Federal criminal courts long have prohibited cameras or recording devices of any kind, but the momentous nature of the Trump case already has seen Capitol Hill lawmakers argue for an exception, and a coalition of major news organizations is expected to make some sort of appeal to the judicial branch.

Yet as unlikely as Depp/Heard-like live coverage of Trump’s federal case seems, given futile efforts so far to secure camera or audio of the proceedings, legal experts say that there are other options that would at least expand what is available.

Other options include:

• Audio coverage. During Covid, the Supreme Court started to allow live audio streaming of oral arguments, a move that boosted hopes for further expanded access. There also was a break from precedent at district courts during the pandemic, as the public and media were allowed to listen to virtual proceedings, as long as they weren’t recording or broadcasting them. Audio also would address a central concern that judges have about cameras in the court — that they inadvertently might show jurors.
• Partial coverage. Another option is to allow cameras or audio for portions of the proceedings, like attorney opening and closing statements. That is far short of being able to transmit the most compelling aspects of the Trump trial — think Mike Pence’s testimony — but it is something that would convey the experience in the room. Some federal appellate courts already allow cameras to capture oral arguments.
• Tape delay. The Supreme Court in 2000 saw the unprecedented nature of the Bush v. Gore case and allowed the release of audio of oral arguments just shortly after they finished. That sounds like a pretty minimal step today, but it was a big deal at the time, as the justices had traditionally waited for a month to release those recordings. The point, according to University of Minnesota Law Professor Jane Kirtley, is that there have been moments when the high court has recognized when a case has such a large-scale public impact that it is necessary to break from longtime tradition. “My own gut feeling is the only way this is going to work is if the Judicial Conference, and [Chief Justice] John Roberts is approached with the argument of the exceptional nature of this case and that this is a one-off,” she said.
• Virtual courtrooms. Cameras already were in the courtroom when Trump appeared for his arraignment in Washington, D.C. The purpose, though, was to provide a video feed to public overflow and media rooms within the courthouse. Cameras and recording still were prohibited in those rooms, but it at least opened up the proceedings to more than 200 additional members of the public and media. One idea that has been floated in the past is to expand those virtual proceedings to other courthouses around the country. It’s far short of any kind of broadcast, but it still would mean more people can watch. This idea was floated back in 2010, when a federal trial over California’s ban on same-sex marriage was set to begin. Although the judge in the case approved of the plan for the virtual transmissions, defendants objected and the Supreme Court put the kibosh on it.

Attorney Ted Boutrous, who was part of the legal team representing plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case, has been a big supporter of cameras in the courtroom and said that there is ample example of judges being “very good at managing the circumstances.” He also noted that modern technology has made equipment less disruptive, while there are plenty of hybrid examples that have tested and have worked.

“It’s hard to argue against it, especially if the defendant is willing to support it,” he said.

That seems to be the case. Over the weekend, Trump’s attorney John Lauro told CNN he personally wanted cameras allowed.

In an op-ed in The New York Times this week, Court TV founder Steven Brill wrote: “The last thing our country and the world needs is for this trial to become the ultimate divisive spin game, in which each side roots for its team online and on the cable news networks as if cheering from the bleachers. Much of that would still happen, but imagine how a quiet and methodical but sure to be riveting presentation of both sides’ arguments — subject to the rules of evidence and decorum of a federal court, not the algorithms of Facebook and Twitter — might temper the national mood when a verdict is announced.” 

But he was clear-eyed about what it might take to allow for cameras or any other rule change, for that matter. The U.S. Judicial Conference, chaired by Roberts, would have to vote to suspend the rules prohibiting cameras, as would the judicial council of the D.C. Circuit. There also would be a change to the federal rules of criminal procedure.

Boutrous, who has represented the news media in a number of cases and issues of access, said that there is still time to do so before a trial, perhaps eight months to a year. While Brill and Kirtley say that the appeal should be the extraordinary circumstances of the Trump case, Boutrous said that it may be better to seek a rule change that could apply to all circumstances and now be “Donald Trump specific.”

As Trump was arraigned in his New York state criminal case in April, the judge did allow for a brief moment where still cameras could capture the former president and his attorneys, but they had to stop when the proceedings started. There is a bit of a conflict in New York law when it comes to trial court proceedings, but media can request to broadcast or record any proceeding that does not include witness or party testimony, according to the Radio and Television Digital News Association.

Trump also faces the prospect of charges in Georgia, where state courts do not have a blanket prohibition. The rules say that a “properly submitted request for recording should generally be approved,” but judges still have discretion.

“It would be somewhat strange for viewers to be able to see that trial and not the federal trial,” Boutrous said, albeit he said that he believes that courts will still be respected even if cameras are not allowed. “But there is so much public benefit.” He and others point to an adage: “The public can trust more of what they see.”

Kirtley notes that Minnesota courts have a policy that generally has restricted cameras of criminal proceedings, but Peter Cahill, the judge in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd, allowed for access, in part because of the obvious importance of the case and because of Covid restrictions otherwise limited in-person attendance. Cameras still were not allowed to show those testifying, with audio only, but Kirtley said that the experience showed that a judge’s concerns can be worked out.

