(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, New York have started a criminal investigation into Wells Fargo to determine whether the nation’s third largest bank’s hiring practices broke the law, a source briefed on the investigation confirmed to ABC News.
The criminal investigation follows a report last month in The New York Times, in which current and former employees said they were told by superiors to interview women and people of color even though the hiring decision had already been made.
The allegation is similar to that of Brian Flores and other black football coaches who have accused the NFL of conducting sham interviews to satisfy diversity requirements with no intention of actually hiring someone of color. The NFL has defended its hiring practices.
The investigation into Wells Fargo is in its early stages and no charging decisions have been made, the source said, adding that the investigation is being led by a recently created civil rights unit within the office.
A spokesman for Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment.
The New York Times based its story, in part, on former Wells Fargo employee Joe Bruno who said bank managers interviewed applicants considered diverse for jobs already promised to others. The Times reported Bruno was fired after speaking out.
In the United States, Wells Fargo employs more than 235,000 people, 13% of whom are Black, according to 2020 company statistics. Another 17% are Latino and 55% are white.
“No one should be put through an interview without a real chance of receiving an offer, period. The diverse slate guidelines we put in place are meant to increase diverse representation across the company and we can see meaningful results in our hiring data since 2020,” Wells Fargo said in a statement provided to ABC News that did not directly address the reported opening of a federal criminal investigation.
“At the same time, it’s important that implementation of our guidelines is consistent. Earlier this week, the company temporarily paused the use of its diverse slate guidelines. During this pause, the company is conducting a review so that hiring managers, senior leaders and recruiters fully understand how the guidelines should be implemented – and so we can have confidence that our guidelines live up to their promise,” the statement continued.
(NEW YORK) — As summer travel booms and prices for gas, hotel rooms and flights skyrocket, taking to the sea this summer season could save travelers big bucks.
Despite rising prices in most sectors, Chris Gray Faust, the managing editor of online industry publication The Cruise Critic, says prices for cruises “are some of the lowest that we’ve seen in a very long time.”
Right now, a five-day cruise around the Caribbean costs approximately $500 per person, Gray Faust said. Some experts says that’s a great way to get big bang for your buck.
“That works out to about $100 per day, including lodging, meals and entertainment,” Gray Faust told ABC News. “And with the way that land vacations have been … [with] airfares more expensive, you’re really hard pressed to find a vacation for a similar price on land.”
Some of the best deals right now include a three-day Carnival cruise from Miami to the Bahamas, for just $118 per person; a four-night Royal Caribbean cruise from Miami to the Bahamas starting at $198 per person; and a seven-day Holland America cruise in Alaska at $399 per person.
Gray Faust also recommended checking for additional deals that could make a cruise an even better buy.
“Not only are the fares low, but a lot of the cruise lines are putting in a lot of extra value type of things — like, they’re throwing in free gratuities, free Wi-Fi, free drink packages, things like that,” Gray Faust said.
Compared to skyrocketing prices for hotels and airfare, cruises are, for the time being, a steal. According to Hopper, an online travel booking platform, hotels are currently averaging $204 a night, up from $150 per night in 2021.
On top of that, Hopper estimates the average price of a round-trip domestic flight at around $397 and more than $1,000 for a round-trip international flight.
As pandemic-related restrictions relax, cruise lines are looking to fill their cabins and sail more of their ships, which lowers costs as well.
“What that means for [people] looking for a good vacation this summer is that there’s plenty of room on these cruise ships because there’s more ships back, there’s more rooms available and the prices are lower,” Gray Faust said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed its risk assessment of cruise ship travel in late March of 2022, but still advises travelers to be aware of a particular ship’s risk designations and stay up to date with their vaccinations. The agency has also recommended purchasing travel insurance before a trip and has advised travelers to continue masking up indoors.
Though pandemic protocols have eased on board most ships, passengers should still check with their cruise line ahead of time to see whether there are specific vaccine or testing requirements.
Anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, or those awaiting COVID-19 test results, should not travel, according to the CDC.
Travelers hoping to snag a good deal should move soon. According to Gray Faust, prices will begin to increase as the holiday season approaches this fall.
“Summer is a good time for a value vacation like this, partially because of hurricane season,” Gray Faust said, adding that “we should see these prices last until October” and that “now is that time to go.”
