Understanding Juneteenth

Brigid Kennedy, Staff Writer
Mon, June 20, 2022

A father and daughter. Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock

The U.S. will observe the federal Juneteenth holiday on Monday, June 20, though the actual celebration fell on Sunday, June 19. Here's everything you need to know:
What is Juneteenth?

The 157-year-old holiday, the name of which is a combination of "June" and "nineteenth," commemorates the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved individuals in Galveston, Texas, finally learned they were free from slavery. The announcement, delivered by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived two months after the effective end of the Civil War, and almost two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation

But even with Granger's General Order No. 3 — which informed Galveston residents that slavery would no longer be tolerated, all slaves were free, and any slave that opted to remain on a plantation must be treated as a hired worker — the remaining enslaved individuals were not freed immediately or even soon there afterwards, NPR notes. Some owners refused to give up their slaves until they were forced to, while others opted to wait until the end of the harvest. And prior to Granger's arrival, "many slave owners in Confederate states simply chose not to tell their slaves about the Emancipation Proclamation and did not honor it," writes NPR. So as much as the holiday represents freedom, "it also represents how emancipation was tragically delayed for enslaved people in the deepest reaches of the Confederacy," writes Vox's Fabiola Cineas.

Ultimately, the end of slavery was officially materialized with the ratification of the 13th amendment.

How do people celebrate Juneteenth?

The first Juneteenth celebration took place in Texas in 1866, with community gatherings featuring cookouts, prayers, and dances. In time, however, white people in certain areas began restricting Black people from celebrating the holiday. To get around one such instance, for example, Black community leaders in Houston in 1872 purchased a plot of land intended specifically for Juneteenth celebrations, NPR notes. The area is still known as Emancipation Park.

Nowadays, Juneteenth celebrations often involve cookouts, parades, church services, and other public events, per NPR. In 2022, for example, Galveston plans to celebrate the holiday with a banquet, poetry festival, parade, and picnic, The New York Times writes, while Atlanta is planning a parade and a music festival. Similar festivities are scheduled in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

For those looking to celebrate or pay tribute to Juneteenth but unsure where to start, try visiting a local or national museum, diving into relevant readings and documentaries, checking for and attending local festivities in your area, or getting involved with a Black organization in your community, The Washington Post suggests, per organizers and activists.

When and how did Juneteenth become a federal holiday?

President Biden signed into law a resolution to make Juneteenth a federal holiday on June 17, 2021. But Texas had already beat the administration to it, having been the first to create a national Juneteenth holiday back in 1980. New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, and Delaware all eventually followed Texas' lead, also before the federal government.

Though activists — including the 95-year-old "grandmother of Juneteenth," Opal Lee — had been pushing for federal recognition for years, the movement gained new momentum following the death of George Floyd and racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. Juneteenth Independence Day is now the 11th holiday recognized by the federal government.

Why do some critics oppose Juneteenth?

Though both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly cleared the resolution that Biden later signed, there was still some opposition toward creating a federal Juneteenth holiday. For example, of the 14 Republicans who voted against the measure in the House, some worried that calling the new holiday "Juneteenth Independence Day" would create confusion with July 4 and push Americans to choose a celebration based on race. Others thought adding another paid holiday for federal employees to be "fiscally irresponsible."

Which major companies are giving employees the day off?

At least last year, a number of large, private companies — including Allstate, Google, and Nike — opted to recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday for their employees. T-Mobile, Yelp, and Zillow did the same. Starbucks, which officially recognized Juneteenth as a holiday beginning in 2020, paid hourly employees time-a-half, and gave support partners the day off; salaried partners who were required to work received a holiday back in return. Target in 2020 started offering working employees time-and-a-half.

All that said, a recent survey found that though more companies are now giving employees Juneteenth off, they're also not always offering pay, Bloomberg reports. Of the 1,030 American workers surveyed by job-search database Randstad USA, half of the 43.5 percent of the respondents who said they have off Monday, June 20 also said they wouldn't be paid. Another 9 percent said they must use their own vacation time to observe the holiday.

Why is federal recognition of Juneteenth so important?

Classifying Juneteenth as a federal holiday — one that's meant to be celebrated by everyone — helps counter the stigma that it's just a holiday for the Black community.

"It's a national holiday, an American holiday that we all should lean in and really acknowledge and support," Alicia Austion, executive director of the Juneteenth Foundation, told the Post. Nationwide recognition also provides the U.S. the opportunity "to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans today," which is "something for everyone, of every race, to engage in," Cineas writes for Vox.

Of course, federal holiday status was never expected to just put an end to racism, Cineas continues. But advocates have argued it would "help foster dialogue about the trauma that has resulted from the enslavement of 4 million people for more than 250 years."

THIRD WORLD USA

Sweltering streets: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat

ANITA SNOW
Mon, June 20, 2022,

PHOENIX (AP) — Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer’s triple digit temperatures arrive.