“None of the things that naysayers said would happen happened,” she said, noting that Attorney General Keith Ellison had shifted from opposing cameras to supporting them.

“All of the arguments about cameras being a distraction and about the potential intimidation of witnesses — those are all things that judges have the inherent authority to control,” she said.

Federal courts have tested the idea of cameras in the courts going back to the 1990s but always have come out against it. With the sensationalism of the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles, a state proceeding, “suddenly cameras became the scapegoat,” she said, noting that federal courts operate under stricter rules.

“All of those things they worry about can be dealt with,” she said.

C-SPAN, which long has advocated for cameras in the Supreme Court and increased access in Congress, is part of a national media coalition advocating for access to the Trump federal and state trials, according to a spokesman. The channel “stands ready to provide live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of these trials on its TV and digital platforms on behalf of an informed public,” the spokesman said.

The most recent effort to ease the federal court policy in the Trump cases took place in June, when a media coalition requested limited camera access to Trump’s arraignment and the release of audio recordings immediately following the proceedings.

The coalition, which included major networks and news publications, argued that “the special and historic nature of this case warrants, at the very least, a limited, non-disruptive visual record before the hearing begins.”

The response from Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman was not only to reject the request but to deny electronic devices anywhere in the courthouse, including an overflow room with a video feed. That left networks scrambling to devise unique ways to get the news out about Trump’s not guilty plea.

While that was a last-minute request, past efforts to secure camera access to cover federal trials and pre-trial proceedings have had limited success.

In the 2010 Prop 8 case, the judge also was set to allow YouTube to stream the proceedings, albeit not live, and it eventually would be part of a Ninth Circuit pilot program to test cameras in the courtroom for civil proceedings. After the Supreme Court halted the plan, the proceedings still were videotaped — with Boutrous among those arguing at least for that historic record. But it was only last year, after records were sealed for a decade and then some extensive legal wrangling, were they made public. (The link to the proceedings is here.)

Despite experiments with cameras in federal district proceedings — some Ninth Circuit districts have continued a pilot program for civil cases — Judicial Conference has stuck with the status quo.

So far, the public’s information about Trump’s criminal case proceedings has come from journalists’ own accounts, something that will get more complicated once trials begin, or later in the day when official transcripts are released (for a hefty price). At the very least, in places where electronic devices are allowed in overflow rooms, there will be heavy reliance on fast typists for something close to real-time transcripts

With no cameras or audio feed, it would be up to the networks or major news organizations to come up with alternatives. When the Prop 8 case was unfolding, two filmmakers took to enlisting a group of actors for re-enactments of each day’s proceedings, based on court transcripts.

Thirteen years later, with advances in AI, could something else be possible?

The post Will Donald Trump’s Trials Be Televised? Courts Can Consider An Array Of Options To Boost Access To Momentous Proceedings appeared first on Deadline.

The world’s biggest move chain saw second-quarter earnings surge, sales jump and things looked great in movieland with the three months ended in June and the current month of July setting records on key metrics. But the numbers mask an AMC skirmish with shareholders that turned into a messy, ongoing Delaware Chancery Court case requiring a judge’s approval for the company to sell equity to raise cash.

Yes, Aron said he’s heartened at AMC’s liquidity of $643 at the end of June, but retail shareholders, who own most of the company’s stock, “are underestimating the potential for cash burn in seasonally weaker winter months, especially given the uncertainties of the actors’ and writers’ strikes, since no one knows when they will end.”

“We continue to seek the flexibility to raise fresh capital on the best possible terms…to avoid the pitfalls that sank others in our industry,” he said on a call with investors after market close, reiterating a warning from last month.

“The dumbest thing we could ever do in this industry is to run out of cash,” he added. After all, he expects a full theatrical recovery for the industry next year or the following. But “If we were to run out of cash before we get to 2024 or 2025, that would be a disaster.”

If AMC did have the cash, he ticked off a wish list including repairs to theaters, adding bars and more of the highly lucrative large-format screens, buying other exhibitors and even “transformative M&A” that could move the company beyond cinemas.

The chain will continue to bring theaters into the circuit if can do so cheaply, he said, noting huge successes at new locations in the LA area in Topanga (AMC DINE-IN Topanga 12) and Glendale (AMC The Americana at Brand 18), which are now among AMC’s top performers.

Meanwhile, he said sales of AMC Perfectly Popcorn – microwavable and in bags — at Walmart stores and online has taken off and could eventually grow to a $100 million business. He confirmed the chain will be introducing a line of AMC-branded chocolates and gummies in theaters.

The post AMC CEO Sees “Serious Liquidity Issues” Even As Box Office Booms; “The Dumbest Thing We Could Ever Do In This Industry Is Run Out Of Cash” appeared first on Deadline.

“I have to sell my house… Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work],” said Porter in an interview with Evening Standard, in support of his music career. “The life of an artist, until you make f**k-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check. I was supposed to be in a new movie and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening.”

Continued Porter, with reference to a July Deadline article quoting an anonymous exec, “So to the person who said, ‘We’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments’ — you’ve already starved me out.”

Porter highlighted his situation in part to dispute a notion of the actors strike among “some lay people” that it’s simply about “a bunch of millionaires trying to get more millions,” rather than about the financial security of the many in the working class.