(NEW YORK) — The parents of a now 19-year-old New York woman are suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging their daughter developed an Instagram addiction that led to an eating disorder and other mental health struggles.
In the personal injury lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Kathleen and Jeff Spence of Long Island allege that their daughter Alexis began using Instagram at age 11 — two years younger than Instagram’s required minimum age of 13 — without their knowledge.
They claim she then developed an addiction to the social media app, which allegedly caused injuries including “addiction, anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and, ultimately, suicidal ideation,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which was filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center, claims that as Alexis’ parents, the Spences were “were emotionally and financially harmed by Meta’s addictive design and continued and harmful distribution and/or provision of multiple Instagram accounts to their minor child.”
“The fact that Alexis is here is truly a miracle because we fought tooth-and-nail for her,” Kathleen Spence told ABC News. “We did everything we possibly could for her. We got her the help that she needed on multiple levels, and there were times when we were very concerned for her safety.”
Alexis Spence told ABC News she created her first Instagram account at age 11 in order to interact with a popular online kids game at the time. Using her own tablet and then later a smartphone, as well as friends’ devices, to access Instagram, Alexis said her feed quickly became inundated with content related to eating disorders and self-harm
“When I’m 11 years old, what am I to do but keep looking at this content?” she said. “And when you’re being told every day, ‘This is how [to] be pretty … this is what you’re supposed to look like,’ what am I to think? I was a child.”
Kathleen Spence, who also has a 13-year-old son, described the changes she and her husband claimed they saw in their daughter in the years that followed.
“When Alexis first started going on Instagram without our consent or knowledge at 11 years old, we didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “We just know that our daughter was disappearing. Slowly, piece by piece, we were losing our confident, loving child, and she was becoming depressed, angry, withdrawn.”
In the lawsuit, the Spences allege that even as they got Alexis professional mental health treatment, they were not initially aware of the full impact of their daughter’s Instagram use.
They claim they connected the dots in 2021, when thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents were released by Frances Haugen, a former product manager at the tech company.
The documents Haugen shared were published by the Wall Street Journal and several other outlets in October 2021, and are collectively known as The Facebook Papers.
As ABC News reported last year, the documents showed Facebook had reportedly commissioned studies about and knew of the potential harm that negative or inflammatory content on its platforms was causing — including researchers’ findings that Instagram had made body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teens — but did not act to stop it.
In testimony to Congress last October, Haugen alleged that Facebook had disregarded concerns about the harmful effects their platforms could have on children’s mental health.
Kathleen Spence said that after reading the documents Haugen shared, she came to believe that there was not much she and her husband could have done to help Alexis.
“We did all we could,” she said. “We would encourage her to come downstairs. We ate dinner together as a family every night. We would have family outings on the weekend. We would take her places, but the phone and the social media was always there and it didn’t matter.”
She continued, “At the end of the day, my husband and I are one loving set of parents who are trying to keep our daughter safe from a multi-billion dollar company who was meeting behind closed doors to come up with ways to keep our children addicted to their products because they want to make money.”
In a response to Haugen’s congressional testimony last October, Meta issued a statement that characterized Haugen as “a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives — and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question.”
“We don’t agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about,” the company said.
A spokesperson for Meta on Thursday declined to comment on the Spences’ lawsuit, citing it as “active litigation.”
The spokesperson highlighted general protections for kids they say are offered by Instagram, including age verification, parental controls, time control settings, default settings to provide more privacy, direct message restrictions between adults and teens, as well as in-app resources offering mental health support.
The Spences are being represented in the lawsuit by attorney Matthew Bergman, who in February filed a separate lawsuit against Meta and another social media company on behalf of a mother who claims the “defective design, negligence and unreasonable dangerous features” of the companies’ products allegedly led to her daughter’s death by suicide.
Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, told ABC News he believes social media companies, not individual parents, have the tools and the responsibility to make social media safer for kids.
“Phones are ubiquitous. Kids rely on their phones to get their homework assignments, to get their sports assignments and to get a ride home,” said Bergman. “To say that taking phones away is a realistic, viable solution, it’s not. Turn off the algorithms. Turn off the ability of kids to stay on all day and all night.”
In addition to calling on Instagram to make product changes to make the app safer for kids, the Spences’ lawsuit is asking for monetary damages, including Alexis’ “past and present” medical expenses and her “loss of future income and learning capacity.”