The stifling tent city has ballooned amid pandemic-era evictions and surging rents that have dumped hundreds more people onto the sizzling streets that grow eerily quiet when temperatures peak in the midafternoon. A heat wave earlier this month brought temperatures of up to 114 degrees (45.5 Celsius) - and it’s only June. Highs reached 118 degrees (47.7 Celsius) last year.

“During the summer, it’s pretty hard to find a place at night that’s cool enough to sleep without the police running you off,” said Chris Medlock, a homeless Phoenix man known on the streets as “T-Bone" who carries everything he owns in a small backpack and often beds down in a park or a nearby desert preserve to avoid the crowds.

“If a kind soul could just offer a place on their couch indoors maybe more people would live,” Medlock said at a dining room where homeless people can get some shade and a free meal.

Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined.

Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless.

Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves. The past few summers have been some of the hottest on record.

Just in the county that includes Phoenix, at least 130 homeless people were among the 339 individuals who died from heat-associated causes in 2021.

“If 130 homeless people were dying in any other way it would be considered a mass casualty event,” said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington.

It’s a problem that stretches across the United States, and now, with rising global temperatures, heat is no longer a danger just in places like Phoenix.

This summer will likely bring above-normal temperatures over most land areas worldwide, according to a seasonal map that volunteer climatologists created for the International Research Institute at Columbia University.

Last summer, a heat wave blasted the normally temperate U.S. Northwest and had Seattle residents sleeping in their yards and on roofs, or fleeing to hotels with air conditioning. Across the state, several people presumed to be homeless died outdoors, including a man slumped behind a gas station.

In Oregon, officials opened 24-hour cooling centers for the first time. Volunteer teams fanned out with water and popsicles to homeless encampments on Portland’s outskirts.

A quick scientific analysis concluded last year’s Pacific Northwest heat wave was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change adding several degrees and toppling previous records.

Even Boston is exploring ways to protect diverse neighborhoods like its Chinatown, where population density and few shade trees help drive temperatures up to 106 degrees (41 Celsius) some summer days. The city plans strategies like increasing tree canopy and other kinds of shade, using cooler materials for roofs, and expanding its network of cooling centers during heat waves.

It’s not just a U.S. problem. An Associated Press analysis last year of a dataset published by the Columbia University’s climate school found exposure to extreme heat has tripled and now affects about a quarter of the world’s population.

This spring, an extreme heat wave gripped much of Pakistan and India, where homelessness is widespread due to discrimination and insufficient housing. The high in Jacobabad, Pakistan near the border with India hit 122 degrees (50 Celsius) in May.

Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, who heads the Indian Institute of Public Health in the western Indian city Gandhinagar, said because of poor reporting it’s unknown how many die in the country from heat exposure.

Summertime cooling centers for homeless, elderly and other vulnerable populations have opened in several European countries each summer since a heat wave killed 70,000 people across Europe in 2003.

Emergency service workers on bicycles patrol Madrid’s streets, distributing ice packs and water in the hot months. Still, some 1,300 people, most of them elderly, continue to die in Spain each summer because of health complications exacerbated by excess heat.

Spain and southern France last week sweltered through unusually hot weather for mid-June, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in some areas.

Climate scientist David Hondula, who heads Phoenix's new office for heat mitigation, says that with such extreme weather now seen around the world, more solutions are needed to protect the vulnerable, especially homeless people who are about 200 times more likely than sheltered individuals to die from heat-associated causes.

“As temperatures continue to rise across the U.S. and the world, cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, New York or Kansas City that don’t have the experience or infrastructure for dealing with heat have to adjust as well.”

In Phoenix, officials and advocates hope a vacant building recently converted into a 200-bed shelter for homeless people will help save lives this summer.

Mac Mais, 34, was among the first to move in.

“It can be rough. I stay in the shelters or anywhere I can find,” said Mais who has been homeless on and off since he was a teen. “Here, I can stay out actually rest, work on job applications, stay out of the heat.”

In Las Vegas, teams deliver bottled water to homeless people living in encampments around the county and inside a network of underground storm drains under the Las Vegas strip.

Ahmedabad, India, population 8.4 million, was the first South Asian city to design a heat action plan in 2013.

Through its warning system, nongovernmental groups reach out to vulnerable people and send text messages to mobile phones. Water tankers are dispatched to slums, while bus stops, temples and libraries become shelters for people to escape the blistering rays.

Still, the deaths pile up.

Kimberly Rae Haws, a 62-year-old homeless woman, was severely burned in October 2020 while sprawled for an unknown amount of time on a sizzling Phoenix blacktop. The cause of her subsequent death was never investigated.

A young man nicknamed Twitch died from heat exposure as he sat on a curb near a Phoenix soup kitchen in the hours before it opened one weekend in 2018.

“He was supposed to move into permanent housing the next Monday,” said Jim Baker, who oversees that dining room for the St. Vincent de Paul charity. “His mother was devastated.”

Many such deaths are never confirmed as heat related and aren't always noticed because of the stigma of homelessness and lack of connection to family.

When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.

Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.

