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(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — Federal prosecutors went toe-to-toe with defense attorneys for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes as both sides delivered hours-long closing arguments in her criminal fraud trial.

Prosecutors concluded their roughly three-hour-long closing statements on Thursday, and defense attorneys were over two hours into their remarks when Judge Edward J. Davila adjourned court for the day.

Holmes’ lawyer, Kevin Downey, is expected to resume his closing argument Friday morning, followed by a rebuttal from prosecutors, meaning jury deliberations could begin as early as Friday.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk told the court on Thursday that Holmes had a choice to make in 2009, 2010 and again in 2013 — years when he said the blood-testing startup that would later grow into a $9 billion business was running out of money.

Holmes “chose fraud over business failure,” Schenk said, adding that “she chose to be dishonest with her investors and with her patients.”

“That choice was not only callous, it was criminal,” he continued.

​​Schenk then asked the jury to consider what an honest pitch to investors would have sounded like back in 2013.

“Ms. Holmes knew that these honest statements would not have led to any revenue, and she chose a different path,” he said.

Downey later shot down Schenk’s claims, telling jurors that, “Elizabeth Holmes was building a business and not a criminal enterprise.”

“The government would have you believe that entity that she presided over as CEO was built by lies, by swindling, by half-truths, by misrepresentations that were carried out over years and years and years,” Downey said.

“I think you will see that the full picture reveals something very different from what the government has been presenting to you for three months and, indeed, for the last three hours,” he added.

Holmes, who completed her testimony last week after seven days on the stand, is charged with 11 counts of fraud for allegedly defrauding investors and patients.

The 37-year-old faces nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and could be sentenced to decades in prison if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty.

By dawn, over 60 members of the press and public were already lined up outside of the Robert F. Peckham Federal Courthouse, the crowd spilling out of the courtyard and onto South First Street. Hours later, at around 8 a.m., Holmes, her mother, her father and her partner, Billy Evans, arrived at the courthouse, all wearing blue and walking hand in hand as the rest of her entourage trailed behind.

At 9:05 a.m., the judge and the jury took their seats in the fifth-floor courtroom. Three minutes later, Schenk began.

One by one, the prosecution projected the picture of each witness their team had called to the stand as Schenk reminded jurors what the investors, patients and others had said to implicate Holmes.

Among those who testified were former lab director Dr. Adam Rosendorff, who said he voiced concerns to Holmes over lab procedures and test accuracy; lab associate turned whistleblower Erika Cheung, who said she was uncomfortable processing patient blood-samples; and former board member Gen. James Mattis, who said he was left to learn about the turmoil at Theranos from the press.

“[Theranos] is the story of a tragedy, but it is also the story of some people acting with really remarkable integrity,” Schenk said, pointing to the decisions made by both Rosendorff, Cheung and senior scientist Surekha Gangakhedkar, another government witness.

For Downey, the fate of his client — who was once was hailed as the next Steve Jobs — comes down to the question of intent.

“At the end of the day, the question you’re really asking yourself is, what was Ms. Holmes intent?” he asked. “Was she trying to defraud people?”

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(WASHINGTON) — Not far from the San Pedro Bay Port Complex in Orange County, which sees 40% of the nation’s imports, Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., has been witnessing supply chain issues in her district due in part due to bottlenecks in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Now she and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., are sending a bipartisan letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., calling for a bipartisan select committee to address the issue. The proposed committee would have an equal number of members from both sides of the aisle to address supply chain issues and the impacts on the economy, families and small businesses.

“Congress must come together in a bipartisan way to address this economic and national security crisis that threatens to undermine U.S. competitiveness abroad,” Kim said. “That is why I am proud to work with Rep. Sherrill and a bipartisan group of colleagues to call on House leadership to ensure Congress takes immediate steps to bring relief to our nation’s economy.”

The committee would investigate the root causes of the supply chain issues and how the crisis has affected various industries. The panel would aim to draft and submit a report to Congress with its recommendations.

“Addressing the current shortfalls throughout our supply chain is imperative to continuing our economic recovery from the pandemic and addressing the very real impacts of inflation facing families across the country,” Sherrill said.

Kim also wrote a letter to California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in January urging officials to include dockworkers and others as essential workers.

