(NEW YORK) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 775 points — or 2.25% — early Monday, as renewed fears over the delta coronavirus variant cast a shadow on the economy’s post-pandemic recovery.
The S&P 500 was down some 1.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 1.6% shortly after markets opened. Monday’s sell-off comes on the heels of a record high for the S&P 500 approximately a week ago.
Some of the hardest-hit stocks include companies that would be impacted the most by new virus restrictions, including hotels, airlines and travel firms. Cruise liner Carnival Corp was down 7% in early trading and Boeing shed more than 5%.
The bloodbath also comes as the more-transmissible delta variant has become the dominant variant in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the delta variant has caused over half of all recent COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S. were also linked to stoking new anxieties among investors. On Monday, the U.S. and several allies joined forces to “expose and criticize” China for a “pattern of malicious cyber activities,” announcing that China is profiting off some of the cyberattacks it’s supported and accusing China of being behind the Microsoft Exchange server breach in March.
Finally, in another worrisome sign for equity markets, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell to its lowest levels in five months in a possible sign investors were seeking safe havens.
(VAN HORN, Texas) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is set to launch to the edge of space on Tuesday, fulfilling a lifelong dream and ushering in a new era of space tourism via the first crewed flight from his private space-faring firm Blue Origin.
The billionaire, who stepped down as Amazon CEO earlier this month, opened up about the historic spaceflight in an interview with ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Monday.
“I have just been dreaming of this really my whole life, but I don’t know what it’s going to mean for me,” Bezos told ABC News’ Michael Strahan. “I don’t know, I’m very curious about what tomorrow is actually going to bring. Everybody who’s been to space says it changes them in some way. And I’m just really excited to figure out how it’s going to change me.”
“People say they see the thin limb of the Earth’s atmosphere, it teaches them how fragile and precious the planet is, how there are there no boundaries,” Bezos added. “I don’t know what it’s going to do but I’m excited to find out.”
Bezos will be joined on the historic journey by his brother, Mark Bezos. The other members of the crew include 82-year old Wally Funk, a pioneering female pilot whose dreams of being an astronaut in the 60s were deferred, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, a student from the Netherlands. Funk and Daemen are set to become the oldest and youngest people ever to go to space.
Funk told “GMA” that she trained not only in the U.S., but also with Russian cosmonauts during the original U.S.-Soviet Space Race era.
“About about two or three weeks after my training … I was told that I did better than the men,” she said. At the time, however, women were not being sent into space.
Bezos quipped that she is still “doing better than the men” when it comes to astronaut training. “She can outrun all of us, she’s 82-years-old and she can outrun all of us,” he said.
Daemon, meanwhile, said he hopes to set an example for other young people curious about space travel, but admitted it still feels surreal.
“I don’t think I’ve realized yet how special it is to become the youngest person ever, and it’s such an opportunity for me to do that,” he told Strahan. “And also to be an example for other kids.”
“It’s so amazing for me to go, I still can’t believe it,” the teen added.
With the launch less than one day away, Bezos said he is excited but not nervous, citing the successful test flights. He chose the date because it is the 52nd anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing on July 20, 1969.
The inaugural crewed flight for Blue Origin is set to launch Tuesday morning from west Texas. In total, the flight is only about 11 minutes, and approximately four minutes will be spent above the so-called Karman line that is defined by some as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
Bezos said the goal is ultimately to pave the way for future astronauts and make visits to space as commonplace as flying on a commercial jetliner.
“What we’re hoping to do is to build the road to space for the future generations,” Bezos said, adding that Blue Origin’s goal has been to make reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft that make space less costly and more accessible for all.
“If we can get to that stage, then the things that the next generations will figure out how to do in space, how to benefit Earth with all those things in space … that’ll be amazing to see, so that’s the real goal,” he said.