“We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it," Tricia Wright said of her sister. “But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat."

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AP Science Writer Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi and AP writers Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

Follow Snow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/asnowreports

___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

Dams, taps running dry in northern Mexico amid historic water shortages






Mon, June 20, 2022
By Laura Gottesdiener

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Her elderly neighbor is hard of hearing so Maria Luisa Robles, a convenience store worker in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shouted the question a second time: Have you run out of water?

She had - and it wasn't just her. The taps across this working-class neighborhood of Sierra Ventana dried up over a week ago amid a historic shortage that's gripped the most important industrial city in Mexico.

"We're all struggling because there's no running water," said Robles, 60.

Desperate, Robles and her neighbors have resorted to climbing atop a nearby municipal water tank, filling up jugs, and lugging them back to their homes in order to drink, cook, clean, and wash bedsheets and school uniforms.

More than half of Mexico is currently facing moderate to severe drought conditions, according to the federal water commission CONAGUA, amid extreme heat that scientists blame on climate change.

In the sprawling metropolitan area of Monterrey, home to some 5.3 million people, the drought and years of below-average rainfall have led to citywide water shortages.

"We're in an extreme climate crisis," Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia said at a news conference last week. "Today, we're all living it and suffering."

The city in June began limiting water access to six hours a day, forcing schools to adjust class schedules and sparking panic buying of bottled water that emptied supermarket shelves.

Protests and public anger are also growing against soda and beer companies whose federal concessions have allowed them to continue to extract water even as residents go without.

The state government says it is conserving water by repairing pipe leaks and installing pressure valves, while cracking down on farms, companies, and slaughterhouses caught pilfering water from rivers or clandestine wells.

With the hottest months ahead, the crisis is expected to continue. The hope is that summer brings some consistent rainfall to this arid climate.

As early as Tuesday, two of the main dams that supply the metropolitan area, Cerro Prieto and La Boca, could be empty, according to the head of the water and sewage agency, Juan Ignacio Barragan. A third dam, El Cuchillo, stands at 45% capacity.

Running water has stopped flowing in a few neighborhoods, Barragan acknowledged in a news conference last week.

One of them is Sierra Ventana, where Robles lives with her elderly mother, two siblings with disabilities, and a niece with a motor impairment.

Caring for them requires plenty of water, so multiple times a day, in termperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Robles trods back and forth from the water tank, alongside fellow residents hauling buckets or pushing baby strollers filled with jugs.

One afternoon last week she'd just finished her last trip when she remembered her hard-of-hearing neighbor.

"What else can we do?" she asked, before heading to the tank a final time. "We need water to live."

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener and Daniel Becerril in Monterrey; Editing by Mark Porter)

Colombia ELN rebel group open to peace talks with next president Gustavo Petro



Mon, June 20, 2022

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian leftist guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (ELN) is open to advancing peace talks with the incoming government of President-elect Gustavo Petro, it said on Monday, and called for reforms to tackle social exclusion and inequality.

Leftist Petro and his vice president-elect, Francia Marquez, won 50.4% of the vote in Sunday's election.

"The ELN remains active in its fight and political and military resistance, but also its disposition to advance in a peace process to further talks which started in Quito in February 2017," the ELN said in a statement.

Petro, who takes office on Aug. 7, has pledged to fully implement the 2016 peace deal with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group and to seek talks with the still-active ELN rebels.

The incoming president, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, has called for a rapid negotiation with the ELN, and has also suggested applying the 2016 peace deal with the demobilized FARC to those combatants who reject the agreement and formed dissident groups.

If Petro promotes changes to overcome political violence and develops plans for employment and entrepreneurship, agrarian reform, and continuity of the peace process, among others, he will have popular support, the ELN said. The group called for expanding economic inclusion for Colombia's marginalized communities.

Peace talks between previous governments and the ELN -- which is accused of financing itself with kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal mining -- did not advance due to the group's radical positions, a diffuse chain of command and dissent in its ranks.

The ELN, which has some 2,400 fighters, began peace talks with the previous government of former President Juan Manuel Santos, but negotiations fell apart after a car bombing in Bogota, while current President Ivan Duque demanded that the group release all its hostages.

LIBERATION THEOLOGY

The ELN, founded by radical Roman Catholic priests in 1964, is widely considered to be less centrally controlled than FARC was.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Colombia elects first Black woman VP Francia Marquez, who vows to stand for 'nobodies'


Mon, June 20, 2022

By Oliver Griffin

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Francia Marquez, a single mother and former housekeeper, will be Colombia's first Black woman vice president after a historic vote on Sunday https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombias-first-leftist-president-targets-inequality-leaves-investors-edge-2022-06-20 saw the Andean country pick its first leftist president, Gustavo Petro.

Marquez and Petro won https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombians-head-polls-tightest-election-recent-memory-2022-06-19 50.4% of the vote in Sunday's election.

In front of a background emblazoned with the phrase "change is unstoppable," Marquez thanked supporters from across Colombia for assisting her and Petro's campaign in a speech broadcast from Bogota.


