Archives for October 2021

FINANCIAL MARKETS

Stocks wobble ahead of corporate earnings, inflation data

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are wobbling on Wall Street as traders wait for more data on inflation and corporate earnings this week. The S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq were all down 0.2% in afternoon trading. A mix of retailers and other companies that rely on direct consumer spending gained ground, but those gains were offset by falling technology and communications stocks. U.S. crude oil prices rose were holding above $80 a barrel. European markets were mostly lower and Asian markets also closed mostly lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.59%.

JOB OPENINGS

Americans quit their jobs at a record pace in August

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new report illustrates one reason U.S. employers are having trouble filling jobs: Americans are quitting in droves. The Labor Department says quits jumped to 4.3 million in August, the highest on records dating back to December 2000, and up from 4 million in July. Hiring also slowed in August. The report shows the number of jobs available fell to 10.4 million from a record high of 11.1 million the previous month. The data strongly suggests that the delta variant wreaked havoc on the job market in August. As COVID-19 cases surged, quits jumped in restaurants and hotels and rose in other public-facing jobs, such as retail and education.

HOLIDAY HIRING

Companies scraping for staff ahead of the holidays

NEW YORK (AP) — Companies that typically hire thousands of seasonal workers are heading into the holidays during one of the tightest job markets in decades, making it unlikely they’ll find all the workers they need. For shoppers, it might mean a less than jolly holiday shopping experience, with bare store shelves and online orders that take longer than usual to fill. Employers are so desperate to find holiday workers they’re raising pay above $15 an hour, offering four-figure sign-on bonuses and promising to pay their schooling. If they can’t find the workers they need, employers will likely rely on existing staff to work more overtime, which can become costly for businesses and lead to burnout for workers.

SOCIAL SECURITY-COST OF LIVING

Sizeable increase expected in Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rising inflation is expected to lead to a sizeable increase in Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for the year 2022. Exactly how much will be revealed Wednesday morning. Over the last 10 years, the COLA averaged about 1.7% annually as inflation remained low. But the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has seen rising prices for a wide range of goods and services, and that’s expected to translate to bigger checks for retirees. The biggest annual COLA increase in recent memory was 5.8% for 2009. Wednesday’s number could rival that.

IMF-WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

IMF foresees a slight drop in global growth from pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund is slightly downgrading its outlook for the global recovery from the pandemic recession. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF foresees global growth this year of 5.9%, compared with its projection in July of 6%. For the United States, the IMF predicts growth of 6% for 2021, down from its July forecast of 7%. The downward revision reflects a slowdown in economic activity resulting from a rise in COVID-19 cases and delayed production caused by supply shortages and a resulting acceleration of inflation.

FOOD-BANKS

Fewer in US turn to food banks, but millions still in need

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunger and food insecurity across the United States have dropped measurably over the past six months, but the need remains far above pre-pandemic levels. Specialists in hunger issues warn the situation for millions of families remains extremely fragile. An Associated Press review of bulk distribution numbers from hundreds of food banks across the country reveals a clear downward trend in the amount of food handed out by food banks across the country. It started in the spring as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout took hold and closed sectors of the economy began to reopen. Feeding America CEO Katie Fitzgerald says, “It’s come down, but it’s still elevated.”

VIRUS OUTBREAK-BOOSTERS

FDA considers boosters of Moderna, J&J vaccines

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans who got Pfizer vaccinations are rolling up their sleeves for a booster shot. Meanwhile, millions who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine are waiting for their turn. Federal regulators begin tackling that question this week. On Thursday and Friday, the Food and Drug Administration convenes its independent advisers for the first stage in the process of deciding whether extra shots of the two vaccines should be dispensed and, if so, who should get them and when. Then a CDC panel will offer more specifics. Vaccinations have climbed back above 1 million per day on average in the U.S., an increase of more than 50% in the past two weeks. The rise has been driven mainly by Pfizer boosters and employer vaccine mandates.

