REST IN POWER
U.S. civil rights pioneer, congressman John Lewis dies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, died on Friday.

Lewis, a member of Congress from Atlanta who had announced in December that he had advanced pancreatic cancer, was 80.

“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement. “And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”

John Lewis, U.S. congressman and sharecropper's son, was civil rights hero

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a joint statement, “We have lost a giant. John Lewis gave all he had to redeem America’s unmet promise of equality and justice for all, and to create a place for us to build a more perfect union together.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis “a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation.”

Lewis was a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom he met after writing to him when Lewis was just 18. He was the last surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington, having stood beside King when he made his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Lewis kept up the fight for civil rights and human rights until the end of his life, inspiring with others with calls to make “Good Trouble.”

In 2016, Lewis led a “sit-in” by House Democrats to demand a vote on gun regulations. He made his last public appearance last month, as protests for racial justice swept the United States and the world.

Using a cane, Lewis walked with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on a street by the White House that Bowser had just renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza. It had just been dedicated with a large yellow mural - large enough to be seen from space - reading “Black Lives Matter.”

Tributes quickly began pouring in from other politicians, Lewis’ fellow Democrats and Republicans.

The Republican Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, said Lewis had a place “among the giants of American history” even before he was elected to Congress, noting his rise from a family of sharecroppers in segregated Alabama.

“The Senate and the nation mourn the loss of Congressman John Lewis, a pioneering civil rights leader who put his life on the line to fight racism, promote equal rights, and bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles,” McConnell said.

“John Lewis was an icon who fought with every ounce of his being to advance the cause of civil rights for all Americans,” said Senator Kamala Harris, the first African American to represent California in the Senate, on Twitter. “I’m devastated for his family, friends, staff - and all those whose lives he touched.

Reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York, Richard Cowan in Washington and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard and Gerry Doyle

John Lewis, congressman and civil rights icon, dies at 80

Lewis, a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., battled pancreatic cancer.
18 July 2020

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis dead at 80

Lewis was an organizer on the March on Washington in 1963 and served in Congress for more than three decades.

Rep. John Robert Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon, died Friday. He was 80 years old.

Lewis passed seven months after a routine medical visit revealed that he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus confirmed the news of his death.

Known as the "conscience of the U.S. Congress," Lewis continually represented Georgia's 5th Congressional District, which includes most of Atlanta, since taking office in 1987. His cancer diagnosis in December 2019 did not interrupt that streak.

"So I have decided to do what I know to do and do what I have always done: I am going to fight it and keep fighting for the Beloved Community. We still have many bridges to cross," he said in a statement at the time.




This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Rep. John Lewis in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble."This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Rep. John Lewis in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble."Ben Arnon/Magnolia Pictures via AP

"John Lewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation – from the determination with which he met discrimination at lunch counters and on Freedom Rides, to the courage he showed as a young man facing down violence and death on Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the moral leadership he brought to the Congress for more than 30 years," Pelosi said in a statement.

Lewis, who was born on Feb. 21, 1940 to sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama, attended segregated public schools and counted the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s radio broadcasts as inspiration for his work as an activist.

At 18, he wrote a letter to King, who responded by purchasing a round-trip bus ticket to Montgomery for Lewis so they could meet.

"Dr. King, I am John Robert Lewis," he recalled saying to King. "And that was the beginning."

MORE: Outpouring of support follows Rep. John Lewis' cancer diagnosis

Lewis wasted no time organizing, quickly finding himself on the front lines of the civil rights movement.

As a student at Fisk University, he led numerous demonstrations in Nashville against racial segregation, including sit-ins at segregated lunch counters as part of the Nashville Sit-ins.

Starting in 1961, he took part in a series of demonstrations that became known as the Freedom Rides, in which he and other activists -- Black and white -- rode together in buses through the South to challenge the region's lack of enforcing a Supreme Court ruling that deemed segregated public bus rides unconstitutional. Upon stopping, the activists on these rides often were arrested or beaten, Lewis included.

In his second-to-last tweet, just 10 days ago, Lewis tweeted about the 59th anniversary of his release from jail after being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for using a white restroom during a Freedom Ride.

59 years ago today I was released from Parchman Farm Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson, MS for using a so-called "white" restroom during the Freedom Rides of 1961. pic.twitter.com/OUfgeaNDOm— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) July 7, 2020

During a stop in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Lewis was attacked by two men who hit him in the face and kicked him in the ribs, according to Smithsonian Magazine. In an interview decades later, he said he was undeterred.

"We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back," he said.

MORE: Rep. John Lewis: A brief history of the civil rights leader

He was the youngest person to speak at the 1963 March on Washington, an event he helped organize as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The rally, at which King famously delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, drew more than 200,000 attendees.

MORE: The life of civil rights leader, John Lewis in images

And in the winter of 1965, in what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," Lewis, alongside fellow civil rights leader Hosea Williams, was in the process of leading hundreds of demonstrators in a march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery when they were greeted by a "sea of blue" of Alabama state troopers, Lewis said. The troopers beat and tear-gassed the demonstrators after ordering them to disperse.

One of those troopers fractured Lewis's skull, scarring his head for the rest of his life.


In this March 7, 1965, file photo, state troopers swinging billy clubs to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating... moreIn this March 7, 1965, file photo, state troopers swinging billy clubs to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in the foreground, is being beaten by a state trooper. Lewis, a future U.S. Congressman sustained a fractured skull.AP Photo, File

"I thought I saw death," Lewis later said.

Since then, Lewis has retraced the steps from those day's events nearly every year in what has become known as the Alabama Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and then to Congress, representing Georgia's 5th District in 1986. He has served on the Ways & Means Committee and is head of the Oversight Subcommittee.

"The world has lost a legend; the civil rights movement has lost an icon, the City of Atlanta has lost one of its most fearless leaders, and the Congressional Black Caucus has lost our longest serving member," the caucus said in a statement. "The Congressional Black Caucus is known as the Conscience of the Congress. John Lewis was known as the conscience of our caucus. A fighter for justice until the end, Mr. Lewis recently visited Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC. His mere presence encouraged a new generation of activist to 'speak up and speak out' and get into 'good trouble' to continue bending the arc toward justice and freedom."

A published author, Lewis co-authored a graphic novel trilogy "MARCH" about the civil rights movement, a project that garnered the National Book Award among others.