She commended President Joe Biden for opening ports in southern California for 24-hour operation in October but said the administration needs to do more.

“While I was encouraged by the announcement that the San Pedro Bay Port Complex will be open 24/7, the administration’s actions so far are not the be-all and end-all that will solve the long-term issues of our supply chain and help ease persistent — not ‘transitory’ — inflation in our economy. A piecemeal approach won’t help solve the supply chain crisis, and that is why I led a bipartisan letter to the administration calling for a whole-of-government response,” Kim said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Federal Reserve officials announced Wednesday that they intend to more rapidly end pandemic-era monetary policies meant to support the economy as surging inflation casts a new shadow over the recovery.

The U.S. central bank announced it would accelerate the tapering of its bond-buying program that flushed financial markets with liquidity during the coronavirus-induced downturn. Fed officials voted to keep interest rates near-zero currently, but indicated that they anticipated as many as three interest rate hikes starting in 2022.

“The path of the economy continues to depend on the course of the virus,” the Fed officials said in a policy statement Wednesday. “Progress on vaccinations and an easing of supply constraints are expected to support continued gains in economic activity and employment as well as a reduction in inflation. Risks to the economic outlook remain, including from new variants of the virus.”

The policy shift comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s final meeting of the year, which ended Wednesday afternoon.

The committee decided during the meeting to “double the pace of reductions in its asset purchases,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a post-meeting news conference, signaling the pandemic-era program could be halted completely by March.

“Beginning in mid-January, we will reduce the monthly pace of our net asset purchases by $20 billion for Treasury securities and $10 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities,” Powell said. “If the economy evolves broadly as expected, similar reductions in the pace of that asset purchases will likely be appropriate each month, implying that increases in our securities holdings would cease by mid-March, a few months sooner than we anticipated in early November.”

He added that they are phasing out purchases more rapidly because, “with elevated inflation pressures and a rapidly strengthening labor market, the economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support.”

Powell also said supply constraints and bottlenecks have limited how quickly production can respond to recent rises in demand, resulting in elevated levels of inflation.

“These problems have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, exacerbated by waves of the virus,” Powell said. “While the drivers of higher inflation have been predominantly connected to the dislocations caused by the pandemic, price increases have now spread to a broader range of goods and services.”

While Powell didn’t use the words “temporary” or “transitory” to describe inflation levels — as he and the Fed have previously — he did say inflation is expected to continue falling, to levels closer to the longer-run goal of 2%, by “the end of next year.”

“I think the Fed is showing that they’re taking this threat of higher inflation seriously, more seriously than they seemed to be before, but they still think that inflation should abate next year,” said Megan Greene, global chief economist at the advisory firm Kroll Institute and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Greene said open-ended questions about changing labor force participation patterns and evolving consumer habits in the wake of the pandemic ultimately will have a big impact on how policymakers can react to inflation.

“There are fewer people in the labor force now than there were before the pandemic, and there’s a big question about whether that’s just the big structural change, or whether people might still jump in off the sidelines and get jobs,” Greene told ABC News. “And we’ve never been through this before, so we just don’t know, but if the labor force participation rate is just lower now, then the labor market is pretty tight and that makes sustained inflation a bigger threat.”

Americans also are changing their spending habits, she said.

“It’s not just that as the economy reopened and there’s a surge in demand, there’s also been a change in what we have a demand for,” she said. “In the 1960s, two-thirds of what we bought were goods. Right before the pandemic, two-thirds of what we bought were services.”

The pandemic reversed that decades-long shift, but it’s unclear whether it’s structural or related to lingering worries over the virus, according to Greene.

“All the inflation pretty much is in goods, so there’s a question, Is this just a change in our consumption habits now? Or is it that people are worried that going to the gym will land them in the hospital, so they’re not paying for those kinds of services anymore?” Greene told ABC News.

She said while the “jury’s out” on how this trend will play out as the pandemic ebbs, it’s something the Fed will have to figure out to better address inflation.

While the Fed’s projections indicate the possibility of up to three rate hikes in 2022, Greene suggests Americans take this with a “grain of salt” for now, saying that the data released Wednesday only indicates what each member of the Federal Open Market Committee thinks will happen “based on their own assumptions about inflation and growth and unemployment.”