Bezos’ flight comes on the heels of a brief, successful spaceflight from Sir Richard Branson’s firm Virgin Galactic earlier this month. The back-to-back missions are seen as ushering in a new era of space tourism that has been propelled by an emerging, billionaire-backed commercial space industry.
The modern space race from the ultra-wealthy comes at a time, however, when the pandemic has only deepened the divide between the haves and have-nots — meaning not everyone is rooting for the billionaires heading to space the way Americans got behind astronauts in the Apollo era. A Change.org petition calling for Bezos to stay in space has garnered headlines and more than 150,000 signatures.
(CANNES, France) — It was almost a strange sight; packed movie premieres and actors again walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival — maskless- — while throngs of photographers snapped away.
With going to the movies put on hold for more than a year, and the festival canceled last year due to the pandemic, even some of the stars were struck by what felt like a return to normal.
“I was a little overwhelmed last night, and I’m really glad that we’re here this year. Because I think we’ll all look back and remember launching out of COVID — and what a way to do it,” said actor Matt Damon, who teared up after the standing ovation he received at the premiere of his new film, “Stillwater.”
Beyond the glitz and glamour, the Cannes Film Festival is also home to the world’s biggest movie market, the Marché du Film. Set up inside the Palais des Festivals, a convention center behind the main theater where premieres are held, the marché is where thousands of directors, producers, sales agents and distributors from around the world try to get their movies made, bought, sold or distributed.
“The Marché du Film is really the business of film, we’re the less sexy and exciting part of the film festival,” said Monique White, senior vice president of distribution for California Pictures who’s been coming to Cannes for years.
This year, cinema’s power players were eager to get back to work, hoping the deals struck here will serve as evidence the business of film is also back. The industry took a massive hit during the pandemic — global theatrical revenue in the U.S. fell from $42.3 billion in 2019 to just $12 billion in 2020, according to the Motion Picture Association’s Annual Report — leaving film professionals scrambling to adjust.
Some argue perhaps the single biggest change was the streaming boom.
“COVID changed the way we watch anything now. Whether we’re watching on just the internet, on Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Hulu, whatever. We have more eyeballs on our computers and our phones,” said White.
While tensions between traditional theaters and streaming platforms had been growing for a while, the problem really came to a head during the pandemic, with the controversial online release of Universal Pictures’ “Trolls World Tour” movie in April 2020 marking the beginning of a new era and sending shockwaves through Hollywood.
AMC, the country’s largest cinema chain, responded by temporarily refusing to run Universal movies.
“There used to be more of a professional understanding that you would wait a period of time before you released,” said White. “But now it’s really subject to the production and the producer and how they want to release the film domestically.”
The feud between Universal and AMC was eventually resolved, but a number of other studios have since then followed suit. Disney, the parent company of ABC News, decided to release films like “Mulan” and “Luca” online, and WarnerMedia announced the company would release all of its 2021 films on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters.
The shift to digital has even prompted the Oscars to change their eligibility rules — whereas movies first had to be released in theaters to qualify for the awards competition, the Academy is now allowing movies released online to participate.
As a result, “Nomadland” which was released on Hulu, eventually won best picture, and Netflix won seven awards and 35 nominations, the most of any studio this year.
Recently announced Emmy nominations are reflecting a similar pattern with streaming services winning more nominations in 2021 than those of broadcast and cable combined.
The Cannes Film Festival, for its part, is maintaining requirements that a movie must first air in theaters to be able to qualify.
“Of course, the streaming companies exploded and they needed lot more product which is great because now they’re asking for more,” said Hernan Aguilar, a distributor focused on the Latin American market.
Aguilar said he sees an upside to the shift to streaming.
“In general it’s good this thing is happening, because cause more product is being asked for,” he said. “The demand is going up, so in that sense, that’s good.”
The change is causing a certain uneasiness in the industry, with some fearing streaming services could not only put theaters at risk, but also the likes of producers and distributors. A number of streaming platforms are now producing their own content, instead of buying films made by independent filmmakers.
