingensis (Norian, Frick, Switzerland). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica; DOI: 10.4202/app.00757.2020 http://app.pan.pl/article/item/app007572020.html

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Leg bones of "Fabian" next to those of XL, the largest plateosaurus skeleton discovered in Frick.

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Skeletal reconstruction of "Fabian" (foreground) with preserved bones in white, in size comparison with a human and an adult Plateosaurus.