The Fed’s policy shifts comes, meanwhile, as data indicates inflation hit a 39-year high last month. The government’s consumer price index, which measures the prices consumers pay for a basket of everyday goods and services, soared 6.8% in the last 12 months — the largest such increase since 1982.

The latest indicators inflation is tightening its grip on the U.S. economy have thrown a wrench in the Fed’s original plans to boost the economy throughout the pandemic.

Economists have attributed the rapidly climbing consumer prices largely to supply-demand imbalances lingering from the pandemic shock to the economy. Global supply chain issues, and an apparent shortage of workers accepting low-wage jobs in the service industry, have been linked to supply not being able to keep up with the surging consumer demand for goods and services as the pandemic wanes in the U.S. As a result, prices have been rising at a rapid clip.

The risk of inflation snowballing out of control, such as what was seen in the U.S. in the 1970s, makes it more difficult for the Fed to continue its easy monetary policy that was initiated during the pandemic — such as keeping interest rates low and injecting liquidity into financial markets. While these policies can help stimulate consumer demand, economists have linked the rising prices to issues clobbering the supply-side of the equation, not the demand side.

“We understand that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation,” Powell said. “We are committed to our price stability goal. We will use our tools both to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”

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(NEW YORK) — Kroger, one of the largest employers in the U.S. with 500,000 workers, announced that it will pull paid emergency COVID leave for unvaccinated employees.

The grocery chain is also adding a $50 monthly insurance surcharge for salaried associates who are unvaccinated.

The new rules will take effect starting Jan. 1, 2022.

Kroger said this is a necessary step to protect its employees and customers.

“We have been navigating the COVID-19 pandemic for almost two years and in line with our values, the safety of our associates and customers has remained our top priority,” Kroger said in a statement about the policy shift.

The supermarket chain said employees who are fully vaccinated will still be entitled to paid leave and the new policy does not apply to workers with medical or religious accommodations.

Kroger will continue to pay $100 to workers who choose to get vaccinated.

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(NEW YORK) — Apple’s stock on Tuesday morning was hovering just below the threshold required to reach a market capitalization of $3 trillion, a milestone no publicly traded U.S. company has ever reached.

Shares for the iPhone maker hit an all-time high Monday during intraday trading before opening slightly lower Tuesday at $175.25 per share, roughly 4% shy of the $182.86 required to reach the historic mark.

The tech giant’s stock has gained more than 30% in 2021 and skyrocketed by nearly 500% over the past five years.

Analyst Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note shared with ABC News that hitting the $3 trillion market cap would be “another watershed moment for Apple as the company continues to prove the doubters wrong with the renaissance of growth story playing out in Cupertino.”

Supply shortages disrupting global iPhone production remain an issue for Apple, according to Ives, but he said he expects these to ease in early 2022.

Despite chip shortages and more, Ives said he’s predicting Apple is on pace to sell “north of 40 million iPhones during the holiday season,” driven in part by strong demand from China.

Rumors of an Apple electric car project also have investors optimistic for the tech giant’s future.

The tech sector has led the U.S. stock market’s rapid growth in recent years and proven resilient to separate shocks to the economy related to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as tech tools became essential for conducting business and remote schooling.

In August 2020, amid the pandemic, Apple stock soared to make it the first U.S. company to boast a market valuation of $2 trillion.

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(EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.) — The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has launched an investigation into the collapse of an Amazon delivery station in Edwardsville, Illinois, that left six people dead after a tornado pummeled the facility during the height of the busy holiday shopping season.

OSHA spokesman Scott Allen told ABC News that compliance officers from the agency have been at the complex since Saturday to provide assistance.

“OSHA has six months to complete its investigation, issue citations and propose monetary penalties if violations of workplace safety and or health regulations are found,” Allen told ABC News in a statement. “No further information will be available until OSHA has completed their investigation.”

The Edwardsville Fire Department is still working to clear debris from the Amazon site and transition the property back to the company’s control as of Monday, city officials said in a statement on Facebook, saying the transition will take place “in the near future when emergency crews have completed their efforts.”

As of Monday, everyone reported having been at the Amazon facility when the tornado struck on Friday evening has been accounted for, and there are no further reports of missing individuals. One individual remains hospitalized with “serious injuries,” the city’s statement added, and six people have died.