It’s an issue that’s top of mind in Cannes this year.
“Cinema and screening platforms can coexist. At one time, there was a thinking that TV was going to kill cinema. This stuff is not new. It’s all cycle,” said director Spike Lee, president of the Cannes Film Festival jury this year.
Some argue studios won’t be able to continue bypassing theaters, as there’s just no substitute for box office revenue. The recently released blockbuster “F9” — released exclusively in theaters — raked in $70 million on opening weekend.
White predicts streaming services will eventually have to raise their prices.
“They’re all gonna go up. And before you know it, let’s say in the next couple of years, it’s gonna be like 20 bucks for Netflix, I’m sure. That’s not gonna be sustainable,” she said.
Aguilar thinks it’ll be the opposite.
“I think what’s gonna happen is there’s going to be more and more streaming platforms and with competition the prices will go down but I think it’s really not expensive at all right now compared to tickets in the cinema,” he said.
Another big question: will streaming change the type of content that’s being produced?
“Streaming is definitely … if you see the quality of the content you’re seeing, you’re seeing more lower quality in terms of the story or how things are done,” said Juan Pablo Cadaveira, producer and co-founder of Blue Productions.
It’s unclear what will happen next, but some are hopeful the end of the pandemic will mean a return to theaters, pointing out it was the Great Depression that inspired Hollywood’s Golden Age.
“I just think now though hopefully with things opening up, we’re gonna be less on [streaming platforms] than we were before. No one wants to be in a small apartment. They want to go out and see people and go to the movies,” said White.
“I think as people go to church for religion, you go to the cinema to watch a good film, but it’s true that for me people are going to do it less and less because it’s so much easier to watch a good film in your house,” said Aguilar.
(NEW YORK) — Misinformation – false information spread regardless of intent – is rampant across popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Most speech, whether true or false, is protected under the U.S. legal system.
But questions about inaccurate information, spread maliciously or not, and its effects on many facets of our lives have led to efforts by social media platforms, fact-checkers and others to try to crack down.
The territory is murky and has ignited an intense debate as technology companies struggle to define the problem and attempt to get a handle on the flood of false and misleading information.
In the U.S., the situation came to a head during the 2020 presidential election cycle when social media platforms decided to fact-check and remove election-related statements from former President Donald Trump and ultimately decided to suspend or ban him in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol for tweets that ran counter to the company’s glorification of violence policy. Facebook later announced the suspension would be lifted in two years under certain conditions.
The move led to an outcry, largely from conservatives as well as civil libertarians about free speech and the rights of social media companies to regulate what has become what many consider the new public square.
Misinformation has become such a crisis, in fact, that the U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recently issued a warning about false information surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. And President Biden Friday said it was “killing people,” a description Facebook took exception to.
Some governments, however, have taken steps to go even further, and there are fears of using the concept of misinformation broadly to target dissent.
In recent years, Singapore, for example, implemented a law that requires platforms to remove certain posts that go against “public interest” such as security threats or the public’s perception of the government.
Similarly, Russia can legally fine those who show “blatant disrespect” online toward the state.
India takes on misinformation
In February, India, the world’s largest democracy, implemented new rules to regulate online content, allowing the government to censor what it claims to be misinformation.
Under the rules, large social media companies must appoint Indian citizens to a compliance role, remove content within 36 hours of legal notice and also set up system to respond to complaints, according to Reuters.
These restrictions give the government more power, in some cases, to dictate what can and cannot be circulated on digital platforms in the country.
For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the COVID-19 variant “B.1.617,” now known as delta, was first detected in India last year.
According to Reuters, in May 2021, the Indian government sent a letter to social media companies demanding that all content that names or implies “India Variant,” as it became commonly (but not officially) known, be removed from platforms, calling that moniker “FALSE.”
In another case, late last year, farmers in India clashed with police over new laws that they believe will exploit their practices and reduce income while giving power to large corporations. In February, the Indian government issued an emergency order that demanded Twitter remove posts from the platform that used the hashtag “#farmergenocide.”