"After 214 years we have achieved a government of the people, a popular government, a government of people with calloused hands ... the government of the nobodies of Colombia," she said.

Colombia's new vice president-elect https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/hometown-looks-aspiring-colombia-vp-marquez-deliver-inequality-promises-2022-06-16 

hails from the municipality of Suarez, a rural area of Colombia's Cauca province. Around 80% of Cauca's population lives in some form of poverty.

Marquez is a celebrated environmental activist whose opposition to gold mining in her home municipality of Suarez saw her receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 - as well as death threats from illegal armed groups.

As well as serving as Petro's vice president, Marquez is slated to lead a new equality ministry to build on her core ideas of improving women's rights and helping the poor access health and education.

Marquez actually came second to Petro in their coalition's March primary election with 783,000 votes, when she tallied more ballots than the winner of the Colombia's centrist primary.

Her political rise during the campaign follows broad demands for change and increasing concern about socio-environmental topics, Daniela Cuellar of FTI Consulting told Reuters.

"The political popularity of Francia Marquez was part of a trend in Colombia where the population is looking for a change and where socio-environmental issues are becoming more and more relevant," she said.

(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Colombian voters elect country's first Black vice president




MANUEL RUEDA and ASTRID SUAREZ
Mon, June 20, 2022

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — As Colombia's voters put aside a longtime antipathy to leftists and chose one as their new president, they also carved out another milestone — electing the country's first Black vice president.

When former leftist rebel Gustavo Petro takes office as president on Aug. 7, a key player in his administration will be Francia Marquez, his running mate in Sunday's runoff election.

Marquez is an environmental activist from La Toma, a remote village surrounded by mountains where she first organized campaigns against a hydroelectric project and then challenged wildcat gold miners who were invading collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands.

The politician has faced numerous death threats for her environmental work and has emerged as a powerful spokeswoman for Black Colombians and other marginalized communities.

“She’s completely different than any another person that’s ever had a vice presidency in Colombia,” said Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“She comes from a rural area, she comes from the perspective of a campesino woman and from the perspective of areas of Colombia that have been affected by armed conflict for many years. Most politicians in Colombia who have held the presidency have not lived in the way she has,” Sanchez said.

She said Marquez will likely be given the mandate to work on gender issues as well as policies affecting the nation’s Afro-Colombian population.

In several interviews. Petro has discussed creating a Ministry of Equality, which would be headed by Marquez and would work across several sectors of the economy on issues like reducing gender inequalities and tackling disparities faced by ethnic minorities.

Marquez said Sunday that part of her mission as vice president will be to reduce inequality.

“This will be a government for those with calluses on their hands. We are here to promote social justice and to help women eradicate the patriarchy,” she said on stage while celebrating the election results with thousands of supporters at a popular concert venue.

Marquez grew up in a small home built by her family and had a daughter when she was 16, whom she raised on her own. To support her daughter, Marquez cleaned homes in the nearby city of Cali and also worked at a restaurant while studying for a law degree.

She was awarded the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize for her successful efforts to remove gold miners from the collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands around her village.

A man walks near a campaign banner of Historical Pact coalition presidential candidate Gustavo Petro and his running mate Francia Marquez, ahead of weekend elections in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, June 13, 2022. Elections are set for June 19.

 (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara

Marquez entered the presidential race last year as a candidate for the Democratic Pole party, though she lost out in an inter-party consultation in March to Gustavo Petro. But she gained national recognition during the primaries and received 700,000 votes, topping most veteran politicians.

In speeches calling for Colombia to confront racism and gender inequalities and to ensure basic rights for the poor, Marquez energized rural voters who have suffered from the country's long armed conflict as well as young people and women in urban areas.

“All of us who work with her now believe in the power of women,” said Vivian Tibaque, a community leader in Bogota who worked on Marquez’s campaign. “We believe we can also defend out rights like Francia has defended hers.”

Political analysts said Marquez contributed to Petro’s campaign by reaching out to voters who felt excluded by the political system but did not trust the leftist parties that Petro, a former member of a rebel group, has been a part of throughout much of his career.

They said her presence on Petro's ticket also motivated Afro-Colombian voters along the Pacific coast, where Petro won by big margins Sunday even as he barely won the contest by three percentage points.

“I don’t think Petro could’ve won the presidency without her.” Sanchez said. “There is a lot of distrust and suspicion towards the left in Colombia, partly because a lot of the left has been armed at some point in time.”

  

Analysis - Colombia's first leftist leader Gustavo Petro targets inequality; investors on edge


Colombia's Gustavo Petro before casting his vote

By Julia Symmes Cobb and Oliver Griffin
Sun, June 19, 2022,

BOGOTA (Reuters) - The election of Colombia's first leftist president, Gustavo Petro, is indicative of widespread yearning for a more equal and inclusive society, analysts and business leaders said, but the former guerrilla will need to act fast to reassure investors.