KAISER-HEALTH-CARE-UNIONS

Kaiser Permanente hit by strike votes in California, Oregon

LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than 24,000 nurses and other health-care workers at Kaiser Permanente in California and Oregon have overwhelmingly authorized a strike over pay and working conditions strained by the coronavirus pandemic. Similar strike votes could come in a half-dozen other states against Kaiser, one of the nation’s largest health care providers. The unions object to Kaiser’s proposal to give newer employees lower pay and fewer health protections. They also want 4% raises for each the next three years and a commitment to hire more nurses to relieve staffing shortages. Kaiser is offering 1% a year and says it must reduce labor costs to remain competitive.

SOUTHWEST-CANCELED FLIGHTS

Southwest limits canceled flights after 3 tumultuous days

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines appears to be fixing problems that caused the cancellation of nearly 2,400 flights over the previous three days. By midday Tuesday, Southwest had canceled fewer than 100 flights, although more than 400 others were running late. That’s according to tracking service FlightAware. Southwest says bad weather and air traffic control issues in Florida on Friday trapped planes and pilots out of position, causing cascading problems for flights across the country.

FACEBOOK-VIOLENT VIDEO-COMPLAINT

Slain reporter’s father takes on Facebook over violent video

WASHINGTON (AP) — The family of a slain journalist is asking the Federal Trade Commission to take action against Facebook for failing to remove online footage of her shooting death. Andy Parker says the company is violating its own terms of service in hosting videos on Facebook and its sibling service Instagram that glorify violence. His daughter, TV news reporter Alison Parker, and cameraman Adam Ward were killed by a former co-worker while reporting for Roanoke, Virginia’s WDBJ-TV in August 2015. A complaint filed Tuesday with the FTC says Facebook is engaging in deceptive trade practices by violating its own terms of service and misrepresenting the safety of the platform.

NATURAL GAS PIPELINE-SUPREME COURT

Spire asks Supreme Court to keep pipeline operational

UNDATED (AP) — The St. Louis-based natural gas company Spire Inc. is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to keep operating a pipeline through Illinois and Missouri, warning that a winter shutdown could be devastating to St. Louis-area customers. In a filing last week, Spire requested a stay that would allow operation of its Spire STL Pipeline until the issue is resolved in the courts. If the Supreme Court declines to take up the case, operation of the pipeline could cease on Dec. 13 unless the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission extends an emergency order granted in September.

GENERAL MOTORS-BATTERY RECALL COSTS

GM reaches deal with LG to pay for Bolt battery recall costs

DETROIT (AP) — LG Electronics has reached a deal with General Motors to pay as much as $2 billion to reimburse the automaker for the cost of recalling Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles due to battery fires. The automaker announced the deal in a statement early Tuesday. GM says it will show a $1.9 billion to $2 billion estimated recovery in its third-quarter earnings that will offset charges associated with the recalls. In August GM expanded a previous recall to more than 140,000 Bolt electric vehicles sold worldwide since 2016 because a battery manufacturing defect could cause the vehicles to catch fire. The recall follows reports of 13 battery fires, GM said, which can occur when two separate defects are present in the battery modules.

FRANCE-ECONOMY

France’s $35B innovation plan includes nuclear reactor funds

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a 5-year, 30 billion-euro ($35 billion) investment plan for developing innovative technology, including small nuclear reactors, electric cars and greener airplanes. Macron said Tuesday that the goal of the state-funded France 2030 plan is to boost France’s economic growth over the next decade amid growing global competition with China and the United States. The plan includes 8 billion euros ($9.2 billion) to develop energy technology that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Macron said the funding would finance the building of small, modular nuclear reactors in France, which relies on nuclear power for 70% of its electricity.

FISHERIES-BALTICS

EU announces cuts in Baltic catches of herring, cod

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is imposing cuts in catches of cod and herring in the Baltic Sea to make sure both threatened stock and the region’s fishing fleet have a chance of survival. The sea off several of the EU’s northern member states has been suffering from pollution, high water temperatures and too many vessels chasing too few fish over the past years, pushing EU ministers to impose some tougher measures Tuesday. Under the measures, catches for Western cod, once abundant, will be cut by 88% next year while Eastern Baltic cod will be kept at a highly reduced level, down 70% compared with two years ago.