The government said in a statement that while India values the freedom of speech, expression “is not absolute and subject to reasonable restrictions.”
A Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News that when a valid legal request is received, it is reviewed under both Twitter Rules and local law. Should the content violate Twitter’s rules, it may be removed from the platform.
“If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only,” they continued. “In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they’re aware that we’ve received a legal order pertaining to the account.”
Separately, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has sued the Indian government, which is looking to trace its users, who use encrypted messages. The government wants to have the ability to identify people who “credibly accused of wrong doing,” according to Reuters. Although the Indian government said it will respond to the lawsuit, it hasn’t done so yet.
Krishnesh Bapat, a legal fellow with the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian digital liberties organization that seeks to ensure technology respects fundamental rights, highlighted the implications of the WhatsApp case.
“This is one of the most problematic consequences of these rules,” Bapat said. “Several experts have suggested that the only way to implement this would be to remove encryption.”
End-to-end encryption is a key feature for WhatsApp users, as it protects private conversations from being accessed by any entity outside the chat. WhatsApp claims the new rules are unconstitutional and a clear breach to user privacy.
“India is a big cautionary tale for how we have to be really careful of the most well-intentioned regulatory power,” said David Greene, senior staff attorney and civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “We used to say, ‘well that’s not a threat to democratic societies.’ I don’t think we can say that anymore, India’s a democratic society.”
ABC News could not immediately reach the IT Ministry for comment.
Difficulty in regulating
Platforms rely heavily on users flagging potentially harmful posts that break community guidelines, and that self-regulatory model may be the best bet for the future of content regulation, Greene said, as opposed to government or institutional regulation.
Similarly, A Yale Law review published earlier this year explains that a self-regulatory model should be considered to combat the spread of misinformation in India. The review says that implementing such a model should “ensure that the ‘outcomes-based’ code is not vague or tilted to serve state interests, and does not incentivize platforms to adopt an overly heavy approach to removing content. The outcomes should be built around common objectives, and should provide flexibility for platforms to develop protocols and technological tools to achieve them.”
The New York State Bar Association recently suggested that government policy and oversight can be just as important as a self-regulatory model when dealing with misinformation. It also mentions that combatting misinformation is not solely for one entity to address, claiming that it will require corporations, governments, educators and journalists to work together in an effort to prevent the continued spread of harmful, inaccurate information.
“Most democratic legal systems have robust free speech,” Greene said. “We find a lot of protection for false statements, and this is supposed to protect people because mistakes are inevitable. False statements have to actually cause a specific and direct harm before they’re actionable.”
This means that there must be a clear intent of defamation, written or spoken, in order for legal action to be taken, which is historically difficult to prove. In the U.S., libel laws in particular differ state to state, which adds an extra layer of complexity to any attempt at content regulation.
Greene also suggested that given the difficulty in casting information as verifiably false as well as the overwhelming number of posts that need to be reviewed, it’s nearly impossible for platforms to regulate content well.
In February 2018, the first Content Moderation & Removal at Scale conference was hosted by the Santa Clara University High Tech Law Institute. Experts and advocates gathered to “explore how internet companies operationalize the moderation and removal” of user-generated content. They developed what’s now known as the Santa Clara Principles.
The model, which is endorsed by EFF among other notable groups, provides three guiding principles for content moderators – being transparent about the numbers of people permanently suspended or banned, proper notice and reason for doing so and a “meaningful” appeals process.
Greene says that the Santa Clara Principles can be utilized as a guideline for companies in an effort to preserve basic human rights in content moderation. Alternatively, regulation that involves prescreening or filtering posts can have serious human rights implications, but although a post may include false information that contains offensive language appearing to hurt certain people or groups, it’s usually not illegal.