Petro, a 62-year-old former mayor of the capital Bogota and current senator, won some 50.4% of votes on Sunday, handily beating construction magnate Rodolfo Hernandez.

The election of a former guerrilla marks a radical change for a country still scarred by decades of conflict and highlights the depth of frustration with the right-leaning political establishment accused of overseeing a wide gap between rich and poor.

Petro has pledged to fight inequality with free university education, pension reforms and high taxes on unproductive land in the Andean country, where nearly half the population lives in poverty.

His proposals - especially a ban on new oil projects for environmental reasons - have startled some investors, though he has promised to respect current contracts.This campaign was Petro's third presidential bid and his victory adds the Andean nation to a list of Latin American countries that have elected leftists in recent years.

Petro will take office at a time when Colombia is struggling with low credit ratings, a large trade deficit and national debt which is predicted to end the year at 56.5% of GDP.

Oil accounts for nearly half of exports and close to 10% of national income.

"Colombia was governed for so many years by the economic and political elite," said Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, Andes Director for the think tank Washington Office on Latin America. "In many ways this election is basically the voice of most of the population in the country, especially the rural poor, women, Afro-Colombians, the indigenous."

"People didn't want a change at any cost, they wanted a change that would actually be with actual proposals which include making the peace accord a priority," said Sanchez-Garzoli referring to the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which brought an end to that group's role in the nearly 60-year-old internal conflict.

Petro has pledged to fully implement the FARC accord - which detractors accuse current President Ivan Duque of failing to adequately support - and to seek talks with the still-active ELN rebels.

At an event in Madrid on Monday, Duque raised the specter of protectionist policies.

"To set a great example in defense of economic freedom, where all those who create businesses have the full guarantee that they will be able to exercise that freedom without any kind of constraint or limitation... These have been the guidelines by which I have governed my country and Colombians expect no less," he said.

Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa said at the same event he hoped Colombia would maintain its tradition of legality and "does not fall into the zone of uncertainty in which the whole of America has been plunged." Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez tweeted, meanwhile, that Colombia had chosen "equality, social and environmental justice."

"Petro's election may have just saved the peace process," said Oliver Kaplan, associate professor at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

On Sunday night, as he celebrated his win, Petro told his supporters: "Peace is someone like me being able to be president."

BUSINESS JITTERS

Petro regularly praises the mostly young protesters who have taken to the streets over the last three years to decry inequality and police violence, in demonstrations where more than 40 people were killed.

The president-elect, who was arrested by the military in 1985 while carrying weapons for the M-19 rebels, has said he was tortured during his 16-month detention. His victory has high-ranking armed forces officials bracing for change.

"There's a segment of the population that is totally opposed to him because of his M-19 past," Kaplan said. "Maintaining security and protection of civilians will depend on good civil-military relations, and it's uncharted waters in that regard."

But Petro's proposals will face challenges, not least because of a deeply divided congress where a dozen parties hold seats.

"Petro is going to have a very strong opposition from day one, we're going to have a congress that all of a sudden is disjointed from the executive branch," said Colombia Risk Analysis founder Sergio Guzman.

"I think this means people's priorities have moved beyond the conflict," Guzman said. "This marks a really stark departure from where we've been as a country."

Business leaders and the market were awaiting ministerial appointments, especially for key positions like finance minister, and have predicted volatility in the peso and in bonds when trading opens on Tuesday after a holiday weekend.

Petro has floated some moderates as possible finance ministers, including Alejandro Gaviria, a centrist economist and former health minister, as well as ex-ministers like Rudolf Hommes and Jose Antonio Ocampo.

"It will be very important that total confidence between everyone is restored, that there is confidence for businesses, citizens, that there is confidence for investors, that there is confidence with the rule of law," Bruce Mac Master, president of the Colombian Business Association (ANDI), said in a statement following Petro's victory.

"In us, he can expect a constructive partner," he said.

Petro was emphatic that business and development had important roles to play under his government. He has pledged to strengthen agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.

"We are going to develop capitalism in Colombia," told supporters on Sunday. Development is needed to overcome the "feudalism" and "pre-modernity" from which Colombia still suffers, he said.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb and Oliver Griffin, additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, Luis Jaime Acosta and Carlos Vargas; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Nick Zieminski)

Here’s How Radical Gustavo Petro Can Be as Colombian President

Matthew Bristow
Mon, June 20, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- Investors in Colombia are trying to gauge how radical a government led by Gustavo Petro will be when he takes office as president in August.

The peso and the nation’s bonds are expected to fall Tuesday when markets re-open following a holiday, after Petro won the June 19 presidential election.

Some of his plans will be relatively simple to implement, such as firing the management of Colombia’s state oil company. Other proposals, such taxing wealthy landowners and declaring an economic state of emergency, will be constrained by powerful institutions such as congress and the constitutional court.

While financial markets may prove rocky under Petro in Colombia, few investors are betting that it will follow the path of its neighbor Venezuela into hyperinflation, widespread expropriations and default.