In this Oct. 24, 2019 file photo, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., prepares to pay his respects to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who lies in state during a memorial service at the U.S. Capitol Hill in Washington.In this Oct. 24, 2019 file photo, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., prepares to pay his respects to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who lies in state during a memorial service at the U.S. Capitol Hill in Washington.Melina Mara/The Washington Post via AP, Pool, File

Lewis was never shy in his criticism of President Donald Trump, skipping his inauguration and first State of the Union address and calling him a "racist" in a January 2018 interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"George, I don't think there's any way that you can square what the president said with the words of Martin Luther King Jr.," the Georgia congressman said, in reaction to Trump's alleged reference to not wanting immigrants from "s--hole" countries. "It's just impossible ... It's unbelievable. It makes me sad. It makes me cry.”
MORE: Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis says he thinks Trump 'is a racist'

President Barack Obama awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 for his lifetime of advocacy and activism.

During that February ceremony, Obama said of Lewis: "And generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind -- an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now."



This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Rep. John Lewis in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble."This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Rep. John Lewis in a scene from "John Lewis: Good Trouble."Ben Arnon/Magnolia Pictures via AP

Last month, at a town hall with Obama discussing the racial protests across the country following the death of George Floyd, he reflected on his emotions while protesting during the civil rights movement.

"I have been beaten on the bridge, I thought I was so dead. I thought I was going to die,” Lewis said.

"I believe it was the grace of God, and praying witnesses that helped save me, so today I feel more than lucky, more than blessed to see the changes that are occurring to live to see a young man, a young friend like Barack Obama, become president of the United States of America was worth the pain," he added.

Lewis also offered praise for young people who had come together from all walks of life to join in protests.

"They're going to help redeem the soul of America, and save our country, and maybe even save the planet," he said.

John Lewis, U.S. congressman and sharecropper's son, was civil rights hero

Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Lewis, who died on Friday at age 80, was a hero of the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s who endured beatings by white police and mobs and played an outsized role in American politics for 60 years.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) waves after he speaks at the ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial honoring the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, August 24, 2013. Thousands of marchers were expected in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech and to urge action on jobs, voting rights and gun violence. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

Lewis, an Alabama sharecropper’s son elected in 1986 as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, died after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

A protege of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis led sit-ins to integrate all-white lunch counters, was one of the original “Freedom Riders” who integrated buses, and suffered a skull fracture while demonstrating for Black voting rights in a savage beating by a nightstick-wielding white Alabama state trooper during an incident now called “Bloody Sunday.”

Lewis was just 18 when he first met King and went on to play a vital role in the civil rights movement that strove for equality for Blacks in an America grappling with racial bigotry and segregation, particularly in the South.

As a congressman, Lewis tangled with President Donald Trump starting even before Trump took office. Lewis in January 2017 said he did not view Trump as a “legitimate” president because of Russian meddling in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy. Trump drew criticism even from fellow Republicans when he called Lewis “all talk” and “no action.”

Lewis was present at many of the civil rights movement’s seminal moments, and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, hoping for a land where Blacks “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Lewis, the last surviving speaker at that speech, maintained the fight for civil rights until the end of his life. He made his last public appearance in June, as protests for racial justice swept the United States and the world.

Using a cane, he walked with Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on a street by the White House that Bowser had just renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, which had just been dedicated with a large yellow mural - large enough to be seen from space - reading “Black Lives Matter.”

Amid a national movement to abolish Confederate monuments and symbols, calls have grown rename the bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Lewis was brutally beaten during a 1965 voting rights march, for Lewis. It is named for Edmund Pettus, who fought in the Confederate Army and robbed African-Americans of their right to vote after Reconstruction.


Long before the March on Washington, Lewis helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which became a prominent civil rights group, and served as its president for three years.

He proved he was willing to risk his life for the cause of civil rights and non-violent protest and organized the first lunch-counter sit-ins demanding service for Blacks at whites-only eateries.

In 1960, at a whites-only diner in Nashville, Tennessee, a white waitress dumped cleaning powder down his back and water on his food. He was beaten by whites in South Carolina and Alabama during 1961 anti-segregation bus tours called Freedom Rides. And he suffered further injuries during “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 in Selma.

“I thought I was going to die a few times,” he said in a 2004 interview, mentioning Selma and a 1961 mob beating at a bus station in Montgomery, Alabama. “I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of non-violence.”

Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, awarded Lewis the presidential medal of freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, in 2011.

“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind - an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time, whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now,” Obama said a White House ceremony.

Lewis was born on Feb. 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, when Blacks faced segregation in all public facilities and were effectively barred from voting in the U.S. South - where Black slavery ended only due to the 1861-1865 Civil War - thanks to the notorious “Jim Crow” laws.
‘I FELT SO FREE’

Lewis plunged into the civil rights movement as a student at Fisk University in Nashville, where he organized the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters.


“The Nashville sit-ins became the first mass arrest in the sit-in movement, and I was taken to jail,” Lewis said.

“I’ll tell you, I felt so liberated. I felt so free. I felt like I had crossed over. I think I said to myself, ‘What else can you do to me? You beat me. You harassed me. Now you have placed me under arrest. You put us in jail. What’s left? You can kill us?’”

The “Bloody Sunday” attack took place when segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace directed police to use night sticks and tear gas to stop the peaceful march for voting rights led by Lewis and others.

As hundreds of Black protesters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers, many on horseback, waded into the crowd swinging billy clubs. Lewis was beaten so badly that his scars were visible decades later when he served in Congress.

The horrific nature of the event inspired action in Washington. President Lyndon Johnson days later demanded that Congress approve legislation removing barriers to Black voting. Lawmakers then passed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In a moving postscript to his protest years, Elwin Wilson, a white man who assaulted Lewis at a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1961, traveled to Washington in 2009 to apologize tearfully to Lewis, who forgave him.

“That’s what the movement was always about - to have the capacity to forgive and move toward reconciliation,” Lewis told the New York Times in 2013 after Wilson died at age 76.

After leaving SNCC in 1966, Lewis worked for community organizations. He later was Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s choice to head the federal volunteer program ACTION and he was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981.

Lewis lost his first run for the House in 1977 to Democrat Wyche Fowler in the campaign to replace Andrew Young, the first Black elected to Congress from Georgia in modern times. Carter had picked Young to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

When Fowler headed to the Senate, Lewis defeated another civil rights figure, Julian Bond, in 1986 for the House seat representing the congressional district encompassing Atlanta.