The actor lamented the fact that while the industry once configured its finances to “allow for” its performers to make a decent living, and yet that same prospect has become impossible following the streaming boom. “There’s no contract for [streaming]…And they don’t have to be transparent with the numbers — it’s not Nielsen ratings anymore,” he explained. “The streaming companies are notoriously opaque with their viewership figures. The business has evolved. So the contract has to evolve and change, period.”

Porter also took aim in the piece at the July 13th comments of Disney CEO Bob Iger, who while at the Sun Valley Conference, called the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unrealistic in their demands, focusing on the notion that their steadfast commitment to their deal points has been “very disruptive” to an industry already weakened by Covid.

“To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day? I don’t have any words for it, but: f**k you,” said Porter. “That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged… When I go back [to the states from London] I will join the picket lines.”

Best known for making history at the Emmys, as the first openly gay Black man to win Drama Lead Actor with Pose, Porter will next be seen starring opposite Luke Evans in the custody battle drama Our Son, which world premiered at this year’s Tribeca Festival. Also coming up for him is a James Baldwin biopic he’ll co-write and star in for Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures, which was announced back in April.

The post Billy Porter Says He’s Been Forced To Sell House Due To Strikes  appeared first on Deadline.

In an article titled “Remote work gave them a reprieve from racism. They don’t want to go back,” the Times reported:

[M]any Black workers and other people of color … found that remote work lessened the racism they faced on the job.

But it forces workers to make a difficult choice — prioritize your mental health or endure for the sake of your career. Remote job opportunities are shrinking as more companies require that workers come back to the office. And even in hybrid workplaces, remote employees can be at a disadvantage for career advancement since managers sometimes forget about them or assume they are less productive than their in-person peers, a concept called proximity bias.

…

Throughout the pandemic, survey after survey showed what some workers of color have known for years: Workplace politics and discrimination can make the office an undesirable place to be.

Ironically, in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, reports emerged saying that work-from-home was racist because black and Hispanic employees were less likely than Asian and white employees to have jobs that allowed them to work remotely.

The tech industry, which leans heavily to the left, is one of the industries known to make the greatest use of work from home.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

The post L.A. Times: Making Employees Show Up in Person Exposes Them to Racism appeared first on Breitbart.

All four divisions of the company showed positive momentum in the quarter, as total revenue climbed 9% to $1.436 billion and earnings per share came in at $1.29 on a diluted basis.

Wall Street analysts’ consensus had called for revenue of $1.41 billion and earnings of 30 cents a share.

The company said its pending deal to take control of the WWE and merge it into a new, stand-alone entity called TKO Group Holdings is expected to close in mid- to late-September. (Previous guidance was for a deal close sometime in the second half of the year.)

Representation segment revenue increased 6.5% from the year-ago period to hit $381.1 million. The company said the impact of the WGA strike was offset by growth in its nonscripted content production and fashion businesses and new projects and increased spend from 160over90’s corporate clients. Adjusted EBITDA fell 4%.

The Owned Sports Properties; Events, Experiences & Rights; and Sports, Data & Technology divisions also saw increases in revenue.

Total debt ended the quarter on June 30 at $5.11 billion, down from $5.151 billion in the 2022 frame. The earnings release pointed to forthcoming share buybacks and the launch of a dividend payment to shareholders. The projected $300 million in buybacks began earlier this quarter after the company sold the IMG Academy to a division of private equity firm EQT in a $1.25 billion all-cash deal.

“We remain focused on maintaining prudent capital allocation and delivering long term sustainable growth for the company,” CEO Ari Emanuel said in the release.

The post Endeavor Shrugs Off Strike Hit In Q2 To Beat Wall Street Expectations, Announces More Specific Date Range For Close Of WWE-UFC Merger appeared first on Deadline.

The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday, disclosed that the assessment found flaws with the management of the central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB.

The DAB “lacked independence from the Taliban regime and had deficiencies in anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism”, SIGAR said the assessment showed.

The US Agency for International Development funded the review by an outside contractor.

The finding that DAB lacks independence from the Taliban, which returned to power after the August 2021 US troop pullout, apparently referred to the three Taliban officials who oversee the bank and are under US and UN sanctions.

Concerns in Washington and other capitals about the bank’s leadership and anti-money laundering safeguards are at the heart of a standoff over the Taliban’s demand for the return of DAB cash frozen in other countries since their takeover.

Half of about $7bn frozen in the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York was placed in the Swiss-based trust fund. The rest is being sought in lawsuits against the Taliban brought by families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Taliban harboured al-Qaeda fighters who plotted the attacks.

A US Treasury official told the Reuters news agency last month on condition of anonymity that Washington will not support a return to DAB of Swiss-based trust fund assets until the bank shows it is free “from political influence and interference.”

It also must demonstrate “adequate” controls against money laundering and terrorism financing, the official said.

The post Afghan central bank lacks independence from Taliban: US watchdog appeared first on Al Jazeera.

“Due to severe circumstances outside of production control, the 2023 Made In America festival will no longer be taking place,” according to a post on the fest’s social media sites. “This decision has been difficult and has not been made lightly nor without immense deliberation.” Read the full statement below.

