BMI to Lay Off ‘Just Under 10%’ of Workforce

Jem Aswad - VARIETY

BMI, one of the two largest performing rights organizations in the United States, announced layoffs of “just under 10%” of its workforce last week, a rep has confirmed to Variety.

The move comes shortly after plans to sell the PRO, which represents some of the world’s biggest artists in the U.S. and pulls in more than $1 billion in revenue annually, were abandoned after the organization did not meet its target price, according to a report in Bloomberg, although the BMI rep said the layoffs were unrelated to the sale cancelation. News of the layoffs was first reported in Billboard.

A source close to the situation tells Variety that the 10% was comprised of a mostly even split between headcount (fewer than 30 people) and then eliminating open positions that were being recruited for.

President and CEO Mike O’Neill announced the cuts in an email obtained by the outlet. “I’m writing to let you know about some difficult actions we took today,” he wrote. “After a careful and comprehensive review process, we are reducing BMI’s total workforce by just under 10% through a combination of headcount reduction and not filling a number of current open positions. This impacted most departments and is effective immediately.”

According to the Bloomberg report, BMI hired Goldman Sachs earlier this year to explore strategic options, including a sale. With record revenue of over $1.4 billion in 2021, company execs hoped to sell it for at least $1.5 billion and even asked some interested parties for as much $2 billion or $3 billion, sources told Bloomberg.

However, a sale “is no longer an avenue we are considering,” BMI said in a statement earlier this month. “We’ve been clear from the start that as we explored strategic opportunities for BMI, we were going to evaluate all options that would support our affiliates and grow the value of their music.”

The move comes despite BMI setting financial records in 2021 by registering an 8% increase in distributions (to $1.335 billion) and a 7% revenue gain (to $1.409 billion) O’Neill wrote in his email, “I appreciate that you may wonder why, when we regularly highlight how we continue to outperform the competition, this year included, we need to take these difficult steps. It’s a fair question, but our success does not mean that we shouldn’t also take a critical look at our business and ensure we are operating in the most efficient and effective way possible, particularly as we head into uncertain economic times.”

He seemed to nod to the impact of the pandemic on the organization’s revenue, a large percentage of which comes from arenas, bars, restaurants and other places where people gather and music is played: “We learned some important lessons during the pandemic about how we could operate more effectively. Unlike many other companies, we made a concerted effort to maintain headcount as COVID took hold, the right decision for us at that time.”

However, he continued, “as we emerged from the pandemic, it became clear that there were areas in our workforce that needed adjustment.”

Ford Motors to lay off 3,000 employees from global workforce, including Canada

MobileSyrup - 

Ford is the latest in a string of companies laying off employees. The company is cutting off roughly 3,000 employees from its global workforce, including Canada, the U.S. and India, as part of a restructuring effort to cut costs.



The report, as shared by CNBC News, suggests that Ford began notifying employees about the cuts today, Monday, August 22nd. “The cuts will include 2,000 salaried positions and 1,000 agency jobs in the U.S., Canada and India, Farley and Ford Chairman Bill Ford said in a message to employees that was obtained by CNBC,” wrote the publication.

“Building this future requires changing and reshaping virtually all aspects of the way we have operated for more than a century. It requires focus, clarity and speed. And, as we have discussed in recent months, it means redeploying resources and addressing our cost structure, which is uncompetitive versus traditional and new competitors,” reads the message.

The job cuts are divided between Ford Blue and Ford Model E, the company’s combustion engine and electric vehicle divisions. Back in July, Bloomberg indicated that Ford intends to lay off roughly 8,000 of its employees, however, it seems the company walked back on its plans for such a mass layoff.

This comes soon after Irvine, California-based Rivian announced in July that it is laying off five percent of its workforce.

Ford cutting 3,000 white-collar jobs in bid to lower costs


DETROIT (AP) — About 3,000 white-collar workers at Ford Motor Co. will lose their jobs as the company cuts costs to help make the long transition from internal combustion vehicles to those powered by batteries.



Leaders of the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker made the announcement Monday in a companywide email, saying that 2,000 full-time salaried workers would be let go along with another 1,000 contract workers.

The cuts represent about 6% of the 31,000 full-time salaried work force in the the U.S. and Canada. Ford’s 56,000 union factory workers are not affected. Some workers also will lose jobs in India.

The job losses come at a time of unprecedented change in the auto industry that for more than 100 years has made a living by selling petroleum-powered vehicles. Governments across the globe are pushing to eliminate combustion automobiles to mitigate the impact of climate change. Companies like Ford are orchestrating the wind-down of their combustion businesses over multiple years, even though they are still generating the cash to fund electric vehicle development.