In the House, he amassed a liberal voting record and was a member of the House Democratic leadership team.

Lewis began the 2008 campaign supporting Hillary Clinton as she faced Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Obama won Georgia’s Democratic primary, Lewis switched allegiance in a key moment of the campaign.

As a congressman in June 2016, Lewis used the non-violent protest tactics he learned from King to help organize a 24-hour sit-in on the House floor to push for gun control legislation following a shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The rare protest virtually shut down the chamber.

Lewis had one son with his wife Lillian, who died in 2012.


Reporting and writing by Will Dunham; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Bill Trott, Sonya Hepinstall and William Mallard

DON'T MOURN, ORGANIZE! JOE HILL

Factbox: Activists and politicians mourn John Lewis' death

(Reuters) - Politicians and activists voiced an outpouring of grief and appreciation for U.S. Representative John Lewis, who died on Friday of pancreatic cancer at age 80.

Here are some of their quotes:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama

“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”

Bernice King, the daughter of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Farewell, sir. You did, indeed, fight the good fight and get into a lot of good trouble. You served God and humanity well. Thank you. Take your rest.”

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“John Lewis gave all he had to redeem America’s unmet promise of equality and justice for all, and to create a place for us to build a more perfect union together.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

“John Lewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation – from the determination with which he met discrimination at lunch counters and on Freedom Rides, to the courage he showed as a young man facing down violence and death on Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the moral leadership he brought to the Congress for more than 30 years.”

Nathan Law, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former legislator

“RIP Congressman John Lewis. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your activism. Thank you for your lessons.”

Republican Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate Mitch McConnell

“The Senate and the nation mourn the loss of Congressman John Lewis, a pioneering civil rights leader who put his life on the line to fight racism, promote equal rights, and bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles.”

Senator Kamala Harris

“John Lewis was an icon who fought with every ounce of his

being to advance the cause of civil rights for all Americans. I’m devastated for his family, friends, staff - and all those whose lives he touched.”

Stacey Abrams, a Democratic activist and founder of Fair Fight, a voting rights group in Lewis’ home state of Georgia

“Our conscience, he was a griot of this modern age, one who saw its hatred but fought ever towards the light,” said “And never once did he begrudge sharing its beauty. I loved him & will miss him.”

On eve of bankruptcy, U.S. firms shower execs with bonuses

(Reuters) - Nearly a third of more than 40 large companies seeking U.S. bankruptcy protection during the coronavirus pandemic awarded bonuses to executives within a month of filing their cases, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings and court records.

Under a 2005 bankruptcy law, companies are banned, with few exceptions, from paying executives retention bonuses while in bankruptcy. But the firms seized on a loophole by granting payouts before filing.

Six of the 14 companies that approved bonuses within a month of their filings cited business challenges executives faced during the pandemic in justifying the compensation.

Even more firms paid bonuses in the half-year period before their bankruptcies. Thirty-two of the 45 companies Reuters examined approved or paid bonuses within six months of filing. Nearly half authorized payouts within two months.

Eight companies, including J.C. Penney Co Inc and Hertz Global Holdings Inc, approved bonuses as few as five days before seeking bankruptcy protection. Hi-Crush Inc, a supplier of sand for oil-and-gas fracking, paid executive bonuses two days before its July 12 filing.
J.C. Penney - forced to temporarily close its 846 department stores and furlough about 78,000 of its 85,000 employees as the pandemic spread - approved nearly $10 million in payouts just before its May 15 filing. On Wednesday, the company said it would permanently close 152 stores and lay off 1,000 employees.

The company declined to comment for this story but said in an earlier statement that the bonuses aimed to retain a “talented management team” that had made progress on a turnaround before the pandemic.

The other companies declined to comment or did not respond. In filings, many said economic turmoil had rendered traditional compensation plans obsolete or that executives getting bonuses had forfeited other compensation.

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group in March temporarily closed all of its 67 stores and in April furloughed more than 11,000 employees. The company paid $4 million in bonuses to Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck in February and more than $4 million to other executives in the weeks before its May 7 bankruptcy filing, court records show. Neiman Marcus drew scrutiny this week on a plan it proposed after filing for bankruptcy to pay additional bonuses to executives. The company declined to comment.
Hertz - which recently terminated more than 14,000 workers - paid senior executives bonuses of $1.5 million days before its May 22 bankruptcy, in part to recognize the uncertainty they faced from the pandemic’s impact on travel, the company said in a filing.

Whiting Petroleum Corp bestowed $14.6 million in extra compensation to executives days before its April 1 bankruptcy. Shale pioneer Chesapeake Energy Corp awarded $25 million to executives and lower-level employees in May, about eight weeks before filing bankruptcy. Both cited fallout from the pandemic and a Saudi-Russian oil price war, which they said rendered their incentive plans ineffective.

Reuters reviewed financial disclosures and court records from 45 companies that filed for bankruptcy between March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and July 15. Using a database provided by BankruptcyData, a division of New Generation Research Inc, Reuters reviewed companies with publicly trade stock or debt and more than $50 million in liabilities.

Such bonuses have long spurred objections that companies are enriching executives while cutting jobs, stiffing creditors and wiping out stock investors. In March, creditors sued former Toys ‘R’ Us executives and directors, accusing them of misdeeds that included paying management bonuses days before its 2017 bankruptcy. The retailer liquidated in 2018, terminating more than 31,000 people.

A lawyer for the executives and directors said the bonuses were justified, given the extra work and stress on management, and that Toys ‘R’ Us had hoped to remain in business after restructuring.

In June, congressional Democrats responded to the pandemic-induced wave of bankruptcies by introducing legislation that would strengthen creditors’ rights to claw back bonuses. The bill - the latest iteration of a proposal that has long failed to gain traction - faces slim prospects in a Republican-controlled Senate, a Democratic aide said.

Firms paying pre-bankruptcy bonuses know they would face scrutiny in court on compensation proposed after their filings, said Clifford J. White III, director of the U.S. Trustee Program, a Justice Department division charged with monitoring bankruptcy proceedings. But the trustees have no power to halt bonuses paid even days before a company’s bankruptcy filing, he said, allowing firms to “escape the transparency and court review.”