(NEW YORK) — The average price of a gallon of gas nationwide exceeded $5 on Thursday, crossing the milestone after a rapid rise over the past month that has alarmed public officials and strained the budgets of everyday Americans, according to GasBuddy.
In all 50 states, the average price of a gallon of gas stood above $4.40, but costs ranged considerably across different regions, as drivers in the West and Northeast suffered the highest prices and drivers in the Southeast saw the lowest, AAA data showed.
In California, the state with the highest gas prices, drivers paid an eye-popping average of $6.40 per gallon, AAA data showed.
The rising prices owe to a summer travel boom that has brought more people to the pump, experts told ABC News late last month. The spike in demand coincides with a shortage of crude oil supply amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a widespread industry exit from Russia that pushed millions of barrels of oil off the market, the experts said.
As consumer frustration has mounted in recent months, President Joe Biden has faced criticism over his handling of cost increases in essentials like fuel and groceries. Only 37% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economic recovery, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.
Republican leaders in Congress have faulted Biden’s management of the U.S. oil supply for high gas prices, blasting his choice to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline last year.
As of last week, Biden was leaning toward a trip to Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, which may offer some hope of relief for U.S. gas buyers.
In March, the U.S. and its allies announced the collective release of 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves over the following months, which sought to alleviate some of the supply shortage and blunt price increases.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday told ABC News’ This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos that inflation is Biden’s “top economic priority.”
Stephanopoulos on Sunday asked Buttigieg about the release of oil from the strategic reserves, saying it “hasn’t made any difference at all.” Stephanopoulos asked, “Was that a failure?”
“I don’t think it’s correct to say it hasn’t made any difference at all,” Buttigieg said. “This is an action that helped to stabilize global oil prices.”
(NEW YORK) — Abbott and the Food and Drug Administration were alerted to a whistleblower complaint about Abbott’s Sturgis infant formula plant as far back as February 2021, ABC News has confirmed.
This complaint, filed with the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, alleges quality control concerns at Abbott’s formula plant in Sturgis, Michigan — a year before the company’s massive recall and shutdown in February 2022 following contamination concerns, which helped exacerbate a nationwide shortage in baby formula, according to sources familiar with the matter.
OSHA received a complaint from a whistleblower on Feb. 16, 2021, and sent a copy three days later to the FDA and Abbott, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The complaint raises further questions about when both Abbott and federal health authorities first knew about quality and contamination concerns at the Sturgis plant, and why it took so long for action to be taken.
The OSHA complaint, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, alleges problems at the Sturgis plant like faulty equipment in need of repair or upgrade and inadequate safety validation for released product.
It was filed several months before similar allegations were made in another whistleblower report, which flagged contamination concerns at the Sturgis plant in October 2021, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The allegations made in that October report include “ongoing problems” with the “integrity” of seals on powdered products, that the facility had used “questionable practices” to test whether the issues had been fixed, made efforts to evade certain oversight and override quality checks, falsified records “on a regular and ongoing basis” and allowed “questionable practices” related to the cleaning of equipment to “proliferate.”
Abbott spokesperson Scott Stoffel told ABC News an internal investigation stemming from the February 2021 OSHA complaint has “not been able to confirm the allegations.”
“We believe this to be a former employee who was dismissed due to serious violations of Abbott’s food safety policies,” the company spokesperson added, saying the employee had never raised product safety concerns while with the company — and that these complaints continue “a pattern of ever-evolving, ever-escalating allegations.”
Responding to ABC News’ request for comment, an FDA spokesperson acknowledged the shifting timeline of events leading up to the FDA’s warning and Abbott’s ultimate recall but would not comment specifically on the OSHA complaint.
“We know there have been various questions about the timeline of events leading up to the FDA’s warning and Abbott’s recall of products manufactured at their Sturgis facility,” FDA spokesperson Michael Felberbaum said, adding the FDA’s “top priority right now is addressing the dire need for infant formula in the U.S. market, and our teams are working night and day to help make that happen.”
Felberbaum noted the FDA “can and must do better or be faster, and we’ve initiated a detailed after-action review so that we can make improvements to our programs, processes, and decision-making.”
ABC was first to report that the FDA is now under audit by the Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General for how it responded leading up to Abbott’s massive recall — probing whether the agency upheld its responsibilities to “safeguard the nation’s food supply” and whether FDA regulators followed proper recall protocol once a deadly bacteria was detected inside the plant.