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LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The final frontier has rarely seemed closer than this — at least virtually.

Researchers at one of Switzerland’s top universities are releasing open-source beta software on Tuesday that allows for virtual visits through the cosmos including up to the International Space Station, past the Moon, Saturn or exoplanets, over galaxies and well beyond.

The program — called Virtual Reality Universe Project, or VIRUP — pulls together what the researchers call the largest data set of the universe to create three-dimensional, panoramic visualizations of space.

Software engineers, astrophysicists and experimental museology experts at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, or EPFL, have come together to concoct the virtual map that can be viewed through individual VR gear, immersion systems like panoramic cinema with 3D glasses, planetarium-like dome screens, or just on a PC for two-dimensional viewing.

“The novelty of this project was putting all the data set available into one framework, when you can see the universe at different scales — nearby us, around the Earth, around the solar system, at the Milky Way level, to see through the universe and time up to the beginning — what we call the Big Bang,” said Jean-Paul Kneib, director of EPFL’s astrophysics lab.

Think a sort of Google Earth — but for the universe. Computer algorithms churn up terabytes of data and produce images that can appear as close as one meter (about three feet), or almost infinitely far away — as if you sit back and look at the entire observable universe.

VIRUP is accessible to everyone for free — though it does require at least a computer and is best visualized with VR equipment or 3D capabilities. It aims to draw in a broad array of visitors, both scientists looking to visualize the data they continue to collect and a broad public seeking to explore the heavens virtually.

Still a work in progress, for now, the beta version can’t be run on a Mac computer. Downloading the software and content might seem onerous for the least-skilled computer users, and space — on a computer — will count. The broader-public version of the content is a reduced-size version that can be quantified in gigabytes, a sort of best-of highlights. Astronomy buffs with more PC memory might choose to download more.

The project assembles information from eight databases that count at least 4,500 known exoplanets, tens of millions of galaxies, hundreds of millions of space objects in all, and more than 1.5 billion light sources from the Milky Way alone. But when it comes to potential data, the sky is literally the limit: Future databases could include asteroids in our solar system or objects like nebulae and pulsars farther into the galaxy.

To be sure, VR games and representations already exist: Cosmos-gazing apps on tablets allow for mapping of the night sky, with zoom-in close-ups of heavenly bodies; software like SpaceEngine from Russia offers universe visuals; NASA has done some smaller VR scopes of space.

But the EPFL team says VIRUP goes much farther and wider: Data pulled from sources like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in the United States, and European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to map the Milky Way and its Planck mission to observe the first light of the universe, all brought together in a one-stop-shop for the most extensive data sets yet around.

And there’s more to come: when the 14-country telescope project known as the Square Kilometer Array starts pulling down information, the data could be counted in the petabytes — that’s 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes.

Strap on the VR goggles, and it’s a trippy feeling seeing the Moon — seemingly the size of a giant beach ball and floating close enough to hold — as the horizon rotates from the sunny side to the dark side of the lunar surface.

Then speed out to beyond the solar system and swing by Saturn, then up above the Milky Way, swirling and flashing and heaving — with exoplanets highlighted in red. And much farther out still, imagine floating through small dots of light that represent galaxies as if the viewer is an unconscionably large giant floating in space.

“That is a very efficient way of visiting all the different scales that compose our universe, and that is completely unique,” says Yves Revaz, an EPFL astrophysicist. ”A very important part of this project is that it’s a first step toward treating much larger data sets which are coming.”

Entire galaxies seem to be strung together by strands or filaments of light, almost like representation of neural connections, that link up clusters of light like galaxies. For one of the biggest pictures of all, there’s a colorful visualization of the Cosmic Microwave Background — the radiation left behind from the Big Bang.

“We actually started this project because I was working on a three-dimensional mapping project of the universe and was always a little frustrated with the 2D visualization on my screen, which wasn’t very meaningful,” said Kneib, in a nondescript lab building that houses a panoramic screen, a half-dome cinema with bean-bag seating, and a hard-floor space for virtual-reality excursions.