“By mandating filters, users are subjected to automated decision making and potentially harmful profiling,” Greene explained. “This has a chilling effect on speech and undermines the freedom to receive impartial information. When knowing to be censored, users change behavior or abstain from communicating freely.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is instructing airlines to inspect their Boeing 737 fleet for faulty altitude pressure switches that could potentially pose a safety risk.
The switches are part of a system designed to warn flight crew of cabin depressurization. Planes are equipped with two cabin altitude pressure switches so there is a backup if one fails. But the crew and maintenance personnel are not alerted of switch failures.
If both switches fail and the plane is over 10,000 feet in the air, the FAA says there is a danger of the cabin altitude warning system not activating. In that case “oxygen levels could become dangerously low.”
“A latent failure of both pressure switches could result in the loss of cabin altitude warning, which could delay flight crew recognition of a lack of cabin pressurization, and result in incapacitation of the flight crew due to hypoxia (a lack of oxygen in the body), and consequent loss of control of the airplane,” the agency said.
The FAA order affects around 2,500 planes in the U.S. including the Boeing 737 Max and 737 NextGen. The directive does not remove any planes from service and is unrelated to the 737 Max flight control system issues that contributed to two recent fatal crashes.
Airlines have roughly 90 days, or every 2,000 flight hours, to complete inspections and replace switches as needed. The inspections can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and around 15 minutes for replacements. Previously, inspections of these switches were required every 6,000 flight hours.
According to the FAA, there have not been any in-flight switch failures. The concern was prompted by a test in September when an operator reported that both switches had failed on three different models of the Boeing 737.
In November, Boeing decided the failures were not a safety issue, the FAA said.
But “subsequent investigation and analysis led the FAA and the airplane manufacturer to determine, in May of 2021, that the failure rate of both switches is much higher than initially estimated, and therefore does pose a safety issue,” the FAA said, adding “addressing these failures requires immediate action.”
In response to the analysis, Boeing issued a reccomendation to ramp up switch insepections on all Boeing 737s.
“Safety is our highest priority, and we fully support the FAA’s direction, which makes mandatory the inspection interval that we issued to the fleet in June,” Boeing said in a statement to ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Purveyors of legal marijuana are cautiously applauding a Democrat-backed Senate bill to end the federal prohibition of pot, saying their businesses have been stymied by banking regulations that force them to deal in cash and make them a target for thieves.
For the first time in history, some Senate Democrats introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and remove cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances — laws that led to more than 1.5 million arrests in 2019 alone, 32% of which were for nonviolent lower-level marijuana possession offenses, according to the nonprofit Drugpolicyfacts.org.
Federal laws have also created a legal gray area for businesses operating in states where marijuana is legal.
The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act is backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who called the legislation “monumental.”
But some cannabis industry insiders told ABC News that while the draft legislation includes many things that would greatly benefit dispensaries and growers — like allowing them to get bank financing, accept credit cards and go public on the New York Stock Exchange — they would rather see the federal government leave the issue in the hands of states.
“I hope I’m dead wrong, but the cynic in me says why would a Democratically-controlled Congress want to put a legalization bill in front of a president from their party who has already said he doesn’t want to sign a legalization bill?” Kyle Kazan, the CEO of American cannabis production and distribution company Curaleaf, told ABC News.
Kazan also worries about federal involvement because of the damage done by the war on drugs.
Despite Schumer’s support for the bill, President Joe Biden still opposes federal legalization of marijuana, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday and the measure would need several Republicans to support it to pass.
‘Excited’ but staying ‘realistic’
The legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would aim to expunge criminal records of most nonviolent marijuana offenses and create banking systems to help cannabis businesses, specifically hundreds of small and minority-owned companies wanting in on the so-called marijuana green rush.
Headset, a provider of data and analytics to the cannabis industry, forecast this week that the U.S. legal cannabis market will surpass $30 billion in sales in 2022.
The legislation, now in its early draft stage, would also allow states to craft their own cannabis laws, as states do with alcohol. A new federal excise tax would also be created similar to alcohol and tobacco.