Here are some of Petro’s main proposals for the economy:

Fossil Fuels

Petro has pledged to stop awarding new oil exploration contracts. If Colombia continues to produce the crude it’s already drilling, it would have 12 years to manage the transition to an economy based on clean energy, he said in an interview in January.

As president, Petro would have the power not to grant any new exploration licenses, but he’d still have to honor existing licenses.

Most oil and gas producers in Colombia have enough exploration licenses to keep drilling over the next four years, according to Charle Gamba, CEO of Canacol Energy Ltd., which produces natural gas in the country. Gamba said he’d expect general activity to slow, but said Canacol could still explore and add reserves.

“Stopping field exploration auctions would likely reduce private investment in the hydrocarbon sector, and could gradually weaken the finances of government-owned energy company Ecopetrol,” S&P Global said in a report published the day after Petro’s election win.

Ecopetrol

Petro wants to transform Ecopetrol, Colombia’s biggest company, into a wind and solar producer. In an interview last month, he said he plans to fire most of the company’s board. Since the company is 88.5% owned by the state, there’s little to prevent him from doing so.

Crude is Colombia’s biggest export, and Ecopetrol accounts for 60-70% of the nation’s oil and gas output.

Central Bank

Petro said last month that the bank needs to be run by economists with a broader range of opinions, and has criticized recent interest rate increases.

Half-way through his four-year term, Petro will be able to name two new co-directors. When counting his pick for finance minister, he’ll get to appoint three of the seven-member board. But if someone quits or steps down for health reasons, he’ll have appointed a majority of the policy committee.

Petro says he’ll appoint “people with a background in production,” who can move monetary policy toward boosting output and employment, as well as protecting macroeconomic and price stability. He says the bank’s mandate obliges it to pursue “social justice” as well as stable prices, worrying some bond investors who fear a weakening of its inflation-fighting credentials.

The bank’s understanding of the constitution is that its sole mandate is price stability, but that the current inflation target of 3% is consistent with other objectives including “sustainable medium-term growth,” said Carolina Soto, a former central bank co-director.

Reforming the institution would be extremely difficult, because its structure and functions are laid out in the constitution, which can’t easily be modified.

State of Emergency

Petro says he wants to declare an “economic emergency” that would allow him to bypass the normal workings of congress and govern by decree.

He’s said that the “social catastrophe” of widespread hunger justifies such a move.

A state of emergency allows a government to approve laws and regulations without approval from congress for as many as three 30-day periods when there are severe economic, social and environmental risks.

The constitutional court would automatically have to review these arguments and would be unlikely to accept Petro’s argument that hunger justified ruling by decree rather than through congress. This means they would “certainly” invalidate his decrees, said Jose Gregorio Hernandez, a former president of the court.

Petro’s other ideas aren’t so worrying, since he’ll have to moderate them to get them through congress, said Luis Fernando Mejia, head of the economic think tank Fedesarrollo. But attempting to govern by decree has the potential to generate a lot of uncertainty, he said.

Debt, Taxes

As mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2015, Petro presided over a modest drop in the city’s debt load. Fitch Ratings raised Bogota’s credit rating a notch while he was in office, after it lifted Colombia’s sovereign rating, and praised the city’s “sound financial performance” and “conservative debt policy.”

However, the cost of insuring Colombia’s debt against non-payment with credit default swaps, a gauge of risk perception, has nearly doubled over the last year as Petro gained in polls.

He says he wants to increase the levy on wealthier Colombians and tax large, unproductive estates to promote a fairer distribution of agricultural land. Higher tax revenue would be used to fund social programs and gradually cut debt, according to Petro.

“We can’t eliminate the deficit completely from one day to the next, but we can shave some points off this deficit, gradually, year after year, trying to have finances that are much more sustainable,” he said.

Pensions

Petro wants to move toward a pension system that is overwhelmingly public, and expand coverage to people who didn’t make contributions. To do so, he’ll need to push the idea through multiple votes in Congress where he has no majority.

Under his proposals, people earning less than four minimum wages, or about $1,000 per month, would contribute to the public system. This is a large majority of the population, and would slash inflows to private pension funds, who are among the biggest buyers of the nation’s bonds and stocks.

“Obviously, fewer resources means less purchasing power,” for the private pension funds, said Munir Jalil, Andean chief economist at BTG Pactual. “This will make it a bit harder to finance government debt.”

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Bumpy road ahead for Elon Musk as Tesla faces losing world's biggest electric car maker crown, study says

Ryan Hogg
Sun, June 19, 2022

A Tesla Model 3.David Zalubowski/AP

Tesla will lose its title of the world's biggest EV maker by 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence concludes.

It expects Volkswagen to become world's biggest producer by increasing European and Chinese sales.

Tesla accounted for 75% of global EV sales in the first three months of this year.

Tesla faces losing its crown as the world's biggest electric car maker to Volkswagen by 2024, according to new research.

A study by Bloomberg Intelligence expects the German giant to double production to more than 2 million battery-powered vehicles in 2024, overtaking Tesla.