Ford has said it plans for half of its global production to be electric vehicles by 2030.

Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley said in the email to employees that Ford will provide severance benefits and significant help for the workers to find new jobs. They wrote that Ford has a chance to lead in the new era of connected and electric vehicles.

Related video: Ford Scales EV Production While Keeping Possible Recession in Min

Duration 8:05 View on Watch

“Building on this future requires changing and reshaping virtually all aspects of the way we have operated for more than a century,” the email said. “It means redeploying resources and addressing our cost structure, which is uncompetitive versus traditional and new companies.”

Farley and Ford wrote that the company examined each team’s shifting work to decide where cuts would be made. The company determined that its cost structure wasn’t competitive with General Motors, Stellantis and Tesla. Ford has said previously that it has a target of cutting $3 billion in annual internal combustion vehicle structural costs by 2026.

“We are eliminating work, as well as reorganizing and simplifying functions throughout the business,” they wrote in the email.

Farley has said repeatedly that the company’s global work force of 182,000 is too large, and it needs to trim costs and simplify processes so it can move faster as it transitions to electric vehicles.

The company already has restructured in Europe, Asia and India.

The cuts may not be over. Company spokesman T.R. Reid said Ford will continue to change with the industry and more job losses are possible. He said it’s common for companies to continually add people where they need them and trim where fewer jobs are needed. “With the fast pace of this industry, we’re going to manage the business smartly for these rapidly evolving priorities,” he said.

Ford shares, already under pressure after a $1.7 billion verdict against the company related to a vehicle fatality in Georgia, slid almost 6% and led automakers lower amid a broad sell-off in markets Monday.

Tom Krisher, The Associated Press

Roger Corman's Lost Movie Starring Mark Hamill to Finally Be Released

Anthony Lund - Yesterday 

It is hard to imagine a movie featuring Hollywood royalty such as Mark Hamill would fail to make it to general release. If you add in that the movie was produced by B-Movie legend Roger Corman, then it becomes even harder to believe, but it is true that in 2013 Corman produced Virtually Heroes, a movie that was an official Sundance selection but was never picked up for distribution, and originally went by the name of Virtual Warriors. However, it now seems that Screen Media has brought the rights to the movie after almost a decade.


© Provided by MovieWebRoger Corman's Lost Movie Starring Mark Hamill to Finally Be Released

As reported by Variety, Virtually Heroes is a comedy action movie that stars Mark Hamill as a “Yoda-like monk” who aids a pair of self-aware characters in a Call of Duty-inspired video game to win the game against the odds. In a statement, Screen Media said:

"We're thrilled to bring this lost Corman project to our audiences. The film is a perfect blend of action and campy, tongue-in-cheek comedy, and will be sure to delight viewers – whether this is their first foray into the world of Roger Corman or fiftieth."

Along with Hamill, the movie stars Robert Baker, Brent Chase and Katie Savoy, and was directed by Frank and Cindy helmer GJ Echternkamp. The director commented in relation to the movie finally getting a release, saying:

"Virtually Heroes was an ambitious project in many ways, and not exactly what you would call a conventional film. I'm so glad that Screen Media is, at last, bringing this cult movie out of the shadows and onto their platform to be discovered by a new audience."

Related: Mark Hamill Praises George Lucas Just Because

Mark Hamill Is Currently Having a Huge Run Of Success

Having been a fixture of Hollywood since his breakthrough role in Star Wars, Hamill has become a legend for both his on-screen roles and his prolific voice-over work giving life to characters such as the Joker, Skeletor and most recently Merv Pumpkinhead in Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman. He returned to the Star Wars franchise in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett via de-aging to once again appear as Luke Skywalker, and will also soon appear in The Fall of The House of Usher and as the voice of Skeletor in Masters of the Universe: Revolution on Netflix.

The release of Virtually Heroes will obviously be another reason for Hamill’s huge fan base to celebrate, especially as the movie seems to be leaning in to the actor’s history with Star Wars by having him in the role of a wise sage providing insight and advice to the movie’s protagonists in a similar way to Yoda guiding Luke on his journey to becoming a Jedi.

It is also a great moment for Corman fans to have a long-lost movie finally seeing the light of day, and considering the near-ten-year wait there is not too much longer until the movie hits theaters and digital release. Virtually Heroes will premiere in a limited number of cinemas and on digital in December, with a release on Crackle Plus expected to follow in February 2023.