The proposal would also clear the way for U.S. marijuana companies to use banking services, including holding bank accounts and taking out loans and allow companies to list on U.S. stock exchanges. Currently, cannabis companies do not have access to the banking system because their product is illegal in the eyes of the federal government.
Despite his doubts, Kazan, a former California police officer, said he would love to see the legislation pass, but have the federal government largely leave the details to the states.
“As much as I am cheering for Cory Booker and Chuck Schumer and (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell to come together on something, I think it would be best if they just said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of the way and let the states do it,'” said Kazan, whose company trades on the Canadian Stock Exchange. “The federal government has only done harm here with the war on drugs and the war on cannabis. You have tens of thousands of people that are serving hard time for nonviolent cannabis and other drug crimes. Just stop doing harm.”
Steve DeAngelo, a co-founder of Harborside Health Inc., a California cannabis company that also trades on the Canadian Stock Exchange, told ABC News that the legislation has been a long time coming.
“I’m excited. But I also want to be realistic about it,” said DeAngelo, who has been dubbed the father of the legal cannabis industry. “But it’s a great day when the Senate majority leader comes out supporting comprehensive legalization of cannabis at the federal level. That is a great day for our movement.”
To date, 18 states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and 37 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, now allow the medical use of the drug.
A Pew Research Center Poll released in April showed that 91% of U.S. adults say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use.
DeAngelo cofounded a medical marijuana business in Northern California as a non-profit more than a decade ago and said it’s been an uphill climb ever since due to conflicts with federal regulations listing marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug with narcotics as heroin.
“Most successful businesses in the United States have an ability to go to a bank and get financing for a variety of uses at a reasonable interest rate. Cannabis businesses aren’t able to go to banks and get any type of financing,” DeAngelo told ABC News.
“When we’re trying to … just operate in an efficient way and do things like paying our taxes, those same banking laws can require us to do crazy things like go into tax offices with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in order to pay our back taxes,” he added. “Things aren’t safe or efficient.”
An increasing target for thieves
Having to have large amounts of cash on hand to do business and shelves stocked with high-grade cannabis, dispensaries and grow operations have increasingly become alluring targets for robbers.
In San Francisco last week, a group of robbers stormed a cannabis dispensary in the city’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, overwhelmed a security guard and took his gun before ransacking the business and making off in multiple getaway vehicles with boxes of marijuana, police said. On June 17, an attempted robbery at a pot dispensary in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles led to a shootout in front of the business that left a security guard critically wounded and one of the suspects dead, according to police there.
“It’s been a huge problem. People have died because of this,” DeAngelo said.
He said that allowing cannabis businesses to accept credit cards would help eliminate the need to have large amounts of cash on hand.
“That’s one of the good things that this will do,” he said of the legislation.
McConnell, the powerful Republican from Kentucky, has said he opposes the Senate bill, which will need 60 votes to pass, including 10 Republican votes.
DeAngelo said that if he had a chance to speak with McConnell, he’d say, “cannabis isn’t harmful but cannabis prohibition is.” He noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic many cities in states where recreational cannabis is legal designated pot dispensaries essential businesses along with pharmacies.
“They need to abandon old and outdated ways of thinking about cannabis,” DeAngelo said.
(NEW YORK) — There were times throughout the COVID-19 pandemic when Maeghan Murdock worried about how her family — which includes a newborn — would keep up with all their growing financial demands.
Facing an inevitable $300 rent increase as bills piled up, their dreams of saving to eventually buy their own home seemed to be a far-fetched goal.
But then several rounds of economic impact payments came through. She and her husband were able to save those federal stimulus dollars and apply about $18,000 to help purchase a new home in Tucson, Arizona.
Now Murdock, 29, a non-profit professional, sees the Biden administration’s new, expanded child tax credit with its monthly payments as a means of bringing some stability to their family as her husband’s return to work as a professional chef depends on how fast the restaurant industry bounces back from the havoc wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The tax credits will help us make sure that we’re able to pay our mortgage and have things that we need for our child,” she said.