DODGING BONUS RESTRICTIONS
The 2005 legislation required executives and other corporate insiders to have a competing job offer in hand before receiving retention bonuses during bankruptcy, among other restrictions. That forced failing firms to devise new ways to pay the bonuses, according to some restructuring experts.

After the 2008 financial crisis, companies often proposed bonuses in bankruptcy court, casting them as incentive plans with goals executives must meet. Judges mostly approved the plans, ruling that the performance benchmarks put the compensation beyond the purview of the restrictions on retention bonuses. The plans, however, sparked objections from Justice Department monitors who called them retention bonuses in disguise, often with easy milestones.

Eventually, companies found they could avoid scrutiny altogether by approving bonuses before bankruptcy filings. Dozens of companies have approved such payouts in the last five years, said Brian Cumberland, an executive compensation expert at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal who advises companies undergoing financial restructurings.

Companies argue the bonuses are crucial to retaining executives whose departures could torpedo their businesses, ultimately leaving less money for creditors and employees. Now, some companies are bolstering those arguments by contending that their business would not have cratered without the economic turmoil of the pandemic.

The pre-bankruptcy payouts are needed, companies say, because potential stock awards are worthless and it would be impossible for executives to meet business targets that were crafted before the economic crisis. The bonuses ensure stability in leadership that is needed to hold faltering operations together, the firms contend.

Some specialists argue the bonuses are hard to justify for executives who may have few better job options in an economic crisis.

“With double-digit unemployment, it’s a strange time to be paying out retention bonuses,” said Adam Levitin, a professor specializing in bankruptcy at Georgetown University’s law school.

CLOSED STORES, BIG BONUSES

J.C. Penney has not posted an annual profit since 2010 as it has struggled to grapple with the shift to online shopping and competition from discount retailers. The 118-year-old chain, at various points, employed more than 200,000 people and operated 1,600 stores, figures that have since been cut more than half.

On May 10, J.C. Penney’s board approved compensation changes that paid top executives, including CEO Jill Soltau, nearly $10 million. On May 13, Soltau received a $1.7 million long-term incentive payment and a $4.5 million retention bonus, court filings show.

The annual pay of the company’s median employee, a part-time hourly worker, was $11,482 in 2019, a company filing shows.



J.C. Penney filed for bankruptcy two days after paying Soltau’s bonuses. At a hearing the next day, a creditors’ lawyer argued the payouts were designed to thwart court review. The payouts were timed “so that they didn’t have to put it in front of you,” said the lawyer, Kristopher Hansen, addressing U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones.

Jones - who is also overseeing the Whiting Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy and Neiman Marcus cases - told Reuters that such bonuses are “always a concern” in bankruptcy cases. “That said, the adversarial process demands that parties put the issue before me before I can take action,” he added, emphasizing he was speaking of general dynamics applicable to any case. “A comment made in passing by a lawyer is not sufficient.”

In its statement earlier this year, J.C. Penney said the bonuses were among a series of “tough, prudent decisions” taken to safeguard the firm’s future.

Dennis Marten - a shareholder who said he once worked at a J.C. Penney store - disagrees. He has appeared at court hearings pleading for an investigation of the company’s leadership.

“Shame on her for having the gall to get that money,” he said of Soltau.

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MINNEAPOLIS IS A POLICE STATEMinnesota police use drones to catch nude and topless sunbathersJuly 16 (UPI) -- A Minnesota police department confirmed officers are now using drones to catch people going nude or topless at an area beach.

The Golden Valley Police Department confirmed officers working with Minneapolis Parks Police used a drone to catch beachgoers in the act of going partially or fully nude at Twin Lake, just west of Theodore Wirth Park, after numerous complaints.

"It had reached the point where it was time for people to be held accountable for their actions," Golden Valley Police Sgt. Randy Mahlen told WCCO-TV.

Witnesses said they spotted the drone in the sky shortly before police arrived and took information from then-clothed beach visitors for potential citations.

"What it did was validate all of these complaints we've been getting from residents," Mahlen said. "It would be no different than a surveillance camera in a public place for a high-crime area."

Kristian Calbert, a beachgoer who was cited for topless sunbathing, said she was unaware that the beach was a part of the Minneapolis Park System. She said there are no signs posted at the beach that mention the park system or rules against nudity.

"It's ridiculous when I turn around and there's a gentleman who has boobs that are as big as, or bigger than mine," Calbert told KARE-TV. "And he can keep his shirt off and we're doing the same thing, sitting in the sun. I'm like, you say it's a sexual organ but it's not. We're not sexualizing it."

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is currently considering a proposal to get rid of the ordinance that bars women from going topless at beaches that are part of the park system. A final vote is expected in August.

Pentagon memo effectively bans display of Confederate battle flag


A Pentagon memo on Friday lists appropriate flags to display on U.,S. bases, and specifically omits the Confederate battle flag. Photo by Shutterstock.com

July 17 (UPI) -- The Confederate battle flag was effectively banned from U.S. military property, a Pentagon memo released on Friday indicates.

The memo, obtained by UPI, does not specifically mention the flag, which was used by the Confederate States of America during the Civil War and later became symbolic, to some people, of white nationalism, Southern heritage or general anti-government dissent.

Distributed Friday by the Pentagon, the memo lists flags authorized by the Defense Department for display "that promote unity and esprit de corps." While the U.S. flag, flags of states or territories, Senate-confirmed civilian flags and flags of allied nations are on the list, among others, the Confederate battle flag is absent.

"The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and dislike, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols," the memo, signed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, reads in part.

The Confederate battle flag regained popularity as a response to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

In June, NASCAR, the car racing organizing body with roots in the U.S. South, banned the flag, noting that the flag "runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry."

The Pentagon memo comes after several elements of the U.S. military announced a ban on the flag's presence. Marine Corps commandant David Berger directed the removal of Confederate paraphernalia from Marine Corps bases in February.

RELATED U.S. Air Force initiates review into racial disparity

On June 9, a Navy statement said that an order would be prepared to prohibit the flag from all Navy public spaces. The same day, the Army said it would begin considering name changes for bases honoring Confederate military leaders.

On June 15, U.S. Forces Korea announced a ban on display of the flag at U.S. bases in South Korea. U.S. Forces Japan joined the ban in July.