Why She-Hulk Is Being Review Bombed Harder Than Ms. Marvel

Marcelo de Souza Silverio Leite - ScreenRant- Yesterday 


The newest Disney+ Marvel series She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is being review bombed on IMDB, and the percentage of 1-star reviews for She-Hulk is much higher than it was for previous review-bombed MCU projects like Ms. Marvel. Continuing Marvel Studios’ post-Avengers: Endgame strategy, the Disney+ platform is once again being used to introduce a new Marvel character into the MCU, She-Hulk. The same strategy had been previously used in Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, but the Disney+ Marvel series are sparking a level of criticism that often involves not just complaints about the shows but about the MCU as a whole – in addition to a significant amount of bad faith reviews.



Considering how a lot of the Disney+ Marvel shows have been criticized for being too similar in terms of structure – as in the number of episodes, the secret villain reveals, and the CG-filled third acts – it would seem that She-Hulk would be well received for its originality. While She-Hulk is not exactly Deadpool, the idea of placing Jennifer Walters in a fourth-wall-breaking 30-minute comedy sounded like the perfect way to introduce She-Hulk into the MCU – not to mention it would offer something unique to the franchise. She-Hulk episode 1 delivered exactly what had been promised – Marvel Studios’ first comedy series that combines law drama with some old superhero tropes. However, that did not avoid She-Hulk from being review bombed on IMDB.

Related: She-Hulk Fixes 1 MCU Superhero Problem

As of writing, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law has a 31.5% percentage of 1-star reviews on IMDB. In other words, almost a third of the 30,846 IMDB users who reviewed She-Hulk gave the Marvel show 1 out of 10 stars. An important point to understand She-Hulk’s review bombing is IMDB’s flawed rating system, which allows for a show like She-Hulk to be reviewed by those who have not even watched it yet, thus making all movies and shows susceptible to these sorts of review bombings. When navigating through She-Hulk’s 1-star reviews on IMDB, it’s possible to find recurrent topics like the She-Hulk CGI, Hulk’s role in the story being so far limited to comedy relief, and comedy bits that not always land. Those particular elements have been used as a criticism against She-Hulk ever since the marketing campaign for the show rolled out, and it’s not really a surprise to find them in the She-Hulk reviews. However, She-Hulk’s 1-star reviews feature, for the most part, low-effort complaints about “toxic feminism,” “Mary Sue-like main character,” “woke story,” “forced empowerment,” and similar remarks. While not surprising, those types of comments have been common in female-centered pop culture projects, including Marvel’s previous Disney+ show Ms. Marvel.

Related video: Early reviews for She-Hulk are in...

Duration 1:06 View on Watch

Is Marvel Review Bombing Getting Worse?

While review bombing is nothing new for major pop culture releases, that practice has recently become much more present as seen with Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. Before Ms. Marvel, the Marvel Studios Disney + series with the highest 1-star reviews ratio was Moon Knight, with a percentage of 4.8% of reviewers who gave the Oscar Isaac show 1 out of 10 stars. In a jarring contrast, Ms. Marvel has a 22.2% of 1-star reviews, which is now followed by an even bigger number with She-Hulk. Ms. Marvel suffered from the same batch of early 1-star reviews when the show had barely even started, with complaints about the CGI, the costumes, and the action pieces – although terms like “woke” and “childish” could also be found.

Given how most of the Marvel Disney+ series have suffered from the same issues of pacing and CGI, it’s hard not to notice such a discrepancy between the reception of previous shows and the review-bombing of She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel. Online movie and TV discourse, especially involving big franchises like the MCU, often leads to highly-divisive releases. However, it’s clear that there is a significant level of toxicity and unfairness involved in events like the She-Hulk: Attorney At Law review bombing, which calls for platforms like IMDB to revise their rating systems.

The Government Used to Regulate Corporations. Now It Subsidizes Them | Opinion

Robert Reich - 


The Clean Air Act of 1970 authorized the government to regulate air pollution. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Joe Biden signed into law last week, allocates more than $300 billion to energy and climate reform, including $30 billion in subsidies for manufacturers of solar panels and wind turbines.


© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesU.S. President Joe Biden holds up the bill after signing the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on August 9, 2022 in Washington, DC. The centerpiece of the legislation is $52 billion in funding aimed at boosting U.S semiconductor chip manufacturing and continued scientific research in the field to better compete with Chinas increasing dominance in the sector.

