Archives for February 2021

Florida lawmakers challenge Silicon Valley over ‘censorship’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, intensified their battle with Facebook, Twitter and Silicon Valley when they announced new proposals Tuesday aimed at reigning in platforms they accuse of squelching the free speech of conservatives.

“Over the years, these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provide Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives,” the governor said Tuesday during a news conference at the Florida Capitol.

Social media companies have been simultaneously praised and condemned in recent weeks as they cracked down on inciteful posts they said could foment further violence after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Conservatives have long accused social media companies and other tech giants of harboring bias against them. Republicans in other states are considering similar bills that push back against social media giants they deem unfriendly.

“Florida is taking back the virtual public square as a place where information and ideas can flow freely. We’re demanding transparency from the big tech giants,” state House Speaker Chris Sprowls said.

About four in every five Americans — some 250 million people — have profiles on social media. Th ose with substantial followings, including elected officials, celebrities and other public figures, have platforms they can readily deploy to amplify their messaging.

On a call with analysts last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant was attempting to “turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversations and communities.” He added that “people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services.”

Amazon booted Parler off its web-hosting service five days after the Capitol insurrection. It said in court filings that it did so as a last resort to keep Parler from being used as a venue to disseminate plans for disrupting government and last month’s inauguration of President Joe Biden.

A federal judge in Seattle later ruled Amazon would not be required to restore web service to Parler, an online social media platform that mostly attracts conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump.

The moves by Florida lawmakers may end up being mere political theater because it’s uncertain if the state would have the authority to act on companies with such national and global reach. In fact, the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 shields internet companies from many legal challenges.

Legal experts say states and other local jurisdictions have a high bar in justifying regulations that might infringe on free speech issues — but the matter could be ripe for a national discussion on how to regulate Internet companies, according to Clay Calvert, a first amendment expert at the University of Florida’s law school.

Besides, he said, “do we want a crazy quilt of state regulations or do we want uniform rules adopted on the federal level?”

State Senate President Wilton Simpson suggested that the federal arena may be the proper venue for regulating tech companies.

“There’s not much we can do as a state. But we need Congress to act on a nationwide basis,” he said.

“The big tech companies have the duty to allow differing views on their public platforms. No one should be excluded,” Simpson said. “But let’s be clear: They are targeting conservatives.”

He said it amounts to political censorship.

One proposal in the state Senate would force Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to give users a month’s notice before their accounts are disabled or suspended. The bill was filed after Twitter suspended Trump’s account after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Another proposal that was to be filed Tuesday would prohibit companies from suspending the account of a political candidate and be subject to a fine of $100,000 for each day the account of a statewide candidate is blocked, or $10,000 a day for other office seekers.

The proposal also would allow consumers to the sue if they’ve been treated unfairly and would authorize the state attorney general to take on the country’s largest tech companies for anti-competitive practices. Social media companies would be required to reveal how they became aware of any content they censor.

“We’re definitely at a boiling point,” said Darrell West, the vice president of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “Most of these issues have come up just in the last year, as social media platforms have become more aggressive about regulating their own space.”

While Republicans lawmakers assert bias against conservative thought, a New York University study released Monday concludes that is a baseless claim.

“Conservatives are drawn to the established platforms for the same reason liberals are: That’s where you can reach the largest audiences and enjoy the benefits of the network effect,” said the study’s authors.

“And as much as they condemn supposed social media favoritism,” the authors continued, “conservatives appear to relish wielding the bias-claim cudgel, even though it’s based on distortions and falsehoods.”

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Follow Bobby Caina Calvan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BobbyCalvan.

Hit by pandemic, oil giants Exxon, BP post huge 2020 losses

DALLAS (AP) — Oil giants Exxon and BP reported staggering losses for 2020 on Tuesday as the pandemic crushed energy demand and undercut oil prices.

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported the largest losses in its history — nearly $20.1 billion for the fourth quarter, including more than $19 billion to write down the value of company assets. For the full year, it lost $22.4 billion.

BP PLC posted a profit of $825 million in the fourth quarter but still lost $18.1 billion in 2020. The results came after Chevron reported last week that it lost $5.5 billion last year.

Signs point to better results for the oil giants this year. Crude prices are up roughly 50% in the past three months, including a gain of more than 10% since Jan. 1, as major producers led by Saudi Arabia have cut output.

The oil companies are hoping that the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines will mean a return to more normal life for businesses and consumers, which would in turn boost demand for oil and natural gas.

Energy demand slumped last year as the pandemic led to lockdowns and a dramatic drop in energy for uses such as transportation.