Even as Americans begin returning to work and school this fall in greater number, economic uncertainty for those living at or below the poverty line is still a top-of-mind concern. For the families of nearly 12 million children in the U.S. who live in poverty and disproportionately identify as African-Americans or Latinos, the Biden administration’s child tax credits could be a game-changer, but those monthly payments are scheduled to end in December.
Touting the payments as they started to go out Thursday, President Joe Biden called them “another giant step toward ending child poverty in America.”
“This has the potential to reduce child poverty in the same way that the Social Security reduced poverty for the elderly,” he said.
Biden’s American Rescue Plan proposes an extension of the tax credit for four more years through 2025, but Congress still needs to vote on that.
Senior administration officials say it is the president’s goal to see the child tax credits extended past this year and ultimately become a permanent fixture of U.S. government policy.
The Treasury Department says as much as $15 billion in funds are expected to go to the families of 60 million children, with average payments totaling up to $423 per family.
Democratic lawmakers are embracing the idea that these child tax credits will go far in tackling the nation’s long fought battle against child poverty.
“The expansion of the Child Tax Credit is one of the single biggest investments we’ve made in American families and children in generations, benefitting 96% of families with kids,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., in a statement. “Now, we must seize the opportunity to make it permanent.”
The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University found that the child tax credits could cut child poverty by more than half.
“We also know that families living below the poverty line are over 40 times more likely to enter the child welfare system than those above the poverty line,” said Laura Boyd, a public policy specialist with the Family Centered Treatment Foundation. “We have an ability and a moral obligation as a society to empower families, and the child tax credit is certainly one thing that will do that.”
Republican lawmakers have proposed their own payments for children and aren’t expected to move forward with a $3.5 trillion budget deal proposed by Democrats to extend the child tax credit.
The Federal Reserve found in a 2019 study that some 40% of Americans don’t have up to $400 in the bank to cover an emergency expense.
“We think it’s absolutely vital that it continue,” said John Sciamanna, vice president of public policy at the Child Welfare League of America. “This could be one of the most significant family supporting initiatives that we’ve ever dealt with in terms of the child welfare field. Poverty creates a range of factors and stressors on families.”
The Treasury Department estimates that families containing more than 26 million children who would have received less than the full child tax credit under the previous rules because their incomes were too low will now receive the full, expanded credit.
But millions of Americans who work in the cash economy and did not submit a tax return, which is how the Internal Revenue Service will determine eligibility for the credits, stand to miss out on these payments if they don’t register through agency’s non-filer portal.
An administration official said that the White House is coordinating an effort across Treasury and the IRS to identify and reach-out to non-filers who are likely to be eligible for these payments.
The White House coordinated effort will also seek to identify families of children that may be eligible by looking at individuals signed up for government welfare programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) aimed at low-income households and focusing on high poverty zip codes, in addition to non-profit outreach.
The White House also hopes that its partnership efforts with children’s advocacy groups, women’s organizations, and faith-based organizations will help in identifying the estimated more than seven million children who won’t automatically receive the child tax benefit.
An IRS spokesman, in a statement, said that the agency is partnering with “non-profit organizations, churches, community groups and others hosted events in 12 cities last weekend to help people who don’t normally file a federal tax return to register for the monthly advance child tax credit payments.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki argued Thursday that it is only a small percentage of Americans who will not automatically receive the payments, but that the administration would continue to work at reaching those Americans, pointing to previous efforts to get stimulus payments out to individuals who didn’t pay taxes earlier this year.
(NEW YORK) — For anyone who prefers cool crisp autumn air and warm baking spices, there’s a new treat hitting shelves this fall that will make the change of the season an extra sweet transition.
Nestlé Toll House announced its all-new seasonal cookie doughs and Morsels & More flavors and yes, that means pumpkin spice.