SZA and Lizzo were set to headline the show on September 2 and 3 at Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. The bill also featured more than a dozen other acts including Miguel, Ice Spice, Lil Yachty, Coco Jones and Paris Texas.

Although Lizzo is not mentioned in the cancellation announcement, the timing is interesting given the lawsuit filed a week ago that alleges assault, sexual harassment, discrimination and a “hostile work environment.” Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez claim that they were body-shamed, put through a self-described “excruciating” audition for their own jobs after they were accused of drinking on the clock and held to prohibitive “soft hold” retainers.

The suit names Lizzo as a defendant along with her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. and Shirlene Quigley, the head of the performer’s dance team.

A day later, Oscar-nominated documentarian Sophia Nahli Allison went public with allegations that she was “treated with such disrespect” by Lizzo, causing her to walk away from a docu project about the four-time Grammy-winning singer and host of TV’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls.

Jay-Z founded the festival in 2012. Here is the organizers’ full statement:

“Due to severe circumstances outside of production control, the 2023 Made in America festival will no longer be taking place. This decision has been difficult and has not been made lightly nor without immense deliberation.

“Made in America has a legacy of delivering exceptional experiences for music fans and concertgoers, and it is our commitment to always deliver a top-tier festival experience.

“We look forward to returning to Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the great city of Philadelphia in 2024. All ticket holders will be refunded at original point of purchase.”

pic.twitter.com/gt9PqKCINR

— Made In America Festival (@MIAFestival) August 8, 2023

The post Lizzo-Headlined Made In America Music Festival Canceled Over Unspecified “Severe Circumstances” appeared first on Deadline.

When a student-loan borrower finds they cannot afford their monthly payments, they cannot simply declare bankruptcy and be absolved of their debt. They have to go to court and meet a high standard known as “undue hardship,” which requires borrowers to show that they could not maintain a minimal standard of living, that their circumstances weren’t likely to improve, and that they had made a good-faith effort to repay their debt. 

The standard was strengthened due to a 2005 bankruptcy law that President Joe Biden supported when he was a senator, and it expanded undue hardship to borrowers with private student loans, along with federal. Given that courts often had a very strict interpretation of the rule — keeping many borrowers from getting relief — the Education and Justice Departments in November announced a series of reforms to the process to make it easier for borrowers to access bankruptcy.

And it’s something both Warren and DeSantis support. As part of his presidential campaign, DeSantis recently unveiled his “Declaration of Economic Independence,” which included ten pillars he said would support the economy and middle class. One of those pillars included reforming education — and the student-loan system.

“The reality is we’ve had a generation of students go deep into debt, and some of them end up with degrees in things like zombie studies, which are just not making a difference,” DeSantis said during his remarks.

“At the same time, I have sympathy for some of these students because I think they were sold a bill of goods. I think these universities knew that they could take all this federal loan money,” he said, adding that colleges should be held financially accountable if students were unable to pay off a “successful” degree and that “student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy.”

While Warren does not agree with DeSantis’ stance against broad debt relief — she is a strong supporter of Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for borrowers and has pushed for more — she also has said bankruptcy should be a viable option for borrowers, especially with federal payments set to resume in October after an over three-year pause. 

At the end of July, Warren sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting an update on the Justice Department’s implementation of the new bankruptcy reforms. She said that the undue hardship standard “has been narrowly interpreted by courts, and has proven to be so difficult to meet that most borrowers do not even attempt to discharge their student loans through the bankruptcy process. Between 2015 and 2020, roughly 250,000 borrowers filed for bankruptcy annually. Of those, less than one percent saw their student loan debt discharged.”

It appears the issue is picking up steam on both sides of the aisle. GOP Rep. Thomas Massie posted a poll on X, formerly Twitter, last week asking if student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy, with 67% of respondents — 19,711 people voted, per X — saying yes. 

—Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 1, 2023

Along with the Education and Justice Department reforms, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has also kept an eye on the bankruptcy process for borrowers. Last year, the agency released a report outlining the options for relief that borrowers with private student loans have, and it said that there are several types of education loans that do not have to meet the undue hardship standard: loans to pay for education at places ineligible for federal funding, like unaccredited colleges, loans made to cover fees and living expenses while studying for professional exams, and loans to a student attending a school less than half-time.

Still, both Warren and DeSantis have argued all borrowers should face an easier path to bankruptcy if they are dealing with unaffordable student debt. 

The post Elizabeth Warren and Ron DeSantis agree on one way student-loan borrowers should get a path to relief: getting rid of debt in bankruptcy court appeared first on Business Insider.

Kognitos today announced its new self-service approach to enabling organizations to use generative AI for business process automation. Kognitos has been building a platform that allows organizations to use natural human language to define and enable BPA. It’s an approach the company detailed at the VB Transform event last month. The new offering, Self-Service Generative AI for Centers of Excellence and Finance Organizations, extends the company’s platform and is the first time the AI startup has offered self-service, as Kognitos aims to make it even easier for business users to enable automation.

Over the last decade, business automation has been enabled in part by technology known as robotic process automation (RPA), but according to Kognitos RPA hasn’t been able to solve a broad spectrum of automation problems in large enterprises.