“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, told ABC News in a statement Monday. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and everyone impacted by the tornado. We also want to thank all the first responders for their ongoing efforts on scene. We’re continuing to provide support to our employees and partners in the area.”

Edwardsville city officials identified the names of the six deceased on Sunday, who ranged in age from 26 to 62.

Among the victims identified by authorities was Larry Virden, 46, whose daughter Justice Virden told ABC News’ Rob Marciano for Good Morning America, “I walked out of that building after they told me my dad was gone, and I dropped to my knees and screamed at the sky at the top of my lungs.”

“I said, ‘No, my dad’s coming home,” Justice Virden said. “‘I need my daddy. He can’t leave.'”

The other victims of the tragedy are: Deandre Morrow, 28, of St. Louis, Missouri; Kevin Dickey, 62, of Carlyle, Illinois; Clayton Lynn Cope, 29, of Alton, Illinois; Etheria Hebb, 34, of St. Louis, Missouri; and Austin McEwen, 26, of Edwardsville, Illinois.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, known for representing the family of George Floyd, announced that he was representing the family of Morrow and meeting with other injured workers and their families.

“The family members we represent are deeply distraught and want answers to their questions. We are seeking to determine if Amazon did everything in its power to warn employees of the incoming danger from the tornado and provide a designated safe area for employees to shelter,” Crump said in a statement Monday evening.

“We are asking Amazon employees who worked at the fulfillment center to assist us with our investigation and help us understand what warnings were given and what procedures followed,” the statement added.

One tornado out of a barrage that raged through six states late Friday touched down just outside of the Edwardsville Amazon facility at around 8:30 p.m. local time, according to Edwardsville Fire Chief James Whiteford.

“There’s about 150 yards of the building that were impacted by the tornado. The walls on both sides of the building collapsed inward; the roof of the building collapsed downward,” Whiteford said during a news conference Saturday, where he also announced that the efforts were shifting from rescue to recovery. “These walls are made out of 11-inch thick concrete, and they’re about 40 feet tall, so a lot of weight from that came down.”

Whiteford also said that a shift change was going on when the tornado struck, causing further confusion for rescue efforts regarding how many workers were in the building at the time.

The building directly impacted by the storm was a delivery station that had opened in July 2020, according to Amazon, and was approximately 1.1 million square feet with approximately 190 employees across multiple shifts.

Amazon said it was donating $1 million to the Edwardsville Community Foundation, in addition to working with local officials to assist with recovery efforts. The company also said it was reaching out to the victims’ families to see how it can best support them.

The company said the site received tornado warnings and alerts, and employees worked quickly to ensure as many people as possible could get to a designated shelter-in-place location. In this case, the site got tornado warnings between 8:06 and 8:16 p.m. local time, and site leaders directed people on site to immediately take shelter. It appears the tornado formed in the parking lot and struck the building at 8:27 p.m., according to Amazon, which said it all happened incredibly fast.

The majority of the workers took shelter in a primary designated location, and a small group took shelter in another part of the building that was then directly impacted by the tornado, according to Amazon, which said this is where most of the deaths occurred.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as CEO of the e-commerce giant earlier this year, reacted to the news on Twitter late Saturday. Bezos took some heat from critics on social media for a seemingly delayed response as his private space-tourism firm Blue Origin was launching a crew — that included ABC News’ Michael Strahan — on a suborbital jaunt earlier Saturday.

“The news from Edwardsville is tragic. We’re heartbroken over the loss of our teammates there, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and loved ones,” Bezos wrote. “All of Edwardsville should know that the Amazon team is committed to supporting them and will be by their side through this crisis. We extend our fullest gratitude to all the incredible first responders who have worked so tirelessly at the site.”

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(NEW YORK) — In late November, Twitter rolled out a new privacy policy it said was aimed at preventing the misuse of media to harass, intimidate or reveal the identities of individuals — but, within days, accusations circulated that some users were abusing the new policy to remove legitimate media.

Under the policy, which was announced on Nov. 30, Twitter users could ask the company to remove photos and videos of themselves posted to the platform without their permission. Twitter said there were exceptions, including photos and videos taken at public events, such as protests, those taken by journalists, or those that were in the public interest.