"While I acknowledge some might view it as a symbol of regional pride, many others in our force see it as a painful reminder of hate, bigotry, treason, and devaluation of humanity," Gen. Robert Abrams, U.S. Forces Korea commandant, wrote in a memo last month. "Regardless of perspective, one thing is clear: it has the power to inflame feelings of racial division. We cannot have that division among us."

RELATED Virginia NAACP sues over schools with Confederate names

Pension reform plans, which sparked France’s Yellow Vest protests, shelved until 2021

Negotiations between the French government and unions over a controversial pension reform will be postponed until 2021 to focus on economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Friday.

“The Prime Minister proposes to postpone consultations on this reform”, leader of the union for small and medium-sized enterprises CPME Francois Asselin said.

The reform, pushed by President Emmanuel Macron and the single greatest revamp of the pension system since World War Two, was halted in its tracks in February by the pandemic.

The proposal angered unions and brought thousands of people onto the streets at the turn of the year. The decision to push it back aims in part to ease those tensions as France grapples with the economic fallout from the coronavirus.

"The priority now is the battle against the crisis, for employment and to tackle unemployment," Castex told reporters after his first meeting with union representatives since becoming prime minister this month.

Castex said the reform, which includes raising the retirement age by two years to 64, would not be scrapped. A deferment until after the 2022 presidential elections might defuse union and voter concerns, but would undermine Macron's already-weakened credibility as a reformer.

The reform is central to Macron's ambition of creating a more flexible and competitive labour force. But trade unions who argue that it will erode hard-earned benefits and leave pensioners worse off.

Castex also said that the full implementation of unemployment insurance reform would be postponed to Jan. 1.

(REUTERS)

Two videos show brown bears being tortured by hunters in Turkey

Screengrab of a video filmed in the village of Agaçseven in Turkey’s Trabzon province

TURKEY / ANIMAL CRUELTY - 07/17/2020

In recent weeks, people across Turkey have expressed shock and anger after two videos emerged showing hunters killing or torturing bears. Animal rights organizations say that the laws meant to protect bears aren’t strict enough and that the small number of hunters in the country act in impunity.

The two videos were circulating on WhatsApp before someone alerted animal rights group Haytap (The Federation for animal rights - Turkey), which reposted the videos on their Facebook page on July 9 and 12.

The first video shows an injured bear who has blood all over his head and upper body. In the video, you can hear two men speaking. "Attack, attack!” one tells a dog. A dog runs at the bear and bites it. Another dog joins in. At one point, the footage shows a hunter with a rifle just a few meters away from the bear, but he doesn’t put the animal out of its misery.


Animal rights group Haytap says that the incident occurred in May in the village of Arhavi, which is located in the northeastern province of Artvin.

The second video shows two men holding up a dead bear. They laugh as they hit its head and call out insults.

+2 Toplumun içindeki ara ara haberlerde gördüğünüz şiddete sakın şaşırmayın.. Gözlerimizi kapattığınız için bu olaylar çoğumuz yabancı geliyor

Gelişmeleri bu sayfalardan bildireceğiz#haytap #av #avcılık #avspordeğildir #yaşamhakkı #yaşamellerinizde #cinayet #katliam pic.twitter.com/CxZPWeOMQw Haytap (@HaytapOfficial) July 12, 2020

According to Haytap, that video was also likely filmed about two months ago in the village of Agaçseven in the northeastern province of Trabzon. At the start of the video, one of the hunters references Ramadan, which went from April 23 to May 23 this year.

The two videos garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media. Several news reports also broadcast the footage.

"These hunters enjoy torturing animals"

Haytap filed a complaint on the hunters and hopes that the authorities will set a precedent by handing them tough prison sentences. Ahmet Kemal Senpolat is a lawyer and the president of Haytap.
After people alerted us to these two videos, we ended up filing complaints against the two individuals. Bears are protected by law in Turkey. There are about 3,000 of them remaining, most of whom live in the area near the Black Sea in the north of the country, where both videos were filmed.

We hope that, this time, the laws will be upheld and that these individuals will be handed serious prison sentences, not just fines, which is common in cases where people abuse or torture domestic animals like cats and dogs.

The videos are terrible and really show, in our opinion, these hunters taking pleasure in torturing animals. People feel strongly about this issue in Turkey. It’s villagers from these regions who saw the videos circulating on WhatsApp and contacted us about them. They didn’t dare to speak out themselves because they were afraid of reprisals from the hunters. Even though they took precautions, they told us that they had received threats after the videos were released and broadcast on TV.

"These conflicts could be avoided if we preserved their natural habitat”

Documentary filmmaker Oÿkü Yagci is a member of another Turkish animal rights organization, Hakim (their name is an acronym that stands for Animal Rights Monitoring Committee), as well as the Turkish Vegan Association TVD.

In Turkey, we are lucky that we still have several thousand wild bears that live in the wild [Editor’s note: In comparison, only 52 bears were thought to be living in France in 2019] but, unfortunately, their habitat is being rapidly destroyed by human activity such as the construction of infrastructure like dams and roads.

When I was filming a documentary in Kars (in eastern Turkey), I often saw bears crossing the railroad tracks to go forage for food in a dump. Often, these bears got hit by trains and environmental activists told me they tried everything to save them, in vain.
Sometimes the hunters say that they kill bears because there is a conflict between humans and animals but we think these conflicts could be avoided if we preserved their natural habitat.

We regularly run anti-hunting campaigns. They are quite successful. Turkish people do care about animals and condemn any form of mistreatment, including hunting. But, unfortunately, the laws of the country don’t reflect this movement. Recently, parliament was supposed to vote on a bill that would increase the number of species that can be hunted and facilitate hunting tourism. They ended up postponing the vote.

Few hunters in Turkey

The Turkish government is subject to extreme pressure from hunting lobby groups, even though there are very many few hunters in the country. Only about 290,000 people have hunting licenses in Turkey [Editor’s note: Equivalent to just 0.35% of the Turkish population. In France, for comparison, hunters make up 1.75% of the population]. But, between hunting permits, hunting tourism and fines, they add a fair amount of money to the state coffers. According to official figures, the government made 74.9 million Turkish lira [Editor’s note: 9.5 million euros] in the 2018/2019 season. Banning hunting would result in a certain loss of revenue for the government.

Still,we’re convinced that Turkey could become an example by becoming one of the first countries in the world to abolish hunting.