“Energy consumption collapsed as economies shut down, oil prices hit their lowest point in history, and refining margins fell well below their 10-year lows,” said Exxon CEO Darren Woods. ”It was the first time in memory that we saw simultaneous lows in each of our businesses.”

Irving, Texas-based Exxon is responding by cutting costs. It expects by 2023 to cut $6 billion in annual spending compared with 2019 levels.

Exxon’s big fourth-quarter loss contrasted with a profit of $5.7 billion a year earlier. Excluding the massive write-downs and other impairment costs, the company said it earned 3 cents per share. Analysts on average expected a penny per share profit, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue dropped 31% to $46.5 billion.

Exxon has long been under pressure from activist shareholders to focus more on renewable fuels and pivot away from its fossil-fuel legacy.

The company said Tuesday it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations and has created a division to “commercialize” technology it hopes to develop to capture carbon emissions before they enter the atmosphere — Exxon believes technology can address climate change and save the oil and gas business at the same time.

However, one of the company’s activist shareholders, investment firm Engine No. 1, said Exxon’s announcements don’t change the company’s long-term course “nor do they position it to succeed in a changing world.” The fund said Exxon is headed for decades of destroying shareholder value by assuming that oil and gas production will continue to grow even in the face of efforts to reduce climate change.

Last week, Engine No. 1 nominated four candidates for Exxon’s board of directors, which will be chosen in May.

London-based BP last year announced it will seek to become a net zero producer of carbon emissions by 2050. However, the company is still bringing new oil and gas projects into operation.

BP is also cutting costs.

“We began reinventing BP, with nearly 10,000 people leaving the company,” CEO Bernard Looney said in a statement. “We strengthened our finances — taking out costs and closing major divestments.”

Exxon shares rose 71 cents, or 1.6%, to close Tuesday at $45.63. BP’s shares dropped $1.46, or 6.6% to $20.75.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the investment fund challenging Exxon. It is Engine No. 1, not Engine 1.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, will step down as CEO

NEW YORK (AP) — Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a shopping and entertainment behemoth, will step down later this year as CEO, a role he’s had for nearly 30 years, to become executive chairman, the company announced Tuesday.

Bezos, 57, will be replaced in the summer by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon’s cloud-computing business.

In a blog post to employees, Bezos said he planned to focus on new products and early initiatives being developed at Amazon. He said he would have more time for side projects, including his space exploration company Blue Origin, his philanthropic initiatives and overseeing The Washington Post, which he owns.

Bezos, who is the company’s biggest shareholder, will still have broad influence over Amazon.

“Jeff is really not going anywhere,” Amazon’s Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said in a call with reporters. “It’s more of a restructuring of who’s doing what.”

Launched in 1995, Amazon was a pioneer of fast, free shipping that won over millions of shoppers who used the site to buy diapers, TVs and just about anything else. Under Bezos, Amazon also launched the first e-reader that gained mass acceptance, and its Echo listening device made voice assistants a common sight in living rooms.

As a child, Bezos was intrigued by computers and interested in building things, such as alarms he rigged in his parents’ home. He got a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University, and then worked at several Wall Street companies.

He quit his job at D.E. Shaw to start an online retail business — though at first he wasn’t sure what to sell. Bezos quickly determined that an online bookstore would resonate with consumers. He and his now ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, whom he met at D.E. Shaw and married in 1993, set out on a road trip to Seattle — a city chosen for its abundance of tech talent and proximity to a large book distributor in Roseburg, Oregon.

While Scott drove, Bezos wrote up the business plan for what would become Amazon.com. Bezos convinced his parents and some friends to invest in the idea, and Amazon began operating out of the Bezos’ Seattle garage on July 16, 1995.

Amazon has gone far beyond selling paperbacks. It now produces movies, makes sofas, owns a grocery chain and even has plans to send satellites into space to beam internet service to earth. The company is one of the most valuable in the world, worth nearly $1.7 trillion.

During the pandemic, Amazon was one of the few retailers to benefit as shoppers stayed clear of malls and shopped from their phones. On the same day Amazon announced Bezos would step down, the company reported making a record profit in the last three months of 2020, and its quarterly revenue shot past $100 billion for the first time.

Bezos’ riches have also swelled: His stake in Amazon is currently worth about $180 billion. For years he stayed behind the scenes, running the company. More recently, he sometimes stepped into the spotlight, showing up at movie premieres and Hollywood parties.

In 2019, he announced he was divorcing Scott in a tweet, just before the National Enquirer published a cover story saying Bezos had an affair with a former TV host. Scott received a stake in Amazon after the divorce worth nearly $40 billion at the time. She has pledged to give away half her fortune to charities.