“What we are doing is bringing the power of generative AI to actually tackle that problem head-on and deliver the true promise of what RPA should have done for business processes,” Kognitos founder and CEO Binny Gill told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview.

Why self-serve generative AI matters

To date, Kognitos has helped its customers with their initial automation in a hands-on way. The basic idea with the new offering is to provide an easy on-ramp to automation that business users can run on their own.

Gill explained that some organizations have built what are known as Centers of Excellence to help get RPA implemented in years past. The goal with Kognitos’ new offering is to reach out to these internal Centers of Excellence and enable them to use gen AI to build and deploy business process automation capabilities.

With the self-service model, Gill explained, business users can for example use the Kognitos service to extract data coming out of an invoice or a purchase order and use it as part of a larger business process.

Why gen AI for process automation is more than a replay

Among the many ways business automation has been enabled in the past is with replays — recording a user’s screen to create a simple replay of a set of actions. Gill said that Kognitos will now allow organizations to use natural language to explain what they want to do. 

He explained that using generative AI with natural language is a more scalable, resilient method than replaying a recorded operation. A replay can create brittle results, according to Gill, since the user interface and workflow of a business process can change over time. 

Another challenge with a simple replay is that it can’t handle branching logic very well. Branching logic is when an interface has a set of conditions and options for the user, such that if a user presses one option, a particular set of options is offered, and if they select another, a different set is suggested.

Modern software is also commonly built with application programming interfaces (APIs), and in Gill’s view, there is no easy way of recording what the APIs need to do through clicking and recording those actions.

Human language is the key to business usage

A key challenge of RPA, according to Gill, is that it often requires specialized skills and some custom programming to fully enable.

Kognitos uses natural language with an engine known as the Human Language Interpreter, which is now being updated to version 2.0 alongside the self-service launch. Natural language processing (NLP) enables AI to understand natural language. Gill said that Kognitos’ Human Language Interpreter uses NLP at a foundational level, and then goes beyond typical NLP capabilities.

Understanding the business process context is key to the Kognitos Human Language Interpreter’s effectiveness. For example, a given statement could be interpreted in different ways. Gill said that the interpreter figures out the context of what the user is running and creates a knowledge graph of the world around it. Based on that knowledge it will better understand what the prompt is really about. If it isn’t able to clearly interpret the prompt, the system will ask the user a followup question to clarify.

Exception handling and dealing with issues when they occur in a process is another area where the Human Language Interpreter helps.

“We are trying to explain things to the layman so whenever something bad happens, we don’t want to [have to] pull in an IT guy,” Gill said. 

Gill explained that Kognitos aims to make it easy for users to understand why an issue occurred, and provides prompts to help with remediation.

The new self-service platform is targeted at Centers of Excellence and finance functions, but the company has hopes for an even wider audience in the future.

“The goal is to bring this power to a billion business users. That’s our end goal and that’s our vision,” Gill said.

The post Kognitos goes self-service with business automation powered by generative AI appeared first on Venture Beat.

The ruble has traded around 96 against the dollar since last Friday. It’s the cheapest Russia’s currency has been since Putin began his invasion of Ukraine in February last year, which caused the ruble to briefly plummet to 120 against the dollar. 

The ruble is one of the worst-performing global currencies of the year, and has declined around 30% from levels in January, when it traded around 65 to the dollar. In July, the currency blew past a key comfort level for the Kremlin, signaling the market’s concern for Russia after the Wagner group staged a short-lived coup against President Vladimir Putin.

Economists have been sounding the alarms for Russia’s economy for the past year, as the nation has been slammed by sanctions and soaring military spending. Restrictions on oil and natural gas trade led Russia’s energy revenue to tumble 45% in first three months of the year. Meanwhile, government spending surged 34%, leading Russia to post a $29 billion budget deficit over the first quarter– a 107% decline from last year’s $14 billion budget surplus. 

Russian officials have put up a show of defiance amid war and sanctions, and Putin has claimed Russia’s economy could actually grow this year with GDP surpassing 2%.  But those estimates are largely drawn from “cherry-picked” economic figures, according to Yale researchers, who say that under-the-radar statistics paint a far bleaker picture of Russia’s economy. 

The post The ruble has plunged to its lowest level against the dollar since war in Ukraine began as Putin’s economy sputters appeared first on Business Insider.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr found Southwest in contempt for the way it explained the case to flight attendants last year after losing a jury verdict. In a blistering 29-page order, the judge said the airline acted as if its own policy limiting what employees can say is more important than a federal law protecting religious speech.

On Monday, the judge ordered Southwest to pay the flight attendant’s most recent legal costs, dictated a statement for Southwest to relay to employees, and ordered three Southwest lawyers to complete “religious-liberty training” from a conservative Christian legal-advocacy group.

For Southwest, the sanctions add insult to injury. They stem from a roughly $800,000 judgment against the airline and the flight attendant’s union. Although that was less than the jury’s $5.1 million award, Charlene Carter also got her job back.

Carter, a longtime union critic, said she was fired after she called the union president “despicable” for attending the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. At the event, women protested the inauguration of President Donald Trump and called for protecting abortion rights among many issues.