Hunting is already banned in several countries, including India, several east African nations, and the canton of Geneva in Switzerland. The Berne Convention, signed by most European countries, designates the brown bear as a strictly protected species. Turkey is a signatory to the Convention but made an exception excluding the bear to manage its population.

BEFORE YOU GET ALL JUDGEMENTAL

STATE OF SIEGE
In Portland, US federal officers in unmarked vans respond to protests with tear gas

Videos of federal law enforcement officers using unmarked vans were posted online July 15. (Video posted on Twitter)

USA - 07/16/2020

Tactical officers from around the United States have been in Portland, Oregon since July 4 to control protests and protect public property. Since they arrived, videos circulated online have shown officers patrolling streets in unmarked vans and using force to disperse protesters in the city. Unrest in Portland has been ongoing since late May when outrage following the death of George Floyd inspired protests across the United States. The recent federal response has received criticism for escalating tensions.

The US Department of Homeland Security sent federal law enforcement officers, including those from tactical teams, to Portland following an executive order signed by President Trump aimed at protecting public monuments from vandalism during ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.

Videos have been spread on the Internet showing clashes between law enforcement and protesters, featuring federal officers deploying crowd-control tactics such as tear gas and flashbangs. The officers, who are dressed in tactical attire, are also seen getting in and out of unmarked minivans.

On Thursday, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported the story of a protester who was taken into custody by federal officers in an unmarked van, driven to a courthouse, put into a cell, and then released.

The video below shows two officers in helmets and tactical gear walking up to a protester and bringing them into an unmarked van. The officers do not identify themselves as law enforcement, give a reason for the arrest, or read the protester their rights. The witness filming the video repeatedly asks the officers what they are doing, but receives no response. In Oregon, federal law enforcement is authorised to make arrests, but the officer must inform the person of their federal authority, give the reason for the arrest, and take the person to an Oregon authority without unnecessary delay.

Another video shows similarly dressed officers getting into a van on Main St. in Downtown Portland and driving off.

“There was a lot of fear. When people get arrested by federal officers, they're held for days, maybe weeks.”

Garrison Davis has been following the protests in Portland since they began in late May. According to the Associated Press, federal law enforcement officers from at least six different departments were sent to Seattle, Portland, and Washington, D.C. to protect public property during protests in early July.

Davis said that violence during the protests escalated after the night of July 11, when a federal officer severely wounded a protester using a less-lethal crowd control device. The shot caused face and skull fractures in the protester, who required reconstructive surgery. The incident is currently under investigation by federal authorities.

The 11th is when federal officers responded by themselves, they did not initially have the Portland Police Bureau with them. At the start of the night, they gassed the park in front of the federal courthouse just to clear it out, the park was still open. At this point, a federal officer shot a young man in the head. He was bleeding all over the sidewalk, he had to go to the hospital. That was the beginning of the night. They teargassed the park three separate times afterwards. Finally, at 2am that’s when the Portland Police Bureau showed up and decided to close the park. So before that, it was just federal officers standing there with assault rifles and just throwing tons of gas at the crowd, arresting people.

Since then, federal agents have used tear gas in Portland nightly. Portland police are banned from using tear gas except in situations that police declare to be a riot, where public and police safety is threatened. Federal officers, however, are authorised to use the chemical agent and other tactics to control crowds.

On July 15, rumours of officers detaining protesters from unmarked vans began circulating among those demonstrating.

Two of the unmarked vans drive into a government building. #blacklivesmatter #pdx #portlandoregon #oregon #blm #acab #portland #justicecenter #riotribs #CLAT pic.twitter.com/E8pl5P9VCL Garrison Davis (Teargas Proof) (@hungrybowtie) July 15, 2020

This video shows two unmarked vans similar to those used by federal authorities in other videos. The vehicles are entering the Edith Green - Wendell Wyatt Federal Building.

None of these officers ever identified themselves – very few identifying patches. There were some people who never really got a good look at them, really. We thought, ‘Oh, what if these are actually officers that are militia kidnapping like what happened in the Midwest last month?’ But you could see that their equipment was too good to be just a random militia. They had all the bells and whistles. There was a lot of fear about them not actually being law enforcement.

There was a lot of fear. When people get arrested by federal officers, they're held for days, maybe weeks. Usually, when you're asked by the police at these protests, you're out by the next morning. The charges are much worse when you're arrested by a federal person, even if you're just doing the same thing, including just standing on the street. So the fear is related to not knowing who these people are, not knowing what’s going to happen to you if you’re arrested, when will you see your friend again?

I think a lot of people aren’t really prepared to see that actually happening in the States right now. People protesting the government then just getting grabbed off the street.
Oregon politicians have accused federal officers of escalating violence during the protests and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called the tactics used by federal agents “life-threatening,” imploring officers to “stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether".

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to our request for comments on the tactics their officers have used in Portland, or their use of unmarked vans. However, they released a statement on July 16 condemning the actions of “violent anarchists” in Portland.


Article by Pariesa Young FRANCE24/AFP

Oregon protesters are getting detained by federal agents in unmarked vehicles: report

Published July 16, 2020 By Matthew Chapman RAW STORY


On Thursday, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that federal law enforcement is using unmarked vehicles to catch and arrest protesters in Portland.

“Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14,” reported Jonathan Levinson and Conrad Wilson. “Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off. The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to ‘quell’ nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks.”

“Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, while others have been arrested and released,” continued the report. “They also left one demonstrator hospitalized with skull fractures after shooting him in the face with so-called ‘less lethal’ munitions July 11.”

These federal officers (?) just rushed up and arrested someone for no reason pic.twitter.com/xcFVuoMZmN
— Matcha chai (@matcha_chai) July 15, 2020

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use the federal government to keep order in the Black Lives Matter protests that sprung up nationwide in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He even threatened to send in the military.

Oregon governor accuses Trump of causing violence in the streets of Portland — as a 2020 reelection ploy

IT'S ALSO PRACTICE FOR POST ELECTION WHEN TRUMP LOSES AND DECLARES MARTIAL LAW AND BEGINS PREPARING FIRING SQUADS FOR DEMOCRATS SINCE HE, AND BARR HAVE BROUGHT BACK THE DEATH PENALTY 

Published on July 16, 2020 By Bob Brigham RAW STORY


As acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf arrived in Portland to oversee DHS agents accused of misconduct against protesters, the state’s governor blasted President Donald Trump.