Abbott’s Senior Vice President for U.S. Nutrition Chris Calamari has testified under oath that the company was not aware of the October whistleblower complaint until late April 2022, when it was made public, blaming the “time lag between October and February” on the FDA’s internal issues.
Stoffel, of Abbott, said there is an “open investigation” into those October allegations that “expand upon the federal OSHA allegations” from February 2021.
Neither the FDA nor Abbott mentioned being alerted to an OSHA complaint raising product safety concerns in February 2021 during their testimony in late May of this year.
This was not the first time questions had been raised about quality control at the plant. The FDA found sanitation issues in Sturgis in September 2021, saying the facility “did not maintain a building used in the manufacture, processing, packing or holding of infant formula in a clean and sanitary condition,” according to an inspection report. And by Feb. 1, the FDA had collected samples at the plant confirming the presence of cronobacter, according to an inspection report. Abbott maintains there is no conclusive evidence that its products contributed to infants’ illness or death.
Abbott, the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the country, shuttered its Michigan plant in February 2022, following contamination concerns and a large recall of several of its brands, exacerbating a nationwide shortage of infant formula.
In early June, it officially reopened its doors and restarted production after meeting the initial requirements of an agreement with the FDA on how to reopen safely.
“Abbott takes employee concerns very seriously and we foster a culture of compliance to produce the best and highest-quality products,” Stoffel said. “We empower our employees to identify and report any issues that could compromise our product safety or quality, which comes before any other considerations.”
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Representatives of the social media app Yubo said on Tuesday that the platform is adding new safety features and updating its usage guidelines following news that the accused Robb Elementary School gunman allegedly used the app to send disturbing messages that appear to have gone unnoticed in the days leading up to the deadly shooting.
“The devastating events of 24 May in Uvalde, Texas, brought to light systemic issues in society that need to be addressed,” Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi said in a statement Tuesday. “In the days since, we have been working to accelerate safety developments in our pipeline and further expand the scope of existing safeguards across our platform.”
Yubo representatives said that since the Uvalde shooting, they have updated the app’s risk-detection policy, enhanced its user-reporting capabilities and introduced audio-moderation technology for live streams that they say will allow for “comprehensive automatic moderation across the platform.”
ABC News previously reported that in the days and weeks before the Uvalde shooting, accused gunman Salvador Ramos appeared to have sent concerning messages — including claims about intentions of violence at school — to numerous young people he met online through the Yubo app. One user told ABC News she tried to report Ramos to Yubo — but that “regardless of how many times he was reported … he would still come back.”
The shooting, on May 24, left 19 students and two faculty members dead, making it one on of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history.
Representatives of Yubo also said Tuesday the platform has developed a new “combined-signals risk detection algorithm” that will help provide context around potential risks on its platform by assessing “a combination of signals including keywords, emojis, and images.”
Yubo representatives previously told ABC News that the company was “fully cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation.”
“We remain shocked and deeply saddened by this recent tragedy. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all who have been impacted,” they said.
Yubo, which was launched in 2015 by a French company, was listed in 2019 by Seventeen magazine as one of the seven best dating apps for teenagers.
(NEW YORK) — Old Navy’s 2022 Flag Tee collection is here, just in time for the Fourth of July.
The retailer recently revealed its latest version of the popular T-shirts, and this year’s lineup includes the brand’s first Spanish language design.
The new inclusive designs were co-created with the company’s Project WE artists, Manuela Guillén, Monica Ahanonu and Edward Granger. Each tee represents the artists’ unique vision of the country.
Guillén, a first-generation American artist born to Cuban and Salvadoran immigrant parents, designed the Spanish language tee. Her design includes the words “para todos,” which translates to “for everyone” in English. This phrase reflects her belief that the flag symbolizes inclusion for all who wish to call the U.S. home.
“America is for everyone, no matter what,” Guillén said in a statement. “This place is for all of us. That’s from my heart.”
This year’s Flag Tee collection also features nods to five U.S. territories in addition to the 50 states, as well as the new phrase “United States of All.”
The unique lineup includes pieces for women, men, children and pets.
Gabe Ginsberg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The economic recovery from a pandemic-induced downturn has prompted a surge in worker pay, especially in some low-wage sectors like leisure and hospitality, leading to pronouncements of a shift in leverage between workers and management.