“It’s true that by showing the universe in 3D, by showing these filaments, by showing these clusters of galaxies which are large concentrations of matter, you really realize what the universe is,” he added.

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This story reflects the fact that EPFL has corrected its initial press release to say “terabytes” rather than “tens of terabytes.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The family of a slain journalist is asking the Federal Trade Commission to take action against Facebook for failing to remove online footage of her shooting death.

Andy Parker said Tuesday the company is violating its own terms of service in hosting videos on Facebook and its sibling service Instagram that glorify violence.

His daughter, TV news reporter Alison Parker, and cameraman Adam Ward, were killed by a former co-worker while reporting for Roanoke, Virginia’s WDBJ-TV in August 2015. Video footage of the shooting — some of which was taken by the gunman — repeatedly resurfaces on Facebook and Instagram despite assurances from top executives that it will be removed, says a complaint filed Tuesday by Parker and attorneys with the Georgetown Law Civil Rights Clinic.

“The reality is that Facebook and Instagram put the onus on victims and their families to do the policing of graphic content — requiring them to relive their worst moments over and over to curb the proliferation of these videos,” says the complaint.

The complaint says Facebook is engaging in deceptive trade practices by violating its own terms of service and misrepresenting the safety of the platform and how hard it is for users to get harmful and traumatic content removed.

Facebook, which is based in Menlo Park, California, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Andy Parker said during a news conference announcing the FTC complaint that he also wants to see action from Congress. That echoed some of the calls made last week by whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who has accused the company of harming children, inciting political violence and fueling misinformation.

“Alison’s murder, shared on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, is just one of the egregious practices that are undermining the fabric of our society,” Parker said.

Parker said he agreed with Haugen on the need for Congress to impose new curbs on the long-standing legal protections for speech posted on social media platforms.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for stripping away some of the protections granted by a 25-year-old law — in a provision known as Section 230 — that shields internet companies from liability for what users post. In her Senate testimony last week, Haugen urged lawmakers to remove the protections in cases where dominant content driven by computer algorithms favors massive engagement by users over public safety.

Parker previously worked with the Georgetown law clinic to file a similar FTC complaint last year against Google and its YouTube service. The FTC declined to comment on the latest filing and doesn’t typically disclose whether or not it has decided to investigate a complaint. Parker said he hoped that Lina Khan, the new head of the FTC appointed by President Joe Biden, would take the complaints more seriously.

But Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University and co-director of its High Tech Law Institute, said he sees problems with the case that Parker is making by alleging violations of Facebook’s terms of service. The social media platforms’ terms of service don’t provide a solid promise that everything on their sites will meet the standards, he said, and in fact they include caveats that, “We can’t do a perfect job.”

The FTC is legally able to ignore complaints filed by non-government parties, Goldman noted. As a result, such complaints “are often just for show,” he said.

In this case, Parker used the platform of announcing the complaint to appeal to Congress to curb the liability protections for social media under Section 230.

Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney who has brought several cases against Facebook, said the deceptive trade practices and false promises of online safety alleged in Parker’s complaint “are viable claims.”

“The FTC has broad authority to investigate and prosecute deceptive practices,” said Romer-Friedman, who heads the civil rights and class-actions practice at law firm Gupta Wessler in Washington.

Attorneys and advocates working with Parker, who said he’s never watched the videos of his daughter’s killing, detailed on Tuesday the extent to which they’ve tried to take those videos down, including appeals to Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.

Advocates for the Coalition for a Safer Web said they created their own software with the ability to find the videos, but some of the videos reported to Facebook earlier this month were still up just before the group filed its FTC complaint.

“Facebook wants the public to self-police. They want you to report, they want me to report. They want me to watch the videos and report them,” Parker said. “And even when you do report it, they ignore you.”

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized an electronic cigarette, saying the vaping device from R.J. Reynolds can help smokers cut back on conventional cigarettes.

E-cigarettes have been sold in the U.S. for more than a decade with minimal government oversight or research. Facing a court deadline, the FDA has been conducting a sweeping review of vaping products to determine which ones should be allowed to remain on the market.