“This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety. The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government,” Gov. Kate Brown (D-OR) posted on Twitter.

“I told Acting Secretary Wolf that the federal government should remove all federal officers from our streets. His response showed me he is on a mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes. He is putting both Oregonians and local law enforcement officers in harm’s way,” she warned.

“This, coming from the same President who used tear gas to clear out peaceful protesters in Washington, DC to engineer a photo opportunity. Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in the hopes of winning political points in Ohio or Iowa,” she warned.

This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety. The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government. https://t.co/PdlZkmW0mQ
— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) July 16, 2020

This, coming from the same President who used tear gas to clear out peaceful protesters in Washington, DC to engineer a photo opportunity.
Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in the hopes of winning political points in Ohio or Iowa.
— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) July 16, 2020

EVERY REVOLT NEEDS A SOUNDTRACK

AMERICAN ISOLATIONISM  

Hospitals are suddenly short of young doctors — because of Trump

CUT YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE

July 17, 2020

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. 

As hospitals across the United States brace for a difficult six months — with the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic still raging and concerns about a second wave in the fall — some are acutely short-staffed because of an ill-timed change to immigration policy and its inconsistent implementation.

A proclamation issued by President Donald Trump on June 22, barring the entry of most immigrants on work visas, came right as hospitals were expecting a new class of medical residents. Hundreds of young doctors were unable to start their residencies on time.

Trump’s order included the H1-B visa for highly skilled workers, which is used by some practicing doctors abroad who get U.S. residency slots. The proclamation stated that doctors “involved with the provision of medical care to individuals who have contracted COVID-19 and are currently hospitalized” should be exempt from the ban, but it delegated the issuing of guidance to the departments of State and Homeland Security. That guidance has been slow and inconsistent.

Many consulates started approving doctors’ visas on Thursday, after ProPublica asked the State Department about the delay. Others say they’re still awaiting guidance.

At hospitals where many incoming residents are visa holders, even a delay of a few weeks in arriving in the U.S. creates a staffing crisis. Doctors and administrators are afraid that the repercussions will last for the rest of the year — leaving them overworked and ill-prepared even before a second wave of the virus hits.

ProPublica has heard from 10 would-be medical residents stuck abroad because of H1-B visa issues. Six of them had gotten emergency consulate appointments for visa approval, but when they arrived for meetings they were told their visas could not be approved. Three were still waiting on DHS approval for their visas, a necessary step before a visa gets a consulate stamp. One resident had application approval but was denied an emergency consulate interview appointment because of the ban. All were destined for hospital positions treating COVID-19 patients.


The State Department told ProPublica on Tuesday that it, “in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and interagency partners, is establishing and implementing procedures” for the visa ban, and that it “has communicated and will continue to communicate implementation procedures” to consulates abroad.

On Thursday, the State Department’s website posted guidance, spelling out that doctors treating COVID-19 patients were exempt from the ban. On that day, many of the residents ProPublica spoke to said they had suddenly received visa approvals. “A quite remarkable turnaround, given that I received a rejection email three days ago,” one said. In at least five countries, however, consulates were still not processing doctors’ visas.

The Committee of Interns and Residents, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, has heard from over 250 interns stuck abroad. Over 150 of them are on H-1B visas.. (The others are on visas that weren’t covered in Trump’s ban, but can’t get approval because their consulates are still closed due to the pandemic.) Union president Jessica Edwards pointed out to ProPublica that while that number may sound small, each intern is responsible for the care of thousands of patients.

As of 2017, there were 2,532 medical residents on H1-B visas, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association — though the Trump administration’s continued restrictions to legal immigration may have made it less appealing for hospitals to sponsor visas in the last few years. But the impact on hospitals is highly concentrated in the less-prestigious hospitals that tend to rely on residents from overseas.

At one New York City hospital serving low-income residents, nearly half the incoming class is still stuck abroad, multiple sources confirmed to ProPublica. One hospital in a large Midwestern city told ProPublica that “roughly half” of its first-year doctors started on time. In the Deep South, a region now overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, a doctor who was set to start told ProPublica he was among 10 residents still awaiting visa approval as of early July. All hospitals and doctors spoke to ProPublica on the condition of anonymity because they worried about jeopardizing their visa applications.

ProPublica has also spoken to more-experienced doctors facing the same issue — including an infectious-disease specialist blocked from starting a job in an area of the Western U.S. where COVID-19 cases are rising.

When there aren’t enough incoming residents to replace departing third-year residents, staffing crunches result.

At the New York City hospital, a doctor told ProPublica that after only 10 days of short-staffing, one resident had called in sick from exhaustion. The doctor recounted a recent shift in which there had only been two junior residents on call, compared with the typical six. Even by having residents work individually instead of in teams of two, they couldn’t keep up with new patient admissions.

“The patients had to just stay there waiting in the (emergency department) for the residents to finish their first admission, in order to see them,” the doctor said. “When the shift was over, I logged into the computer and I would see notes written at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. And these residents are expected to go home and then come back again at 6:30 a.m.”

Even at hospitals with decreasing COVID-19 caseloads, short-staffing is a bigger problem than it was in pre-pandemic times. Some hospitals are seeing a “surge of non-COVID patients” who were unable to get care for chronic conditions like heart disease during lockdown and are now deteriorating, a doctor at a short-staffed hospital told ProPublica. And because protocols prevent doctors from switching back and forth between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients, the hospital needs to keep more doctors on-call to maintain staffing levels in both wards.

“If someone is getting acutely ill, who will see them?” a hospital administrator told ProPublica. “I’ve got my poor residents running around trying to make sure everyone is seen in a timely manner. And residents are great, but they can only be in one place at one time.”

Some of these problems will be fixed as residents receive delayed visa approvals and are able to come. But it will take weeks, if not months, to successfully onboard them. The Midwestern hospital anticipates that arriving residents may not be able to start until mid-August. In the meantime, they’re understaffing services and using fourth-year medical students in place of residents.

Hospitals are used to a summertime efficiency gap, as new interns learn the ropes. This year, it could persist into fall — when a second wave of coronavirus infections is expected.

“I’m really worried that in three months,” said the medical administrator, “we’re going to have a bunch of residents who are just exhausted and just getting into the worst part of the fall, flu and COVID season.”