As Amazon has grown, so has scrutiny. Amazon and other tech giants have enjoyed light-touch regulation and star status in Washington for decades, but calls for greater regulation are growing. A report by the House Judiciary Committee in October called for possibly breaking up Amazon and others, making it harder for them to acquire companies and imposing new rules to safeguard competition.

Bezos is one of the last founders of a big tech company to still be CEO. The founders of Google, Oracle and Microsoft have all stepped down from the top job of the companies they created. Facebook is still led by co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Jassy, Bezos’ replacement, is a longtime Amazon executive, having worked at the company since 1997. The cloud-computing business he runs powers video-streaming site Netflix and many other companies, and it has become Amazon’s most profitable business.

“He’s deeply steeped in technology and a very seasoned executive in his own right,” Gartner analyst Ed Anderson said.

But he will also face many challenges.

“Amazon’s size makes some industries uncomfortable, some governments uncomfortable, and Andy Jassy will have to deal with the consequences,” Anderson said. “That will be some of the new era of his leadership.”

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Associated Press writers Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, Mae Anderson in New York and Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report. ___

This story has been updated to correct the transition period to summer, not fall.

People in Myanmar honk horns, bang on pots to protest coup

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Scores of people in Myanmar’s largest city honked car horns and banged on pots and pans Tuesday in the first known public resistance to the coup led a day earlier by the country’s military.

What was initially planned to take place for just a few minutes extended to more than a quarter-hour in several neighborhoods of Yangon. Shouts could be heard wishing detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi good health and calling for freedom.

“Beating a drum in Myanmar culture is like we are kicking out the devils,” said one participant who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.

Several pro-democracy groups had asked people to make noise at 8 p.m. to show their opposition to the coup.

A senior politician and close confidante of Suu Kyi also urged citizens to defy the military through civil disobedience.

Win Htein, a leader of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, spoke Tuesday from a small party office in the capital, Naypyitaw, not far from where hundreds of lawmakers elected in the November vote were detained when the military seized power Monday in a lightning takeover.

“The curse of the coup is rooted in our country, and this is the reason why our country still remains poor. I feel sad and upset for our fellow citizens and for their future,” the former political prisoner said.

“All the voters who gave their backing to us in the 2020 general election should follow Aung San Suu Kyi’s instructions to carry out civil disobedience,” he said, referring to a note posted Monday on Facebook attributed to her.

The military began to lift restrictions Tuesday on the hundreds of members of Parliament who had been confined at a guarded government housing complex, with the new government telling them to go back to their homes, party spokesman Kyi Toe said.

He said Suu Kyi was in good health at a separate location where she was being held and would stay there for the time being. His comments couldn’t immediately be confirmed.

The coup came as lawmakers gathered in the capital for the opening of a new parliamentary session. The military said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud in November’s election, in which Suu Kyi’s party won a majority of seats. It claimed the takeover was legal under the constitution. The move was widely condemned abroad.

The coup highlights the extent to which the generals ultimately maintained control in Myanmar, despite more than a decade of talk about democratic reforms. Western countries had greeted the move toward democracy enthusiastically, removing sanctions they had in place for years.

It comes as Myanmar faces a growing coronavirus outbreak. As of Tuesday, it had over 140,300 confirmed cases, including about 3,100 deaths. The country has just received its first supply of vaccines from India.

Win Htein heavily criticized the generals for the impact he said the coup would have on efforts to protect lives.

“These people, they are super crazy to do this. They are not courageous,” he said. “The virus still remains, and the people are struggling a lot. Their only priority is power and their personal desire.”

As a result, he said, “vaccines will be delayed, the economy will go down and there will be pressure from other countries.”

The takeover presents a test for the international community. U.S. President Joe Biden called the military’s actions “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law” and threatened new sanctions. The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday but took no action.

Suu Kyi’s party released a statement Tuesday calling for the military to honor the results of the election and release all of those detained — as have the leaders of many other countries.

“The commander in chief seizing the power of the nation is against the constitution and it also neglects the sovereign power of people,” the party said.

An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV on Monday said Commander in Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year. A new Cabinet composed of current and former generals and former advisers to a previous government headed by former Gen. Thein Sein held its first meeting Tuesday.

The takeover marked a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then became its de facto leader after her party won elections in 2015.

Suu Kyi had been a fierce critic of the army during her years in detention. But after her shift from democracy icon to politician, she worked with the generals, who despite allowing elections maintained control of key ministries and guaranteed themselves enough seats in Parliament to have veto power over any constitutional changes.

The U.N. envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, urged the U.N. Security Council “to collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar.”