Notice the difference?

The Inflation Reduction Act is a large and important step toward addressing the climate crisis. It also illustrates the nation's shift away from regulating businesses to subsidizing businesses.

From 1932 through the late 1970s, the government mainly regulated businesses. This was the era of the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies begun under Franklin D. Roosevelt (the SEC, ICC, FCC, CAB, and so on), culminating in the EPA of 1970.

The government still regulates businesses, of course, but the biggest thing the federal government now does with businesses is subsidize them.

Consider Joe Biden's biggest first-term accomplishments:

— the CHIPS and Science Act (with $52 billion of subsidies to semiconductor firms, plus another $24 billion in manufacturing tax credits);

— the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ($550 billion of new spending on railroads, broadband, and the electric grid, among other things);

— and now the Inflation Reduction Act (including, as I noted, $30 billion for solar and wind manufacturers).

This shift from regulation to subsidy has characterized every recent administration. Trump's "Operation Warp Speed" delivered $10 billion to Covid vaccine manufacturers. Obama's Affordable Care Act subsidized the health care and pharmaceutical industries indirectly, through massive subsidies to the purchasers of healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Obama also spent some $489 billion bailing out the financial industry (and, notably, never fully restored financial regulations that previous administrations had repealed).

Before the 1980s, instead of subsidizing broadband, semiconductors, energy companies, vaccine manufacturers, health care and pharmaceutical businesses, and the financial sector, we would have regulated them. If this regulatory alternative seems far-fetched today, that's because of how far we've come from the regulatory state of the 1930s to the 1970s, to the subsidy state beginning in the 1980s.

Why this big shift? Because of the change in the balance of power between large corporations and the government. Today it's politically difficult, if not impossible, for the government to demand that corporations (and their shareholders) bear the costs of public goods

Corporations now have more clout in Washington than any other political player. Spending by corporations on lobbying increased from $1.44 billion in 1999 to $3.77 billion in 2021 and is on track to exceed $4 billion this year, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonprofit that tracks lobbying spending.

I saw this first-hand. Bill Clinton's healthcare plan was blocked by the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, which would have had to sacrifice some profits. By contrast, Obama got the Affordable Care Act by paying off these industries, all but guaranteeing them larger profits from a massive inflow of newly subsidized customers.

The tidal wave of corporate money has occurred at the same time large American corporations have globalized to the point where many are able to play off the United States against other nations, demanding government bribes in return for creating jobs and doing their cutting-edge research in America.

The new CHIPS Act shows how powerful and highly-profitable semiconductor manufacturers, such as American-based Intel, can extract billions of dollars in a global shakedown for where they'll make semiconductor chips.

In the 1980s, yours truly was involved in a national debate over what was called "industrial policy." The question, put simply, was whether the government should subsidize certain industries that generate large social benefits in the form of new technologies.

I argued that the government was already engaged in a hidden industrial policy, disguised, for example, as grants to the aerospace and telecom industries by the Department of Defense and to the pharmaceutical industry by the National Institutes of Health, and that it would be far better to do industrial policy in the open, so that the public could assess what it was paying for and getting in return.

Opponents, which included just about every Republican, were indignant at the very idea that the government should "intrude" on their blessed free market.

Today's subsidies are far larger, but industrial policy is no longer considered dangerous. Even Republican Senator John Cornyn, in arguing for the CHIPS Act, admitted, "What we are doing is industrial policy unlike people of my free-market background have done before."

Not quite. The three decades-long shift in power to big American corporations has transformed industrial policy into a system for bribing them to do the sorts of things once demanded of them as the price for being part of the American system.

Robert B. Reich is an American political commentator, professor and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Reich's latest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Germany: No single cause for massive Oder River fish die-off

BERLIN (AP) — Several substances seem to have contributed to the massive fish die-off in the Oder River that forms much of Germany's border with Poland, a German official said Monday.



Numerous theories have been floated about the cause of the environmental disaster, but so far none have been conclusive, a spokesman for Germany's Environment Ministry said. He rejected suggestions from a senior Polish official that Germany was spreading “fake news” about pesticides being behind the environmental disaster.

“The search for the causes of the fish die-off in the Oder still haven't been completed,” said Andreas Kuebler, the ministry spokesman. “So far we have several organic and inorganic substances that could be responsible.”

“It seems to be a cocktail of chemicals,” he told reporters in Berlin. “According to our information so far, none of these substances alone led to the fish die-off. It must still be assumed that this could be a multi-causal incident.”