However, Twitter soon “became aware of a significant amount of coordinated and malicious reports,” a spokesperson told ABC, “and unfortunately, our enforcement teams made several errors.”

“It was completely predictable,” said David Greene, civil liberties director and senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The policy was too broad and too imprecise, so it was very quickly abused, he said, adding, “I don’t think anyone was really surprised. Only surprised by how fast.”

The day after the policy was introduced, Sean Carmitchel, a freelance videographer in California, who covers protests, said he found himself locked out of his account. Two of his tweets had been flagged as violating the policy.

“It’s frankly a pretty boring tweet,” he told ABC News. “The thread itself was of an anti-mask rally which was counter-protested and ended up in a very brief shouting match. What’s funny is that I wasn’t even sure what the tweet was until I was able to get back on Twitter.”

Carmitchel said he doesn’t know who reported him. However, he showed ABC screenshots, which we verified, from right-wing accounts calling for him to be targeted.

The caption on a post on the messaging app Telegram read: “…NOW is the time to mass report for them posting piks [sic] of patriots without their consent and with the intent to cause harm! We need to get these doxxer accounts shut down! LET’S GO BRANDON!”

After Carmitchel was locked out of Twitter, a user on Gab, a rival social network, posted a screenshot of the Twitter notification Carmitchel received and wrote: “Keep going. Antifa ‘press’ are getting hit with their doxing riot videos.”

The Gab account owner also posted that he had “made over 50 reports myself today. Keep reporting all Antifa who post any media (video/photos). It’s time to stay on the offensive.”

In the wake of the introduction of Twitter’s policy, multiple other reports emerged of far-right activists misusing it.

Carmitchel’s challenged tweets contained videos he had filmed of small public protests in January and March. Once Twitter had ruled that the two tweets violated the new policy, Carmitchel said his account was suspended until he either deleted them or appealed the decision. Carmitchel, who relies on Twitter for his livelihood, said he chose to delete one and appeal the other. Carmitchel said his account was then restored without an explanation from Twitter.

Twitter has said that this new policy is an extension of existing rules preventing private information such as addresses or telephone numbers from being posted publicly. It is based on Right To Privacy laws in place around the world, including in the European Union, and extends those rules to all Twitter users whether they live in such jurisdictions or not.

The new policy is “a very egregious overreach” of regulation in the free-speech-versus-privacy debate, according to Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association.

Immediately after the introduction of the policy, he accused Twitter of misunderstanding U.S. law, tweeting that “a person photographed in a public place has NO reasonable expectation of privacy.” If Twitter chose to enforce the policy, it would “be undermining the ability to report newsworthy events by creating nonexistent privacy rights,” he said.

As a private company, Twitter can regulate speech on the platform however it wants, Osterreicher told ABC News, but he said the new policy has dangerous implications because it may embolden those who think they have no right to be photographed in public.

In the past, NPPA members have experienced resistance, often violent, to being photographed in public from both sides of the political spectrum, he said. Osterreicher told ABC he isn’t aware of left-wing abuse of the Twitter policy, but said: “We’re seeing it from the far right, but it could easily be from people on the left.”

Samir Jain, director of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said he agreed. “There’s a chilling effect on speech on the platform,” he told ABC News. He said that account suspension is a significant penalty, and the threat creates a deterrent effect.

“If you know that particular photos of extremists result in a suspension, even if that’s eventually overturned, it will make you reluctant to post them even if they’re in the public interest,” Jain said.

Explaining why they see the new policy as necessary, a Twitter spokesperson told ABC about a photo of a rape victim that was shared widely in a country without Right to Privacy laws.

“This led to revelation of their identity,” the spokesperson said. “Twitter had no policy basis for enforcement, but the expansion of this rule would close that gap.”

Twitter does already have a “Non-consensual nudity” policy that allows it to remove some media, but with a much narrower scope. That policy applies only to explicit sexual images or videos.

Greene, Osterreicher and Carmitchel said the policy was aimed at an issue Twitter should address. But, Osterreicher said, it was easy to see how the policy would be misused. “How could they not have foreseen this?” he said.