The airline and Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union said Carter had made offensive posts on Facebook and harassed the union president in private messages.

The jury in a Dallas court found that Southwest violated Carter’s right to religious speech.

After the trial last year, the judge — a Trump nominee who joined the bench in 2019 — ordered the airline to tell flight attendants that under federal law, it “may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs.”

Instead, the airline told employees that it “does not discriminate” on religious beliefs, and doubled down by telling flight attendants to follow the airline policy that it cited in firing Carter.

In an order this week that alternated between sarcasm and outrage, Starr ruled that Southwest “didn’t come close to complying with the Court’s order.” He schooled the airline on the definitions of “may,” “does” and ”tolerate” — complete with footnotes citing the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

The judge ordered Southwest to email a new, verbatim statement declaring that the airline may not discriminate against flight attendants for religious beliefs “including — but not limited” to abortion.

Starr ordered three company lawyers to undergo eight hours of training this month by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

Starr worked in the Texas attorney general’s office for several years before Trump nominated him for the federal bench. The Senate confirmed his nomination 51-39, voting along party lines in the then-GOP-controlled body.

Southwest did not immediately comment on the judge’s order.

The post Judge rules Southwest failed to follow order in flight attendant free-speech case appeared first on ABC News.

Ergen has also continued to hold out hope for a merger with rival DirecTV. Regulators blocked a deal years ago. The media landscape has changed, but the regulatory climate is particularly tough these days.  

Today’s merger, which will see cost and revenue synergies, is expected to close by year end. The combined company will be headquartered in Englewood, Colorado with a suite of consumer and business brands including Dish Wireless, Boost Wireless, Sling TV and Dish TV, as well as EchoStar, the Hughes and Jupiter satellite services, HughesON managed services, and HughesNet satellite internet.

“This is a strategically and financially compelling combination that is all about growth and building a long-term sustainable business,” said Charles Ergen, chairman of the board of both companies. “DISH’s substantial past investments in spectrum and its wireless buildout, combined with EchoStar’s recent launch of JUPITER 3, are expected to significantly reduce near-term capex requirements.” He said the asset portfolio of the combined company and its “enhanced free cash flow generation capability and strengthened capital structure are expected to drive long-term value creation for our shareholders and other stakeholders.”

DISH’s 5G wireless network now covers more than 70 percent of the U.S. EchoStar’s JUPITER 3 satellite launched with significant available capacity for converged terrestrial and non-terrestrial services. The merged company will be well-positioned to deliver a broad set of satellite and wireless communication and content distribution capabilities.

The transaction: On closing, EchoStar stockholders will receive 2.85 common shares of Dish for each share of EchoStar in hand The exchange ratio represents a premium of 12.9% to EchoStar stockholders based on the companies’ closing stock prices on July 5 – the last full trading day prior to media speculation regarding a potential transaction. Dish Network shareholders will end up with about 69% of the combined company, EchoStar shareholders with 31%.

EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan will run the combined comapny. Dish Network’s chief executive Erik Carlson will exit when the deal closes. Ergen will be executive chairman. John Swieringa, COO of Dish Wireless, will be COO. An 11-member board will include seven Dish directors, three EchoStar independent directors and Akhavan.

The post Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network & EchoStar To Merge, Combining Satellite, Broadband In All-Stock Deal   appeared first on Deadline.

The chief global market strategist said in a Monday note that there’s only a 35% chance of a soft landing materializing, and that the chance of a recession happening within the next year is still higher than most expect at 65%. 

Given that outlook, stock valuations are too high and investors should be prepared for pain in equities during the second half of the year.

“With developed market central banks unlikely to ease near-term, ongoing quantitative tightening and our base case for macroeconomic slowdown, multiples look too high,” Kolanovic said. “We disagree with the market’s expectation that soft landing is the most likely outcome.” 

Kolanovic highlighted that defaults are beginning to rise as credit conditions tighten, “suggesting that a credit cycle has already emerged.”

On a year-to-date basis, the total of high-yield and loan defaults has already surpassed last year’s full-year total and is on track to be the market’s third largest annual default total, according to the note.

As such, investors should look to defensively position their portfolio in the second half of the year by underweighting stocks altogether, and to shift to overweight cash and commodities.

“Commodities price in by far the highest risk of recession and stand out as under-valued, under-owned, and backed by compelling fundamentals and technicals,” Kolanovic said. 

In addition to cash and commodities, Kolanovic said investors should look to “pure defensive” stocks to outperform in the second half of the year.

Those “pure defensives” include stocks from the utilities, healthcare, consumer staples, and telecom sectors, according to the note.

“These sectors are [historically] some of the best performers around the last Fed hike in the cycle,” JPMorgan said in a separate Monday note. The market currently expects that the Fed’s most recent July interest rate hike was the last of the current cycle, with interest rate cuts likely sometime in 2024. 

Also helping out these defensive sectors is the fact that market cap concentration in the stock market, particularly in the technology sector, is the steepest on record based on more than 60 years of history. That should benefit defensive sectors as investors eventually rotate away from concentrated positions.

“The current setup therefore presents an attractive entry point into cheaper defensives, especially if investors eventually re-focus on a more cautious view of the economy in [the] second half of 2023,” Kolanovic said. 