Kuebler said a type of algae that normally grows in brackish water and produces a substance toxic to fish may also have played a role in the disaster.

Recent lab results showed a sharp growth of Prymnesium parvum in the Oder that could only have resulted from increased salt levels caused by an "industrial discharge," he said.

Dead fish in the Oder were first noticed by fishermen in southwestern Poland in late July, but German authorities said they weren't officially notified by their Polish counterparts until the second week of August. Poland’s government is trying to track down those responsible. Ten tons of dead fish have been removed from the river.

Warsaw lashed out over the weekend, with Environment Minister Anna Moskwa accusing Germany of spreading "fake news" about the levels of pesticides in the river.

“In Poland, the substance is tested and detected below the quantification threshold, that is, it has no effect on fish and other species,” she wrote on Twitter.

Kuebler said Germany was “surprised and a bit saddened” by the claim.

“We never said that the Polish side is responsible for the the use of pesticides (and) that fish died of this,” he said.

In Poland, where more than 100 tons of dead fish have been removed from the river, the prime minister has called the die-off an environmental “catastrophe.”

___

Follow all AP stories on the environment at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Frank Jordans, The Associated Press

Opinion

AI Is Turning America Into A Self-Service Economy: Are Consumers Better Or Worse off?

By Panos Mourdoukoutas Ph.D.
08/22/22 AT 6:11 AM

AI is every modern company's new customer service desk, turning America into a self-service economy. AI helps customers perform most of the services previously performed by humans, from scheduling appointments to monitoring deliveries and bill-payments handling — to mention but a few.

"Nowadays, more and more services are being automated by chatbots or self-guided tutorials to make the experience faster and without needing to talk with a real person," Rootstrap's Head of Machine Learning, Mikaela Pisani, said to International Business Times in an email.

"In traditional industries, conversational UI are starting to make humans obsolete," adds Iliya Rybchin, partner at Flixirr Consulting. "For example, Lemonade's virtual assistant drives the customer in the configuration and purchase of the home insurance, replacing the human interaction - and dramatically changing the economics of an insurance business. Ralph, Lego's super-friendly, emoji-loving chatbot consistently delivers the highest sales across the company!"

But taking the human factor from customer services hollows out the core of customer relations, the interaction between the company and its customers. What fills this void? "The answer is DATA, and customers are open to sharing their data in exchange for a better experience," explains Pisani. "Therefore, the self-service economy is becoming real with the intelligent use of data."

Apparently, the self-service economy sounds like a big win for companies as they cut costs and raise profits by having machines rather than humans dealing with customer service issues. "Companies are constantly turning to AI to improve customer service, sure – but the move is better for their bottom line," Vaclav Vincalek, founder and Virtual CTO of 555vCTO.com, told IBT in an email. "Take chatbots--AI beings that are there 24/7 to answer simple customer questions: 'What is your refund policy?' 'When can I expect my delivery?' 'Please choose from the following options.' With a chatbot, there's no need to hire an actual person to field calls for those questions."

What about customers? Does the new customer service desk make life better or worse for customers?

"Despite the perception that AI is there to improve customer service, we simply haven't reached that level yet," Vincalek says. "That means consumers will be left feeling frustrated when trying to get any real help. Going through the motions of 'speaking' with a chatbot still takes time and will most likely lead to that chatbot saying, 'I'm afraid I don't understand. Would you like to speak with an agent?' If consumers click yes, they'll be met with either a long wait time or worse yet, 'Please call back during office hours.'"

That's why Vincalek thinks customers are worse off with AI at this point as compared to the old service desk. "Real customer service requires companies to invest in – and train – real people," he explains. "Only through one-on-one conversations can companies really learn how to adapt their customer service strategy."

Pisani takes a more compromising position. "The self-service economy is a win-win when it works," Pisani explains. "But, when a user has a problem, chatbots are not good enough to understand them, and the self-service here might not be a good experience for them. So, for now, we cannot completely remove humans from the equation. When AI cannot resolve things, we need to involve humans to help customers to get what they want. Some companies forget this aspect, and users might be frustrated. This type of behavior might be destroying our culture."

An undated handout image from U.S. startup Replika shows a user interacting with a smartphone app to customize an avatar for a personal artificial intelligence chatbot, known as a Replika, in San Francisco, California, U.S. Luka, Inc./Handout via REUTERS REUTERS / LUKA, INC.

SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL

Women are posting their own dancing videos in support of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin

Sana Noor Haq - 3h ago

Women across the world are posting videos on social media of themselves dancing, after criticism was leveled at Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin for leaked footage that showed her partying with friends.