“I am sensitive to having to fix online issues of doxing,” Carmitchel said, but this is having “the opposite effect — silencing people who are speaking out about perpetrators of crimes. I think we can all agree that there’s a difference between showing a photo of a rape victim and showing a video of someone assaulting a counter protestor.”

Carmitchel said the exemptions in Twitter’s policy — including videos shot by journalists or those in the public interest — were vague.

“Twitter is having to make value-based judgements, and not easy value-based judgements,” Greene said.

Twitter has said that after receiving a report “that particular media will be reviewed before any enforcement action is taken.” The company did not reply to a question from ABC about how many take-down requests it has received.

Osterreicher said it was a step too far and Greene said he thought the policy should have been more specific, perhaps just targeting sexual harassment, for example. He said he hoped Twitter would revise it.

“I wouldn’t want to see this replicated by other [social media] sites — certainly not as broadly as it was rolled out by Twitter,” he said. “I think it is too subject to manipulation, involves too many impossible decisions.”

There should be a clear and timely appeals process, according to Jain, and part of that is clearer guidelines and appropriate training for Twitter moderators.

For Carmitchel, the tweet he appealed is back online, but the tweet he deleted is, of course, gone.

A Twitter spokesperson did not reply to ABC’s request for comment on Cartmitchel’s case, but acknowledged errors were made.

“We’ve corrected those errors and are undergoing an internal review to make certain that this policy is used as intended — to curb the misuse of media to harass or intimidate private individuals,” the spokesperson said.

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(NEW YORK) — An Asian American software engineer who was lauded for creating a free website to help people find COVID-19 vaccine appointments, and using the platform to raise awareness about the uptick in anti-Asian racism amid the pandemic, has announced he will now run for state office.

Huge Ma, known on Twitter as “TurboVax” or “VaxDaddy,” announced Monday he is running as a Democratic candidate for New York’s Assembly to represent the 37th District, which comprises of western Queens in New York City.

The political newcomer rose to fame earlier this year, when the website he made on his own time and dime, TurboVax, became a widely-used tool for New Yorkers trying to navigate the headache-inducing search for vaccine appointments. After spending hours refreshing and scouring multiple government-run websites, Ma programmed a website that compiled information from city and state websites and announced appointment availabilities in near-real time on Twitter.

The website was spotlighted in the New York Times and Ma estimates hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers used it to help book vaccine appointments during the arduous early days of the rollout. Then, when a spate of racist attacks targeting Asian Americans, believed to be linked to biases related to the coronavirus pandemic, filled communities across the country with fear and rage, Ma abruptly shut the website down for two days.

“I wanted to illustrate, through this action of taking the site down for two days, that if we as a country don’t listen to the concerns of Asian Americans, then we risk losing the contributions of Asian Americans as well,” Ma told ABC News in March.

During the brief website shutdown, Ma urged his followers and website visitors to donate to a community-based group aimed at supporting New York City’s Chinatown. He wrote on Twitter at the time, “And if you think contributions of Asian-Americans are replaceable, ask your government how their version of TurboVax is going.”

In a campaign website launched on Monday, Ma said he “deeply struggled” with the decision to shut down the site for two days in March, but that in the end he raised some $200,000 for the nonprofit Welcome to Chinatown and was able to highlight not only the contributions that Asian Americans bring to society but also give credence to his community’s suffering that many felt went unseen.

“I built TurboVax because the system was broken,” Ma stated on his campaign website. “When the Mayor and Governor couldn’t come together to deliver a single website to find a vaccine, I used my technology background to deliver a platform that helped hundreds of thousands of teachers, grocery store workers and other regular New Yorkers get the vaccine.”

“But with the eyes of New York on TurboVax, I decided to use its moment to bring attention to another epidemic: the wave of anti-Asian hate,” he added.

Ma is running on a progressive platform, according to to his campaign website, and is focusing on taking action to slow climate change, investing in public transit and affordable housing and building robust technology infrastructure to solve problems and empower New Yorkers.

“I took action when the needs of my neighbors weren’t being addressed,” Ma wrote on his campaign website.

“I’m taking action now because we need a representative who will address our needs in District 37,” Ma wrote. “I am running for the Queensbridge tenant who lives with lead paint, for the Sunnyside resident facing a rent hike and for the frustrated Ridgewood commuter waiting for their bus to arrive.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. I will take on the challenges of today with creativity and urgency,” he added. “Let’s work together and build a New York that works for all of us.”