Rising battery costs and limited production capacity meant most other competitors, including Ford and General Motors, lacked an incentive to catch up as quickly as Volkswagen, the report said. Tesla is therefore likely to remain the biggest EV seller in the US for some time.

Volkswagen's production and sales are focused on Europe, and Bloomberg expects the company to expand further in China rather than America. US sales accounted for less than 10% of VW's total last year, according to its annual report.

Tesla sales in China, where it now makes two models, were likely to suffer as a result, Bloomberg said.

Tesla was an early entrant to the EV revolution, and accounted for 75% of all electric cars sold in the US in the first quarter of 2022, according to Kelly Blue Book. Competitors are slowly taking advantage of their scale to eat into some of that market share, though.

Ford has led the charge with its Ford F-150 Lightning, which has received 200,000 orders, while GM is pushing ahead on its next-generation "Ultium" batteries. Volkswagen is also considering of its sports car maker Porsche, which also has an electric model.

But Tesla has also expanded production and taken advantage of the economies of scale present in early adopters. It began shipping cars from its Berlin gigafactory in March, where it aims to produce 500,000 cars annually.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tried to bat off the threat of legacy automotive manufacturers, joking that he was getting "free advertising" from his competitors in a tweet on Friday that highlighted similar marketing strategies among manufacturers.



In an interview on the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley YouTube channel released on Tuesday, Musk said competitors Rivian and Lucid faced bankruptcy if they didn't cut costs.

PUMP & DUMP
Elon Musk pumps Dogecoin amid lawsuit

Dylan Butts
Sun, June 19, 2022


Dogecoin (DOGE) has gained 11% since billionaire Elon Musk said that he would continue to support and buy the cryptocurrency.

See related article: Bitcoin, crypto return to red after rate hike rally wears off
Fast facts

According to CoinMarketCap data, the memecoin was up more than 12% in the past 24 hours to US$0.05788 on Monday.

Dogecoin had dropped to as low as US$0.04972 in the past seven days following a broader bear market in crypto and a lawsuit against Musk.

Musk’s statement comes days after a complaint seeking a class action lawsuit against the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was filed alleging manipulation in the price of Dogecoin. The two companies and Musk have been named as defendants.

The complaint seeks US$86 billion in compensatory damages and US$172 billion in treble damages from Musk and Tesla and SpaceX, alleging they are engaged in a “Crypto Pyramid Scheme” by inflating the price of something with no fundamental value.

The lawsuit claims Musk’s public statements have a direct effect on DOGE and that for three years, he “engaged in and profited from the manipulation of the price of Bitcoin.”

Musk has been an influential advocate of Dogecoin since 2019, when he began tweeting about the meme-based digital tokens, later allowing the tokens to be used to purchase Tesla merchandise, which did correlate with a price surge.

However, the relationship hasn’t been all bull markets and growth — Musk jokingly called the coin a “hustle” in a skit for the show Saturday Night Alive in May 2021, triggering a 40% crash.

Musk had been silent about Dogecoin on Twitter recently, but his joining of the Twitter board in April also correlated with a rally in DOGE prices, with Musk offering to buy the entire social media company.

Tesla sued by former employees over 'mass layoff'

A Tesla logo is seen in Los Angeles

Mon, June 20, 2022, 5:29 PM
By Akriti Sharma and Hyunjoo Jin

(Reuters) - Former Tesla Inc employees have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. electric car company alleging its decision to carry out a "mass layoff" violated federal law as the company did not provide advance notice of the job cuts.

The lawsuit was filed late Sunday in Texas by two workers who said they were terminated from Tesla's gigafactory plant in Sparks, Nevada in June. According to the suit, more than 500 employees were terminated at the Nevada factory.

The workers allege the company failed to adhere to federal laws on mass layoffs that require a 60-day notification period under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, according to the lawsuit.

They are seeking class action status for all former Tesla employees throughout the United States who were laid off in May or June without advance notice.

"Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately," the complaint said.

Tesla, which has not commented on numbers of layoffs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.

Musk, the world's richest person, said earlier this month he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and that Tesla needed to cut staff by about 10%, according to an email seen by Reuters.

More than 20 people identifying themselves as Tesla employees said they were laid off, let go or had positions terminated this month, according to online postings and interviews with Reuters.

The action filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who were fired on June 10 and June 15 respectively, seeks pay and benefits for the 60-day notification period.

"It's pretty shocking that Tesla would just blatantly violate federal labor law by laying off so many workers without providing the required notice," Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney representing the workers told Reuters.

She said Tesla is offering some employees only one week of severance, adding that she is preparing an emergency motion with a court to try to block Tesla from trying to get releases from employees in exchange for just one week of severance.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; editing by Richard Pullin)

Tesla investor sues Musk, board over accusation of workplace discrimination

Thu, June 16, 2022

(Reuters) - A Tesla Inc shareholder sued the electric car maker, Chief Executive Elon Musk and its board, accusing them of neglecting to tackle complaints about workplace discrimination and harassment, and engendering a "toxic workplace culture."