The post These 4 sectors are best positioned for the 2nd half of the year as investors’ soft landing expectations get too high appeared first on Business Insider.

In a move that surprised investors and political observers alike, Italy’s far-right government led by Prime Minister Meloni announced plans late Monday to slap a 40 percent one-off windfall tax on bank profits.

Italian lenders have been raking in huge benefits from higher interest rates on their loans at a time when ordinary people are struggling with the cost of living.

The eurozone’s cost of living crisis, which has been marked by the highest inflation in 40 years and a faltering recovery from the pandemic, has provided fertile ground for politicians hoping to win support by targeting the finance industry and central bank policymakers.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, aimed fire at the European Central Bank, which is in charge of setting interest rates, rather than the banks themselves when he announced the plan at a press conference late Monday.

“The ECB’s rate hike has raised the cost of money for families and businesses,” he said. “There wasn’t, in turn, a diligent, rapid and important increase for consumers.” The money will go on “tax cuts” and “help for first-time mortgage holders signed up in different times,” he said.

Salvini said the new tax could generate a huge sum but was unable to say how much. Analysts say it’s likely to be at least €2 billion but could be much more.

“Let’s not get into the merit of the figures,” Salvini said. “You only need to look at the first quarter profits of the banks to see that we’re not talking about a handful of millions, but potentially many billions.” 

Italy has among the highest levels of home ownership in Europe, with the total outstanding value of mortgage lending in Italy climbing to €424 billion in 2022, according to data from Statista.

Political target

Italy isn’t the first country to raise money from banks — as lenders increasingly find themselves a political target for not passing on profits from higher interest rates.

The left-wing government in Spain hit its banks with a windfall tax in November which was expected to raise €3 billion. Hungary, too, under far-right firebrand Viktor Orbán, has targeted its banks.

While U.K. lenders aren’t facing a tax, the Conservative government has hauled the banks in to demand they help struggling mortgage-holders and pass on higher savings rates.

Banks are seen as one of the few economic winners as central banks hike interest rates to try to get inflation under control.

The European Central Bank last month raised its key interest rate by another 0.25 percentage points — capping nine consecutive hikes and squeezing borrowers with the highest rates in 22 years. 

Ready to help

Italian banks have come under pressure from the Italian government to provide relief for pressed mortgage holders. 

Last month, Italian Bankers Association president Antonio Patuelli said lenders would be “at the ready” to help borrowers — though little changed in practice. 

Patuelli’s statement came at a joint conference with Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, who had stressed the need to offer mortgage relief as “indispensable and urgent.”  

Italian banks have also pursued bumper payouts to shareholders. 

UniCredit in July announced plans to return €6.5 billion to its investors through sharebuybacks and dividends after record profits.

But bankers were left “really surprised” by the latest announcement, which followed months of false starts, according to two Italian banking officials with knowledge of the situation, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

“The issue has been floated before many times but didn’t seem to have traction,” one of the people said. 

The share prices of major Italian lenders Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit cratered by around 9 percent and 7 percent respectively after the announcement by 1 p.m. on Tuesday.

The post Italy to hit banks with 40 percent windfall tax appeared first on Politico.

Exports in July declined at the sharpest pace since February 2020, according to Chinese customs data cited by the Wall Street Journal.

Outbound overseas shipments from China dropped 14.5% on an annual basis, despite surging trade with Russia. Heightened geopolitical tensions between the Capitol Hill and Beijing weighed on Western business ties, in particular, with China’s exports to the US and European Union falling by more than 20%. 

Exports also tanked 12% in June, government data show.

Even though China eased COVID-19 restrictions last year, there’s been little sign in 2023 of its eagerly awaited economic recovery. The domestic housing market faces instability, foreign investment and local spending is down, and deflation looms.

Meanwhile, a recent report from the consultancy Terry Group posited that China’s not only facing a declining population, but specifically a drop-off in working-age citizens. The country reported its first dip in population last year since 1961, and researchers say the trend will be hard to reverse.

“In 1975, there were thirteen times as many children as elderly in China,” the Terry Group researchers said. “By 2050, the UN projects that there will be twice as many elderly as children.”

Officials in Beijing are attempting to mute downbeat sentiment. The Financial Times reported Sunday that the government has warned economists and experts not to paint the economy in a negative light. 

The post China’s economy is sputtering as the nation’s exports hit their lowest level in over 3 years appeared first on Business Insider.

Earnings came in at 74 cents a share in the quarter ending June 30, topping analysts’ target of 72 cents and rising from 55 cents in the year-ago period. The revenue figure stayed flat with the 2022 quarter.

Affiliate fee revenue climbed 3% from a year ago, paced by a 9% upswing in the Television division. Advertising revenue fell 4%, with gains for streaming service Tubi being offset by the absence of political spending at the company’s local stations compared with the midterm cycle of 2022. The company also cited the impact of elevated supply in the direct response marketplace at Fox News Media.

With its heavy concentration of assets inside the pay-TV bundle as well as in ad-supported streaming, Fox is viewed as a bellwether in the video advertising business. Thus far during this earnings season, media companies have reported mixed success in equaling last year’s upfront ad levels as they contend with a choppy economy and tough comparisons with the election-aided 2022.