The agency said in September it had rejected applications for more than a million e-cigarettes and related products, mainly due to their potential appeal to underage teens. But regulators delayed making decisions on most of the major vaping companies, including market leader Juul, which is still pending.

Tuesday’s decision only applies to Vuse’s Solo e-cigarette and its tobacco-flavored nicotine cartridges. The agency said data from the company showed the e-cigarette helped smokers significantly reduce their exposure to the harmful chemicals in traditional cigarettes.

While the products can now be legally sold in the U.S., the FDA stressed they are neither safe nor “FDA approved,” and that people who don’t smoke shouldn’t use them.

Launched in 2013, Vuse Solo is a rechargeable metallic device that’s shaped like a traditional cigarette. The FDA said it rejected 10 other requests from the company for other flavored products. The agency is still reviewing the company’s request to sell a menthol-flavored nicotine formula.

“Today’s authorizations are an important step toward ensuring all new tobacco products undergo the FDA’s robust, scientific premarket evaluation,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s tobacco center, in a statement.

“The manufacturer’s data demonstrates its tobacco-flavored products could benefit addicted adult smokers who switch to these products – either completely or with a significant reduction in cigarette consumption.”

E-cigarettes first appeared in the U.S. around 2007 with the promise of providing smokers with a less harmful alternative to smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes. The devices heat a nicotine solution into a vapor that’s inhaled.

But there has been little rigorous study of whether e-cigarettes truly help smokers quit. And efforts by the FDA to begin vetting vaping products and their claims were repeatedly slowed by industry lobbying and competing political interests.

In recent years, the vaping market grew to include hundreds of companies selling an array of devices and nicotine solutions in various flavors and strengths. But the vast majority of the market is controlled by a few companies including Juul Labs, which is partially owned by Altria, and Vuse.

Vuse is the No. 2 vaping brand in the U.S. behind Juul, accounting for about a third of all retail sales. Its parent company R.J. Reynolds sells Newport, Camel and other leading cigarettes.

A company spokesperson said in a statement that the FDA decision confirms “that Vuse Solo products are appropriate for the protection of the public health, underscoring years of scientific study and research.”

The company said it is still awaiting an FDA decision on its more popular vaping device, Vuse Alto.

To stay on the market, companies must show that their products benefit public health. In practice, that means proving that adult smokers who use the products are likely to quit or reduce their smoking, while teens are unlikely to get hooked on them.

Kenneth Warner, a tobacco expert at the University of Michigan’s school of public health, said the news was a positive step for reducing the harms of smoking. But he lamented that only a vaping device backed by a Big Tobacco company was able to win the FDA’s endorsement.

“The demands the FDA places on companies filing these applications are so extraordinary difficult to meet that only those with huge resources and personnel — in terms of scientists, lawyers, researchers — are able to file successfully,” said Warner.

He said smaller companies and vape shops should have a separate path to get their products authorized.

The FDA declared underage vaping an “epidemic” in 2018 and has taken a series of measures aimed at the small cartridge-based devices that first sparked the problem, including limiting their flavors to tobacco and menthol. Separately, Congress raised the purchase age for all tobacco and vaping products to 21.

Survey data collected earlier this year showed Vuse was the second-most popular e-cigarette brand among high schoolers who vape, preferred by 10%. Juul was the fourth-most popular e-cigarette, cited by less than 6%.

FDA said it was aware of the data on Vuse’s popularity but decided to authorize its tobacco flavor “because these products are less appealing to youth and authorizing these products may be beneficial” for adult smokers.

The most popular brand among teens was a disposable e-cigarette called Puff Bar that comes in flavors like pink lemonade, strawberry and mango. Disposable e-cigarettes are not subject to the tight flavor restrictions of products like Juul.

Overall, the survey showed a drop of nearly 40% in the teen vaping rate as many kids were forced to learn from home during the pandemic. Still, federal officials cautioned about interpreting the results because they were collected online for the first time, instead of in classrooms.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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