Thursday's lawsuit is the latest against Tesla, which has been accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment in its factories.

"Tesla has created a toxic workplace culture grounded in racist and sexist abuse and discrimination against its own employees," the investor, Solomon Chau, said.

"This toxic work environment has gestated internally for years, and only recently has the truth about Tesla's culture emerged," he added in the complaint.

"Tesla's toxic workplace culture has caused financial harm and irreparable damage to the company's reputation."

Tesla did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

Kendall Law Group PLLC, the lawyers representing Chau, were not available outside regular U.S. business hours.

Tesla has said it does not tolerate discrimination and has taken steps to tackle workers' complaints.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants — Musk, 11 Tesla board members and the company — of having breached their fiduciary duty by failing to address and remedy the red flags concerning internal reports of discrimination and harassment.

This caused Tesla to lose high-quality employees and incur costs for defending cases and settling fines for violations, the lawsuit said.

The case is Chau et al v. Musk et al, US District Court, Western District of Texas (Austin), 1:22-cv-00592.

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh and Kevin Krolicki in Singapore and Abinaya V in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Elon Musk’s Son Files To Change Gender, Name To End Relationship With Father

Kristin Myers 

Mon, June 20, 2022,

MEGA

The child of billionaire Elon Musk is completely changing her identity to distance herself from her father.

Xavier Alexander Musk, who has a twin named Griffin, turned 18 back in April. Almost immediately after her birthday, Xavier filed a petition with the courthouse to change her name as she embraces her new identity as Vivian.

The Blast obtained the documents from the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County at the time of their release but did not publish the documents right away to give Vivian time to come out on her own. However, the documents started making their way around Twitter on Saturday night, just ahead of Father's Day. Her hearing is scheduled for this Friday.

Xavier Alexander Musk Files To Change Name After 18th Birthday

Instagram

Xavier Alexander Musk is requesting to change her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson. She is also asking for the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County to recognize her gender as female. The petition was filed on Monday, April 18.

Vivian listed the reason for the name change as not wanting to be associated with her biological father. The document states: "Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form."

MEGA

Elon Musk married Canadian author Justine Wilson in January 2000. In 2002, they welcomed their son Nevada Alexander Musk. Sadly, Nevada died of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, at only ten weeks old.

Musk and Wilson turned to IVF, and, in April 2004, Wilson gave birth to two twin sons: Griffin and Xavier. They both just turned 18 back in April.

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The former couple also used IVF to welcome triplet sons two years later. Their names were Kai, Saxon, and Damian. All three boys are now 16. Two years later, in 2008, the pair filed for divorce. They still share custody of their five children.

However, Vivian claims that part of the reason that she wants to change her name is to distance herself from her biological father, who has been accused of having transphobic views over the past several years.

Elon Musk Has Been Criticized For Being Transphobic In The Past

CNBC had previously called on Elon Musk to apologize for his transphobic views. In one July 2020 tweet, Musk tweeted “pronouns suck,” but deleted the tweet after his then-partner, Canadian musician Grimes, confronted him about the tweet.

A few months later, in a series of tweets dated December 2020, the Tesla founder reportedly mocked people who listed their pronouns in their online bios.

Musk’s tweet read “when you put he/him in ur bio” alongside a cartoonish picture of a soldier rubbing his bloody hands on his face. The soldier is wearing a hat that says “I love to oppress.”

After Musk was criticized for the tweet, he defended himself by tweeting, “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” He then tweeted out that Tesla had the number one ranking on the Corporate Equality Index, which is an annual list of the best places for LGBTQ people to work.

The Human Rights Campaign, a charitable organization that tries to provide equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, called on Musk to apologize.

Human Rights Campaign Asks Elon Musk To Apologize For His Offensive Comments

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The HRC shared a statement with CNBC, calling on the SpaceX founder to apologize for mocking the use of pronouns.

“The Corporate Equality Index (CEI) is a comprehensive measurement of workplace non-discrimination policies, practices, and benefits critical to the full protection and inclusion of LGBTQ workers,” they wrote. “Tesla scored a 100 on the 2020 CEI based on this crucial foundation of inclusive non-discrimination policies and benefits.”

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“No benchmarking tool can fully account for the day-to-day experiences of LGBTQ workers. The CEI criteria alone are necessary foundations for LGBTQ inclusion but do not represent the entirety of what it takes to ensure a fully inclusive and welcoming environment,” they continued. “The CEI is not a cover for poor personal behavior, and HRC condemns Musk’s tweets mocking pronouns.”

They concluded their statement, saying, “Musk’s insensitive comments stand completely contrary to what HRC’s Workplace Equality Program works with companies each day to create—providing employees a safe, inclusive, and fair work environment.”

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The Blast has reached out to Vivian Jenna Wilson for comment. Neither Elon Musk nor Justine Wilson, Vivian's parents, have yet to provide public comment on Vivian's name and gender change.