Despite a pandemic-era boom for low-wage workers, the hike in pay last year for a typical worker at the nation’s lowest-paying companies failed to keep up with the raises enjoyed by the chief executives at their firms, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning think tank.
Moreover, at more than a third of the lowest-paying companies, the pay hike last year for a typical worker fell short of inflation, effectively amounting to a pay cut, the report said.
The 30-page report — which examines the 300 U.S. corporations that provided the lowest median pay in 2020, including large corporations such as Amazon and Starbucks — found that the CEO-to-worker pay gap at those companies grew wider last year compared with the year prior.
The average gap between CEO and median worker pay among those 300 low-paying companies rose last year to 670-to-1, up from 604-to-1 in 2020, the report said. Forty-nine firms had ratios above 1,000-to-1 last year, the study showed.
“Instead of using 2021 as an opportunity to reward low-wage workers, many of whom did work to keep the economy going during the crisis, we saw gaps further widening and companies focusing on keeping their CEOs happy,” Sarah Anderson, the director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and a co-author of the report, told ABC News.
Andy Jassy, the Amazon CEO, received compensation totaling $213 million last year, resulting in a pay ratio of 6,474 to 1, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, who retired in March, received total compensation of $20.4 million last year, which amounted to 1,579 times the pay of a typical worker at the company, a SEC filing showed.
The increased wage gap between CEOs and median workers at Amazon and Starbucks last year coincided with a surge in unionization at the companies. A nationwide labor campaign at Starbucks, which began with a victory at a store in Buffalo, New York, in December, has achieved union representation at 72 stores, the National Labor Relations Board said last Tuesday.
“We’re seeing more and more workers turning to unionization and other ways to try to stand up and demand their fair share,” Anderson said.
But the increased gap between CEOs and median workers may reflect the heightened need for capable leadership during the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic, said Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“It could’ve made sense for companies to increase compensation to keep people they had on board or to attract people to get them through difficult times,” Greszler said.
In addition to Amazon and Starbucks, the report examined major corporations such as McDonald’s, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Nike and The Home Depot, among many other companies.
(NEW YORK) — A mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas last week — which left 19 children and two teachers dead — has prompted outcry from figures across public life.
President Joe Biden and Sen. Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., usually political opponents, both expressed horror at the shooting and McConnell okayed negotiations with Democrats on potential legislation to address the issue.
Actor and Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey described the incident as “devastating.”
Some of the nation’s most prominent chief executives have joined the chorus, such as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon.
But many CEOs at the largest U.S. companies — which wield significant influence and can often change the direction of political debate — have remained silent on the tragedy and what should be done about it.
ABC News contacted the top 20 companies on the Fortune 500 list for comment on the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde as well as on the larger issue of gun violence. Nearly all of the companies did not respond, except Microsoft and Walgreens Boots Alliance, which responded but declined comment.
Disney, the parent company of ABC News, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Some experts believe the business leaders have not directly addressed the recent shootings or potential gun violence solutions for fear of the potential backlash from employees, shareholders, business partners and customers, who may hold opposing views.
The companies and executives that have spoken out are predominantly those with a track record of having done so before or those with amenable stakeholders, the experts said.
“At the moment, most chief executives are deer in the headlights,” said James O’Rourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “They see the risk of taking a position as exceeding the return.”
Speaking out in the past
A number of leading companies on the Fortune 500, including companies contacted by ABC News for this story, have spoken out or taken action on gun violence in prior years.
In September 2019, weeks after two shootings at Walmart stores, company CEO Doug McMillan issued a public memo discontinuing the sale of handguns in Alaska, the last state where the company carried the firearms, as well as some forms of ammunition. He also called on national leaders to strengthen background checks.
Walmart, one of the companies that did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News, still sells some types of guns and ammunition at many of its stores.
Also in 2019, Walmart, CVS Health, and Walgreens asked customers to no longer openly carry firearms in their stores. “We support the efforts of individuals and groups working to prevent gun violence,” CVS Health, another one of the companies contacted by ABC News, said in a statement at the time.
And Dick’s Sporting Goods, which was not one of the companies contacted by ABC News, in recent years has taken a series of steps to remove guns from its stores. In February 2018, days after a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the company announced that it would stop selling semi-automatic weapons similar to the one used in the incident.