She said the Security Council’s fundamental role must be “ensuring democracy is expeditiously restored and the country does not fall back into isolation.” Diplomats said that was the key element of a draft statement for the council to release, along with a call for the immediate release of all those detained.

But the statement was not issued because it requires support from all 15 council members, and China, which has close ties to Myanmar, and Russia said they needed to send it to their capitals, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

British U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, the Security Council president, said, “Discussions will continue among council colleagues on next steps. I certainly hope that we will be able to speak with one voice.”

Vaccinations resume as not-quite-historic snowstorm fades

BOSTON (AP) — Coronavirus vaccination sites across the Northeast ramped back up Tuesday after a two-day snowstorm that also shut down public transport, closed schools and stranded travelers with canceled flights.

Some officials said that since vaccine supplies were thin to begin with, they didn’t anticipate having big problems getting caught up on distribution after a day or two of cancelled appointments.

In New Jersey, travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday described being forced to endure widespread disruptions. Keno Walter-White said he got stranded at the airport after his flight was canceled and bus and tram services were suspended.

“I’ve been in the airport for three days, snowed in,” said Walter-White, of Las Vegas. “No kind of accommodations.”

Bands of snow continued through parts of the region Tuesday afternoon, but the worst was over, with more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) in parts of New Jersey and just a few inches in Boston.

Lara Pagano, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in College Park, Maryland, noted that while several areas in the mid-Atlantic saw measurable snowfall for a few consecutive days, that hasn’t shattered such records.

For example, she said, the most consecutive days with measured snowfall for Washington is four, while the mark is five for New York City and six for Philadelphia.

“While this storm has been a prolonged event, it’s not a record-setter in that sense, but it does rank up there pretty high of course,” she said.

The sprawling, lumbering storm had already walloped the eastern United States by Monday. More than 17 inches (43 centimeters) of snow dropped on Manhattan’s Central Park, and as much as 30 inches (76 centimeters) was reported in northern New Jersey.

While New York City school kids had another day of all-remote learning because of the snow, above-ground subway and train service returned early Tuesday, and a ban on certain large trucks on state highways was lifted. Some vaccination sites in the city remained closed, but others, including those run by the public hospital system, were open Tuesday.

High tide caused flooding early Tuesday in coastal areas of Massachusetts, where the storm had already disrupted the second phase of the state’s vaccine rollout as a Boston site that was supposed to open Monday for residents ages 75 and older did not; some other mass vaccination sites remained open.

Several areas of Massachusetts were hit with 18-plus inches (45 centimeters) of snow, including the central Massachusetts communities of Fitchburg, Lunenburg and Ashburnham.

Much of southern New Hampshire got about a foot of snow. Parts of northern New Hampshire, where the state’s ski resorts and most of the snowmobile trails are, got 9 to 10 inches (22 to 25 centimeters.

“For the next couple of weeks, the conditions are going to be phenomenal,” Gov. Chris Sununu said Tuesday during an interview on WZID-FM.

The storm raged offshore, making it inhospitable for mariners. Off the Maine coast, waves were approaching 30 feet (9 meters), and a 73-mph (117-kph) gust was recorded at an offshore buoy.

In Connecticut, the storm — which dumped up to 19 inches (48 centimeters) of snow in some areas — forced the cancellations of 10,000 vaccination appointments Monday, state officials said. Efforts are under way to provide vaccinations by the end of the week to people whose appointments were canceled.

A state of emergency imposed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy remained in effect Tuesday and the state’s six megasites for COVID-19 vaccines were still closed as plow operators faced snow showers and blowing snow.

The New Jersey State Police reported that as of 7 p.m. Monday, troopers had responded to 661 crashes and come to the aid of 1,050 motorists since 6 p.m. Sunday.

There was also concern about coastal flooding in New Jersey. In a Facebook video posted by Union Beach Police, Keyport Police Chief Shannon Torres and Capt. Michael Ferm were shown rescuing a man who was showing signs of hypothermia in his car from floodwaters.

In Virginia, four firefighters were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not life threatening after their firetruck overturned Sunday on snow-covered roads in Henrico County, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Power outages appeared to be minimal. About 5,000 customers in Massachusetts and about 3,000 in New York were without power Tuesday morning.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf declared a disaster emergency after snowfall of up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) throughout central and eastern regions. The proclamation freed up millions of dollars for snow removal and authorized officials to request help from the National Guard.

Authorities said a 67-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who wandered away from her home was found dead of hypothermia on an Allentown street Monday morning.

About 60 miles (97 kilometers) north in Plains Township, a shooting after an argument over snow removal killed a married couple, and the suspect was later found dead at his nearby home of a wound believed to have been self-inflicted, officials in Luzerne County said.

Archives for February 2021

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