These doctors already had to push themselves through the first wave of COVID-19 this spring. Furthermore, at hospitals hardest hit by the visa ban, the residents picking up the slack are often themselves H1-B visa holders whose futures are now uncertain. Trump’s ban didn’t revoke visas for anyone currently in the U.S., but if they leave the country — which they will have to do if they change jobs — their ability to return is unclear. Some of the doctors interviewed by ProPublica were living in the U.S. before the pandemic and returned home partly to get visa approval for their new jobs. One doctor ended up stuck in India while her husband was unable to travel there from the U.S.

Another doctor from India, now working in the U.S., told ProPublica: “My parents, they’re (in India) by themselves, and both of them are about 70. At some point, probably, they will catch the infection.” If that happens, the doctor plans to leave the U.S. to care for them — “and if I don’t come back, I don’t come back. At this point, I really don’t care.”

The feeling that the U.S. doesn’t value them is compounded among residents who’ve already lived through the first wave of COVID-19 and who are now facing overwork and visa uncertainty. Some said other countries are making it easier for doctors to immigrate, while the U.S. leaves them in limbo.

“We feel underappreciated for what we’re doing,” the New York City resident said. “And what else can you do, more than sacrificing your life?”

Tightly regimented residency schedules can be tricky for H1-B visa holders even in the best cases. Doctors find out in mid-March if they are “matched” with a U.S. hospital, where they’ll be expected to start at the beginning of July. DHS often takes longer than that to approve H1-B applications. Employers can pay for expedited processing to guarantee a decision within five days — but DHS shut down its expedited processing on March 22 because of COVID-19 and didn’t reopen it until June 8.

Shortly afterward, Trump issued his proclamation banning entries on many visa types, including the H1-B.

Most people coming to the U.S. for residencies arrive on a different kind of visa, the J-1, and aren’t covered by Trump’s ban, though some have had issues getting consulate appointments because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But doctors do identical work regardless of their visa types. If anything, doctors with H1-Bs are more qualified than those with J-1s, since they’re required to have completed all three phases of the taxing U.S. Medical Licensing Exam before starting residencies. Residents with H1-B visas were practicing doctors in their home countries, working alongside new medical-school grads from the U.S.

An earlier immigration ban targeting permanent immigrants, which passed in March, contained a broad medical worker exemption. When rumors of a work-visa ban started swirling in late spring, immigration lawyers and hospitals expected it would include the same language. Instead, the June proclamation mentioned only doctors working with hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Every resident who spoke with ProPublica had provided evidence to the U.S. government that they met that description. Some were told by consular officers that they were probably exempt. But until they received State Department guidance, they had to place their visas in “administrative processing” — an indefinite holding pattern.

ProPublica saw an image of a form given to one visa applicant informing them of a hold. The form is typically used to request more information from the applicant. In this case, though, a consular officer had modified the form to say that processing would not begin until “implementation procedures” for the visa-ban exemption had been provided.

Doctors in limbo have formed WhatsApp groups to share information and support, but the dialogue has shown inconsistencies in the ban’s implementation. Some consulates, such as those in Serbia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, have approved doctors’ H1-B visas as exempt. Asked about the discrepancy, the State Department told ProPublica: “Applicants who believe they qualify for an exemption from Presidential Proclamation 10052 should check the website of the closest U.S. Embassy or Consulate regarding the current status of services. How appointment systems are managed can vary depending on the consular section.”

One applicant who reached out to the State Department for assistance received an email reply from an employee on July 10. The employee said that as far as they knew, the Office for Consular Affairs had given guidance to consulates and embassies to process visas that were exempt from the ban. (The agency declined to comment on that email.)

On Thursday, that applicant received a second email from the same employee. Guidance had been slow in coming, the employee admitted, but it had finally come through.

But some countries still haven’t changed their practices. One doctor stuck abroad told ProPublica they’d sent a follow-up email to the consulate on Thursday morning. “He gave me the same reply,” the doctor said, “that they are still waiting for guidance from Department of State.”

Google Said It Would Invest $10 Billion In India. Nearly Half Of It Is Going To The Country's Richest Man.

Google is the second large Silicon Valley tech company to buy a stake in Jio Platforms after Facebook.

Pranav Dixit BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on July 15, 2020

Google CEO Sundar Pichai poses as villagers take photographs in an Indian village in 2017.

On Monday, Google announced that it will invest $10 billion in India over the next few years. Two days later, the company revealed a key detail: Nearly half of the money will go to a top telecom operator owned by Asia’s richest man.

The internet giant will invest $4.5 billion into Jio Platforms as part of a plan to provide "increase access for the hundreds of millions in India who don't own a smartphone," Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted Wednesday. Mukesh Ambani, Jio's owner, has a net worth of more than $70 billion.

Google first unveiled the $10 billion Digitization Fund for India on Monday at an online event featuring key Google executives, including Pichai, and members of the Indian government. The company said that the money would go towards providing Indians with inexpensive internet access, digitizing the country’s small and medium businesses, and using artificial intelligence in areas like healthcare, agriculture, and education.

Over the last few years, India has become a key market for large American tech companies as they seek growth beyond the United States and Europe. More than 500 million Indians — just under half the country’s population — are now online, and nearly all of them use inexpensive smartphones that run Google’s Android operating system.

Most of that growth has been fueled by Jio. Ambani, an industrialist, founded Jio and pumped it with $35 billion to blanket the country with a high-speed 4G network, which brought the price of data down to pennies. The move launched a telecom pricing war in India and made Jio the country’s largest telecom carrier with over 388 million subscribers — more than the entire population of the United States. Jio plans to grow by rolling out internet-powered services such as e-commerce, streaming TV, music services, online gaming, and video conferencing apps.

As part of the Jio investment, Google and Jio will also work together to create an affordable, entry-level Android smartphone for more than 500 million Indians who still don't have access to the internet, bothompanies said.


Over the last three months, investors from around the world have poured in $20 billion into Jio Platforms. In April, Facebook announced that it would buy nearly 10% of the company for $5.7 billion. Facebook’s investment was followed by American private equity firms General Atlantic, Vista Equity Partners, and Silver Lake Partners, as well as chip giants Intel and Qualcomm.


MORE ON THIS
Facebook Just Invested $5.7 Billion In India's Largest Telecom CarrierPranav Dixit ·

 April 21, 2020

Pranav Dixit is a tech reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Delhi