“We were so disturbed and saddened, we felt we really needed to do something,” CEO Edward Stack told Good Morning America at the time. Since then, Dick’s has discontinued the sale of guns entirely at hundreds of stores as part of a multi-year reduction.
Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling, who runs the largest healthcare provider in New York state (but not part of the Fortune 500), in an interview with ABC News condemned gun violence and called for policy solutions such as universal background checks.
Dowling acknowledged to ABC that the pro-gun control political landscape in New York makes it easier for him to speak out, and encouraged his peers to do likewise.
“I know a lot of CEOs around the country. I’ve had discussions with them,” he said. “I know many of them are nervous about going public because of the political circumstances they’re in.”
“When I ask them if they think it’s okay that there are so many mass shootings, especially with kids. They’ll say, ‘It’s horrific.’ They’ll admit that. Then I say, ‘Say something about it — be courageous.’”
Contrast with other activism
The corporate silence on gun violence in the wake of the recent mass shootings stands in stark contrast with the recent widespread exit of U.S. companies from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, O’Rourke, the business management professor, said.
“Executives decided the reputational risk of staying in Russia is far greater than any revenue I could extract,” O’Rourke said. “In domestic issues it’s complicated because lawmaking is mostly done at the local and state level, and executives must operate across state lines. If they take a position on every issue, it is likely key stake holders will abandon them.”
One notable example is Disney, which first remained silent and then came out strongly against what many perceive to be anti-LGBTQ legislation.
In recent months, Disney sparked ire from prominent national voices and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when the company publicly opposed the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” which prohibits public school teachers from providing instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for some of the youngest students and what opponents say is age-inappropriate material. In April, the state moved to dissolve a special tax district enjoyed by Disney. The special district is a private government run by Disney World that allows it to offer services such as zoning and fire protection.
In the wake of the Uvalde shooting, speaking out was a gamble some top companies decided to take nonetheless.
“All of us at Goldman Sachs express our deepest sorrow over the recent tragic and senseless acts of violence in America, which have resulted in the deaths of friends, neighbors, co-workers, children, and other loved ones,” Solomon, the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, told ABC News in a statement.
Solomon met last Wednesday with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and other private sector leaders to discuss the issue, he said in the statement. “I urge our elected officials to come together to enact policy initiatives to make our communities safer,” he added.
Jassy, the Amazon CEO, expressed similar sentiment a day after the mass shooting in Uvalde last week.
“Deeply sad about the shootings in Texas yesterday and Buffalo 11 days ago. My heart breaks for those families,” Jassy tweeted. “This endless cycle is maddening…terrible pain and suffering. I can only hope that we come together as a country to find a way to stop this kind of tragic violence.”
AT&T, one of the Fortune 500 companies that did not respond to a request for comment, donated $50,000 to support the Robb School Memorial Fund, a collection of resources for the families and communities impacted by the Uvalde shooting.
Notable corporate activism has emerged in professional sports. In baseball, the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays coordinated recently with a series of social media posts that offered statements and information on gun violence
The advocacy continues a trend of rising activism among professional sports leagues, teams, and players in recent years on issues like police brutality and racial justice.
Divergent responses and possible action
The divergent response among major companies after recent mass shootings marks the latest moment of decision making for corporations as a political response embroiled the country. Similarly, large companies have remained mostly quiet in response to the leak last month of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
Three years ago, the CEOs at 145 companies — including Airbnb and Yelp — sent a letter to members of the U.S. Senate calling for new gun safety laws that would require background checks for all gun sales.
In the days following the death of George Floyd, in May 2020, companies across corporate America put out statements in support of racial justice and made donations to advocacy organizations that fight racial inequality.
Last April, as state legislatures pursued restrictive voting laws, hundreds of companies and executives signed a letter opposing “any discriminatory legislation” that limits access to the ballot box.
Carol Bevins, a professor of business communication at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, said that most major companies will ultimately address the issue of gun violence.
“Eventually, it’ll be inevitable that companies have to respond,” she said. “You cannot not communicate.”
(NEW YORK) — Relief for American parents and families can’t come quick enough as the nationwide baby formula shortage persists.
The crisis has continued, despite Abbott, one of the nation’s largest formula manufacturers restarting a key Michigan plant this past Saturday following a February recall and temporary shutdown. The company estimates it will take at least six to eight weeks for production to reach full capacity.