The video clips, which appeared last week, showed the 36-year-old leader dancing with friends in a private setting.


© Provided by CNN

Women have been posting videos on social media to show their support for the Finnish Prime Minister.

Some political opponents condemned Marin’s behavior in the videos as inappropriate for a Prime Minister.

Women have been responding to this criticism by tweeting clips of themselves dancing, using the hashtag #solidaritywithsanna.

“The sky is the limit for Dancing Queens,” one user tweeted.

“We should all dance a little more! I stand in solidarity with Sanna,” another user posted.

“Let’s dance for each other,” another said.

Others have defended Marin and accused her critics of applying a double standard.

“Why can’t she party after work? Do we expect our leaders not to be human beings?” tweeted Ashok Swain, a professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden.

“How shocking!!! A young politician who does her job and enjoys her private life… Why can’t a young woman have fun? I can’t stand gender double standards,” Spanish politician Iratxe García Pérez tweeted. “All my support to @MarinSanna.”

After the release of the videos, Marin acknowledged partying “in a boisterous way” but said she was angry that the footage was leaked to the media. She said alcohol was consumed but that she was not aware of any drug use at the party.

On Monday, Marin’s office announced the negative results of a drug test, taken after an opposition MP called on her to get tested.

Why women are dancing in solidarity with Finland's prime minister

NPR
August 22, 2022
JULIANA KIM

Twitter


Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has faced a backlash over videos that surfaced of her dancing and singing with her friends.Johanna Geron/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

People posting pictures and videos of themselves partying online has become a political statement for some women.

In social media feeds, women are showing themselves dancing, singing or holding a drink to show their solidarity with Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. She has been under public scrutiny after videos of her dancing and singing with friends circulated on the internet. Those videos were meant to be private, according to Marin.

"I have a family life, I have a work life and I have free time to spend with my friends. Pretty much the same as many people my age," Marin said, according to the Finnish outlet Yle.

Some criticized her behavior, questioning her maturity and competency. Others called for Marin to take a drug test, which she took on Friday in response to the criticism.


EUROPE
Finland's prime minister takes a drug test after criticism over her partying

The reaction to Marin's behavior struck a particular chord for some women who feel that in both their personal life and in politics, they are held to an unfair standard.

At Alt for Damerne, a Danish weekly women's magazine, female employees compiled a montage of themselves dancing to show women supporting other women.

"Our first idea was to write a column or editorial but then we thought, let's do this with some kind of humor and show that we all have those clips on our camera roll that wasn't supposed to see the light of day," Editor-in-Chief Rikke Dal Støttrup told NPR.



FROM THE ARCHIVES
At 34, Finland's Sanna Marin is set to become the world's youngest sitting prime minister

Støttrup added that Marin's ordeal reminds her of the treatment of Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark who received criticism over her taste in designer clothes.

Rixt Van Dongera, a public affairs coordinator from the Netherlands, also posted a video of herself at the Lowlands Festival with the caption "#SolidaritywithSanna."

"I wanted to support her and all our rights to be an individual next to her extremely busy job and have fun with her friends," she told NPR. "Dancing with your friends should be regarded as a great way to use your free time."

Marin, who is 36 years old, was elected in 2019 — becoming the country's youngest prime minister and the world's youngest serving prime minister.

STRAIGHT EDGE
Finnish PM tests negative in drug test taken to 'clear suspicion'
Agence France-Presse
August 22, 2022

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin speaks with members of the media in Kuopio, Finland on August 18, 2022. © via Matias Honkamaa/Lehtikuva/via Reuters

Finland's prime minister received a negative result in a drug test which she took to "clear up suspicions" after a video of the 36-year-old partying sparked criticism, her office said Monday.

Marin's urine sample was tested for the presence of various drugs, such as cocaine, amphetamine, cannabis and opioids, Iida Vallin, a special adviser to the prime minister, told AFP.

"Drug test taken from Prime Minister Sanna Marin on 19 August 2022 did not reveal the presence of drugs," Marin's office said in a statement, adding that the results were signed by a doctor.

"The test was a comprehensive drug test. We did not choose how the test was done," Vallin said.

A video leaked last week showed Marin dancing and partying with a group of friends and celebrities that created controversy across the world.

Some interpreted comments heard on the video as referring to narcotics, something heavily debated on social media and strongly denied by the prime minister.

"To clear up any suspicions, I have taken a drug test today," she told reporters at her residence on Friday.