In addition to the fan-favorite seasonal coffee drink flavor, there will also be a classic and nostalgic flavor combo — peanut butter and jelly.
Check out the full lineup of offerings below that will be available starting in August for a limited time at grocery stores and retailers nationwide:
PB&J Cookie Dough: A combination of peanut butter cookie dough and sweet strawberry-flavored pieces.
Pumpkin Spice Cookie Dough: Pumpkin spice-flavored cookie dough mixed with premier white morsels.
Pumpkin Spice Latte Flavored Morsels & More: A one-of-a-kind assortment of premier white morsels, mini coffee biscuits and pumpkin spice-flavored chunks.
Cinnamon Roll Cookie Dough: Cinnamon sugar cookie dough mixed with naturally flavored cream cheese pieces.
Trick or Treats Cookie Dough: Indulgent fudge cookie dough topped with festive Halloween sprinkles.
(NEW YORK) — Blue Origin revealed Thursday that the fourth member of its first crewed flight will be the youngest person ever to fly to space.
Oliver Daemen, 18, will join Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos (Jeff’s brother) and 82-year-old Wally Funk on a spaceflight set to launch next Tuesday from west Texas. Funk, a pioneering pilot who dreamed of being an astronaut in the 1960s, will become the oldest person to travel to space.
Blue Origin auctioned the final seat on its inaugural crewed flight for a whopping $28 million.
In a surprise announcement Thursday, however, the company said the anonymous auction winner will not be able to join the historic spaceflight due to “scheduling conflicts.” The bidder, who seeks to remain anonymous, will join a future mission, the company said.
Daemen will now earn the tile of the first paying customer to board the space tourism firm’s New Shepard spacecraft. The company did not reveal how much Daemen paid for his seat.
“This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Bob Smith, the CEO of Blue Origin, said in a statement Thursday.
Daemen, who graduated from high school in 2020, has been besotted by space travel since he was four. He will attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands starting this September, and is set to study “physics and innovation management,” Blue Origin said.
The inaugural crewed flight for Blue Origin is scheduled for July 20. In total, the flight is only about 11 minutes, and approximately four minutes will be spent above the so-called Karman line that is defined as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
It comes on the heels of a brief, successful spaceflight from Sir Richard Branson’s firm Virgin Galactic last weekend. The back-to-back missions are seen as ushering in a new era of space tourism that has been propelled by an emerging, billionaire-backed commercial space industry.
(NEW YORK) — Johnson & Johnson has issued a voluntary recall of several sunscreen products after finding they contain trace amounts of a cancer-causing chemical.
The recalled products include five Neutrogena and Aveeno aerosol sunscreens, according to a statement released Wednesday by the company.
Some samples of the affected products, all spray-on sunscreens, were found to contain low levels of benzene, according to Johnson & Johnson, the parent company.
Johnson & Johnson said it recalled the products out of an “abundance of caution,” noting the low levels of benzene found in the samples would not be expected to impact people’s health.
“Based on exposure modeling and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) framework, daily exposure to benzene in these aerosol sunscreen products at the levels detected in our testing would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences,” the company said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are recalling all lots of these specific aerosol sunscreen products.”
Benzene is a colorless chemical that can cause complications like cancer, anemia and immune system damage, as well as irregular menstrual periods and a decrease in ovary size in women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The most severe health complications typically come after long term exposure to benzene, which the CDC defines as exposure of one year or more.
The five sunscreen products impacted by the voluntary recall are:
Johnson & Johnson is advising consumers to stop using these products and discard them.
“Consumers may contact the JJCI Consumer Care Center 24/7 with questions or to request a refund by calling 1-800-458-1673. Consumers should contact their physician or healthcare provider if they have any questions, concerns or have experienced any problems related to using these aerosol sunscreen products,” the company said in a statement. “JJCI is also notifying its distributors and retailers by letter and is arranging for returns of all recalled products.”