That’s time caregivers say they don’t have. Conditions have become dire enough over the past several months that parents have flocked to Facebook groups and desperately reached out for help finding formula as store shelves remain bare.
90% of formulas out of stock in some states
Tracking firm Datasembly has been recording the lack of formula products in more than 130,000 stores nationally. According to data obtained by ABC News, nine states across the U.S., including California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Rhode Island and Tennessee have topped 90% out-of-stock rates, with Arizona hitting a 94% out-of-stock rate during the week of May 22-29.
The national average out-of-stock rate has climbed to over 73%. Twenty-nine states, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have seen over 75% of baby formulas out of stock.
The federal government has been trying to fill the gaps by launching Operation Fly Formula, which was approved by President Joe Biden nearly three weeks ago on May 18. The initiative has fast-tracked the imports of millions of baby formula products and a fifth shipment from Germany with another 1.6 million formula bottles is expected to arrive in Texas on Thursday, according to the White House.
But the latest shipment will only contain Nestlé NAN SupremePro Stage 1 infant formulas, meant for healthy babies and will not include specialized formulas, which have hit families of children with allergies and premature infants especially hard.
Some formula prices have shot up as demand remains high
Mac Jaehnert lives in Washington, where Datasembly’s statistics indicate formula stock rates are hovering at 89.9% out of stock.
“I am still seeing extremely limited availability of NeoSure in shelves and online,” Jaehnert told ABC News’ Good Morning America, referring to one of Abbott’s formulas for premature babies. “We’ve seen an occasional case of NeoSure arriving at our local Walmarts and will periodically see it available online but by and large those orders end up getting canceled.”
“Now other specialty formulas are becoming extremely hard to find, like Nutramigen and Gentlease,” the father of one continued.
“On top of everything else, major retailers like Rite Aid are raising prices on formula by huge margins — so even if we can find brands in high demand, they’re charging up to $10/can more,” Jaehnert wrote via Twitter.
GMA has reached out to Rite Aid for comment and has yet to hear back.
Both Jaehnert and another parent, Kerissa Miller, are part of the Find My Formula, Tri Cities WA Facebook group where they’ve been volunteering for hours and days on end to help fellow moms and dads get baby formula.
“We recently started working with the [neonatal intensive care unit] and preemie releases from the hospital and noticed that they are not sending premature babies home with enough formula or the correct type because of the shortage,” Miller told GMA via text message. “The store shelves have not improved much. We actually started purchasing from other states that [have] better supply to support our local babies.”
“We do hope to see change soon but there has been zero change in the inventory supply in our area unfortunately, [and] our group has grown to almost 1,500 people, so we have even more babies to feed now,” she added.
For Taylor-Rey J’Vera, a mom of one in Brooklyn, New York, Abbott’s February recall impacted her family directly and this spring, she and her wife Libby decided to switch their 8-month-old’s formula twice, first in response to the recall and the second time because the switch led to a run on their substitute formula.
“After the recall, we switched over to Enfamil. And so we use a specific type of Enfamil. It’s kind of hard to find in stores so we were mostly doing online searching and purchasing through Amazon or directly through Enfamil,” J’Vera explained.
When their formula stock ran low, J’Vera said she searched in local drug stores, online and she even noticed strangers selling baby formula on the New York City subway at “crazy gouged prices.”
“We were really scared. We did start to feed [River] solids a little sooner. Like he was already starting solids, but we’ve been kind of fast-tracking the solids journey because we were and are still a little nervous about what the future holds,” J’Vera recalled.
The same week Biden authorized Operation Fly Formula, J’Vera posted a plea for help on Instagram.
J’Vera said her family was ultimately “super blessed” as their friends, family members and even exes reached out to help them find formula in places as far as Canada for baby River.
“What I’ve been doing now, we’re just giving away any extra formula, because people are still bringing it to us very nicely as a surprise. People are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I saw this. This is for you. You don’t have to pay for it. It’s fine. Just take it,'” she said.
J’Vera said any extra formula goes to those they know who still need it.
“We’re like, ‘Hey, do you want this formula?’ and we’re just trying to pay it forward,” she said.
“Things are supposed to be changing, but we can’t seem to get a clear timeline on any of the changes exactly,” she added. “We keep hearing that idea like everything is in the works … but we don’t know when any of that is going to actually hit the shelves.”