Longtime Democratic incumbent Catherine Nolan, who was first elected to the state Assembly in 1984, currently holds the seat Ma is running for. But residents in New York City’s Queens borough are famous for their willingness to embrace political change, after all, in 2018 voters elected then-political newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to represent New York’s 14th congressional district, unseating a 10-term incumbent.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will announce the administration’s EV Charging Action Plan on Monday to fast-track a nationwide charging network for electric vehicles.

The plan outlines steps for how federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation, can support the president’s EV goals. Biden said he would like half of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030.

EVs currently make up 2% of the U.S. market. Sales of electrified vehicles — pure battery electric vehicles, hybrids and plug-in hybrids — accounted for 10.4% of total vehicle sales in the third-quarter of 2021, according to Kelley Blue Book, an all-time high. The best-selling EV in the U.S. is Tesla’s Model Y.

A joint office will be set up between the Energy and Transportation agencies to leverage resources and build the nationwide network, according to the administration. Industry insiders argue that a million DC fast chargers — which allow drivers to recharge 80% of a vehicle’s battery in 30 minutes — are needed to reach Biden’s EV targets. There are currently fewer than 46,000 EV public charging sites in the U.S., according to Department of Energy data.

Creating a convenient, national charging infrastructure will build public confidence in EVs, according to the administration, which is focusing efforts on adding charging stations in rural, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach locations.

The DOT will also publish guidance no later than Feb. 11, 2022, for how cities and states can strategically deploy EV charging stations as part of this network. Meeting the needs of disadvantaged and rural communities and bringing on private investment are also important for achieving an electric future, the administration said. By May, the DOT will “publish standards for EV chargers in the national network to ensure they work, they’re safe and they’re accessible to everyone, according to the White House.

Moreover, the DOT and DOE will work directly with U.S. automakers on EV charging manufacturing, assembly, installation and maintenance to “drive domestic competitiveness and create good-paying, union jobs.”

General Motors has plans to unveil 30 new electric vehicles by 2025, including the Cadillac Lyriq SUV and an all-electric Silverado truck. Ford said it plans to increase production of EVs to 600,000 units globally by 2030, making it the second-largest producer of EVs after Tesla.

President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package includes $7.5 billion toward a nationwide network of 500,000 EV charging stations by 2030.

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(NEW YORK) — Consumer prices are continuing to climb, causing new pain for Americans’ pocketbooks, as inflation tightens its grip on the economy and hobbles the post-pandemic recovery.

The consumer price index, which measures the prices consumers pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services, jumped 0.8% last month after rising 0.9% in October, the Department of Labor reported Friday. Over the last 12 months, the index climbed some 6.8% before seasonal adjustment. This marks the largest 12-month increase in nearly 40 years.

While inflation is already wreaking havoc on holiday shopping, it’s especially painful for households with limited means to absorb higher prices for essentials. Policymakers including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in recent weeks have also began walking back on assurances that it was likely a temporary, post-pandemic blip.

The so-called core index, a measure of all prices less the more volatile food and energy indices, rose 0.5% in November, building on a 0.6% increase in October. The core index climbed 4.9% over the last 12 months, the DOL said.

“Inflation is outpacing increases in household income and weighing heavily on consumer confidence, which is at a decade low,” Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate, said in a commentary to ABC News shortly after the data was released Friday. “It is only a matter of time before it impacts consumer spending in a material way.”

The energy index rose 33.3% over the last year after climbing 3.5% in November alone.

The food index jumped 6.1% over the last year and soared 0.7% in November.

The changes in the food and energy index mark the largest 12-month increase in at least 13 years, the DOL said.

Some of the largest contributors to soaring prices were increases in prices for gasoline, shelter, food, used and new vehicles and trucks.

Economists have attributed the rapidly climbing prices to supply-demand imbalances lingering from the pandemic shock to the economy, as labor shortages and supply chains issues result in supply not being able to keep up with the post-pandemic consumer demand for goods and services.

The painful price rises are also coming as many Americans prepare to celebrate the holidays with family and friends for the first time since a COVID-19 vaccine rolled out.

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