Marin previously said she was "spending an evening with friends" and that the videos were "filmed in private premises".

She admitted to having drunk alcohol. In addition to denying taking drugs, she said she did not witness any drug use by any of the attendees.

"Never in my life, not even in my youth, have I ever used any drugs," she said.

Marin -- who was appointed in 2019 at the age of 34 -- has previously been the target of criticism over parties at her official residence.

In December 2021, she came under sustained criticism after it was revealed she stayed out dancing until the early hours despite having been exposed to Covid-19.

A poll commissioned by Finnish TV channel MTV3 at the time found two-thirds of respondents thought her night out was a "serious mistake".


© 2022 AFP

What the climate bill does for the nuclear industry

Catherine Clifford - CNBC

Some of the most widely touted provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act include electric vehicle tax credits, rebates for heat pump installation in homes and solar panel installation on home roofs. But the climate legislation also includes significant effort for the nuclear industry.

For example, starting in 2024 and running through 2032, utilities will be able to get a credit of $15 per megawatt-hour for electricity produced by existing nuclear plants.

Several technology agnostic zero emissions tax credits apply to the nuclear industry.


The Salem Nuclear Power plant located at the Hope Creek Generating Station in New Jersey as seen from across the Delware Bay in Augustine Beach. Credit: Mark Reinstein 

(Photo by Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

The sweeping Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed last week includes $369 billion in funding to help combat climate change. As part of that, the law includes significant help for the nuclear energy industry.

Overall, the provisions in the law could decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 37 to 41 percent under 2005 levels by the year 2030, according to an analysis by Energy Innovation, a policy modeling company. Some of the most widely touted provisions in the IRA include electric vehicle tax credits, and rebates for heat pump installation in homes and solar panel installation on home roofs.

It also includes significant benefits for the nuclear industry, as energy generated with nuclear reactors generates no greenhouse gases. Nuclear advocates are celebrating the law as a win.

"For years, the nuclear industry and advocates have been pushing for a more level playing field and equal treatment with other clean energy sources on a tax and federal subsidy basis," Brett Rampal, a nuclear energy expert, told CNBC. "The IRA creates a new future for clean energy technologies, including nuclear energy, that is a more level playing field and allows for technologies to compete on a more even basis as well as on their unique characteristics. This is definitely a win for nuclear energy."

Here's an overview of how the climate bill will impact the nuclear sector.

Production tax credit for existing nuclear power plants

Starting in 2024 and running through 2032, utilities will be able to get a credit of $15 per megawatt-hour for electricity produced by existing nuclear plants. If the price of power rises above $25 per megawatt-hour, then the credit will gradually decrease, but it doesn't phase out completely until energy prices reach around $44 per megawatt-hour, explained Matthew Crozat, the executive director of strategy and policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based trade group.

"Every plant is different and some plants have a different revenue model but we can say that this credit will offer a reprieve from the low revenues that had forced more than a dozen reactors to close," Crozat told CNBC.

To be eligible for the full $15 per megawatt-hour base tax credit, a nuclear power plant operator has to pay workers operating and doing maintenance on the power plant "prevailing wage requirements," according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Production tax credit for advanced nuclear power plants

Several companies in the United States are working to commercialize new nuclear power plant designs that are meant to be safer and with a smaller capacity, making them ideally cheaper to build and maintain as well.

For example, Bill Gates' nuclear innovation company, TerraPower, is developing a couple of advanced reactor designs, one of which is going to be built at a retiring coal facility in Wyoming as part of a demonstration program in partnership with the U.S. government.

Advanced nuclear reactors could benefit from the IRA by way of the Clean Electricity Production Tax Credit, a technology-agnostic production credit, which can be applied towards emissions-free power generation that goes online after 2025. The clean energy production credit is for at least $25 per megawatt-hour for the first ten years the plant is in operation, adjusted for inflation. The credit phases out in 2032 or when carbon emissions coming from electricity have fallen by 75% below the level of 2022, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The tax credit is increased by 10% for locating the zero-emissions power source where a coal plant previously lived.

Worth noting, there's another Advanced Nuclear Production Tax Credit already on the books. That tax credit was established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and is for $18 per megawatt-hour for the first eight years that a nuclear power plant is operating, provided the nuclear power plant had not begun construction when the 2005 bill was signed into law, Crozat told CNBC. The third reactor unit of the Vogtle Power plant being constructed in Georgia will be the first power plant to take advantage of the 2005 Advanced Nuclear Production Tax Credit, according to Crozat.

A company can not take advantage of both tax credits — it has to pick. Going forward, the tax credits in the IRA just signed into law will be more attractive. "Since the new production tax credit has been indexed to inflation and last for two additional years, it will be considerably more valuable than the older version," Crozat told CNBC.


Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant left in California, viewed in these aerial photos taken on December 1, 2021, near Avila Beach, California. Set on 1,000 acres of scenic coastal property just north and west of Avila Beach, the controversial power plant operated by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was commisioned in 1985.

Investment tax credit for new nuclear power plants

New nuclear power plants are eligible for claiming an Investment Tax Credit made available through the new law for facilities that generate energy with zero emissions and that go into service in 2025 or after.

The investment tax credit allows a nuclear power plant to get a tax credit for 30 percent of what was invested in building the zero-emissions energy production facility, which includes nuclear power plants, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The investment tax credit is increased by 10% for locating the zero-emissions power source where a coal plant previously lived. It starts to phase when carbon emissions from the sector are 75 percent lower than 2022 levels.

Money to spur innovation

The law includes $700 million that will go towards the research and development of high-assay low enrichment uranium (HALEU) fuel sources in the United States through 2026, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington DC-based think tank. That's important because the advanced, next generation reactors which are currently being developed by 20 companies in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, depend on HALEU fuel to operate.

The existing fleet of nuclear power reactors in the United States operate on uranium that has been enriched up to 5%. HALEU fuel has been enriched between 5% and 20%. Many advanced reactor designs are smaller builds than conventional nuclear reactors and so to make a nuclear reactor smaller, they need to get more power from smaller quantities of fuel, the Department of Energy says.

"Right now, the only commercially available source of HALEU is from the Russian federation and the support for HALEU in the IRA signals an understanding that the federal government is needed to jumpstart domestic enrichment capabilities to support the coming wave of new nuclear technologies," Rampal told CNBC.

It's also just the first step, Rampal said. The nuclear industry needs multiple billions of dollars to invest in HALEU production over the next ten years, he told CNBC.

The IRA also includes $150 million for the Office of Nuclear Energy through 2027, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. That money is for the Department of Energy to invest in its nuclear innovation research at its network of National Laboratories.
Production Tax Credit for producing clean hydrogen

The IRA includes a tax credit for the clean production of hydrogen worth up to $3 per kilogram of hydrogen produced in a way that does not emit any greenhouse gasses. The tax credit would be available for 10 years, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Hydrogen generates no carbon dioxide when burned, and therefore could be useful in sectors that would otherwise be hard to decarbonize, like trucking, shipping, and air travel. However, creating hydrogen and transforming it into a form that can be used for fuel requires a lot of energy. If the energy that is used to make hydrogen emits greenhouse gasses, then its benefit is nullified.

Nuclear energy can be used to produce hydrogen with no carbon emissions, Crozat told CNBC.

"The current way of making it from natural gas results in a lot of carbon emissions which is a big drawback if the reason for turning to hydrogen is to reduce emissions from industry and heavy transportation," Crozat told CNBC. "The Department of Energy is funding two demonstration projects to produce hydrogen from currently operating nuclear plants. We could see the first kilograms produced later this year or early next."

To be eligible for the maximum tax credit, the facility has to be under construction before 2033 and generate no more than 0.45 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen produced and that must be measured and tracked with a a lifecycle assessment, the Nuclear Energy Institute says. The tax credit phases out if a hydrogen production facility generates more than 6 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen.

Also, to be eligible to receive the maximum value of the tax credit, a facility has to meet "prevailing wage requirements" or the maximum credit is $0.60 per kilogram of hydrogen produced, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Tax credits for making component parts

The IRA includes a manufacturing production provision which allows for a tax credit for component parts produced and sold after 2022, according to a summary of the benefits of the IRA for the nuclear industry from the law firm Morgan Lewis.

This credit is not only for the nuclear industry, but it can be applicable, according to Morgan Lewis' analysis of the new law. The specific credit depends on the type of component part produced and sold. For some parts, there is a gradual phase out of the credit from 2030 through 2033, Morgan Lewis writes.

Similarly, the IRA law includes an extension of the Advanced Energy Project Credit tax credit program, which is not specific to the nuclear industry either but also could be applicable to the nuclear industry, according to Morgan Lewis. Under the program, the US Treasure can authorize a maximum of $10 billion of these tax credits and they can go towards a slew of clean energy manufacturing and facilities production.