The company agreed to pay $787.5 million in April to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. While the number took some Wall Street analysts by surprise, it is also tax deductible, Deadline confirmed at the time. The company faces additional legal action over Fox News coverage of the 2020 election and its airing of claims of fraud which have never been substantiated.

The post Fox Corp. Hits Quarterly Target Despite Advertising Dip appeared first on Deadline.

The company posted total revenue of $1.348 billion, up almost 16% from a year ago, and swung to a profit of 1 cent a share from a loss of 12 cents in the 2022 quarter. Analysts had expected revenue of $1.29 billion and a loss of 4 cents a share. Shares in the theater owner gained 4% in pre-market trading, hitting $5.35.

While the second quarter, ending June 30, did not include the sizzling month of July and the Barbenheimer phenomenon, it did see improving fortunes for theater owners as their post-Covid comeback attempt continues. AMC said attendance in the quarter gained 12% year-on-year to hit 66.4 million. Total domestic box office rose 22% over 2022 levels through the end of July, topping $6 billion.

AMC Entertainment executives will discuss the quarterly results after the close of trading Tuesday on a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

In the company’s earnings release, CEO Adam Aron said the company raised $34 million of cash during the quarter via the sale of preferred equity “APE” units, paying down $42 million of debt.

Citing the impact of the writers and actors strikes, which have thrown yet another wrench into theaters’ comeback story, Aron said last month the circuit could run out of cash if it isn’t able to raise equity capital. “The risk of financial collapse is not whimsical,” he wrote in an open letter to investors in the wake of a court ruling placing limits on AMC’s maneuverability.

The post AMC Entertainment Rides Box Office Revival To Top Q2 Forecasts appeared first on Deadline.

Loewith, a third-generation farmer in Lynden, Ontario, in June started artificially inseminating 107 cows and heifers with the first-to-market bull semen with a low-methane genetic trait.

“Selectively breeding for lower emissions, as long as we’re not sacrificing other traits, seems like an easy win,” Loewith said.

The arrival of commercially available genetics to produce dairy cattle that emit less methane could help reduce one of the biggest sources of the potent greenhouse gas, scientists and cattle industry experts say.

Burps are the top source of methane emissions from cattle. Semex, the genetics company that sold Loewith the semen, said adoption of the low-methane trait could reduce methane emissions from Canada’s dairy herd by 1.5% annually, and up to 20%-30% by 2050.

The company this spring began marketing semen with the methane trait in 80 countries. Early sales include a farm in Britain and dairies in the US and Slovakia, said vice-president Drew Sloan.

If adopted widely, low-methane breeding could have a “profound impact” on cattle emissions globally, said Frank Mitloehner, professor of animal science at University of California Davis, who was not involved in developing the trait.

Some dairy industry officials remain unconvinced about low-methane breeding, saying it could lead to digestion problems.

Canada’s agriculture department said in an email that it has not yet assessed the methane evaluation system underlying the product but that reducing emissions from livestock was “extremely important.”

Livestock account for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Methane is the second-biggest greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide.

While farmers can feed additives to cattle to reduce methane production, their effects wear off once cattle stop eating them and they are not approved for use in the United States, Mitloehner said.

The low-methane breeding material is the product of a partnership between Semex and Canada’s milk-recording agency Lactanet and based on research by Canadian scientists.

Lactanet in April released the world’s first national genomic methane evaluation, and has produced results from Holstein cows and heifers on 6,000 farms, representing nearly 60% of Canada’s dairy farms.

BREATH CAPTURE

The registry drew on seven years of research by University of Guelph and University of Alberta scientists to measure the methane of dairy cattle.

The scientists captured the exhalations of cattle to measure them for methane, and then compared the data against genetic information and milk samples.

Methane emissions from Canadian dairy cows vary widely, from 250 to 750 grams per day, said Christine Baes, professor of animal biosciences at University of Guelph, who worked on the project.

Selecting for the low methane trait could lock in lower and lower emissions for successive generations, she said.

“The breakthrough here is linking these different components to have a national breeding value estimation for methane emissions based on real breath of animals,” Baes said.

“We also have genomic information and we match those up and create almost a telephone book to say, ‘this animal has these genes and produces this much methane.’”

Semex is not initially charging extra for the methane trait, said Michael Lohuis, Semex’s vice-president of research and innovation. He declined to provide sales projections but expects sales to remain slow until financial incentives emerge.

The Canadian government currently offers no incentives for low-methane cattle breeding, but the agriculture department said in an email that Ottawa is working to introduce offset credits for reducing methane through better manure management.

Some countries and food companies have begun to encourage farmers to move to lower-emitting cattle.

New Zealand will begin taxing farmers for methane from cattle in 2025.

Nestle (NESN.S) and Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International (QSR.TO) are tackling the methane problem in their supply chains by changing what cattle eat.

Mitloehner said he expects companies to eventually recognize low-methane breeding, too.

“Genetic change is permanent and cumulative across future generations so it can add up to substantive reductions,” Lohuis said. “This is certainly not the only tool dairy producers can use to reduce methane on-farm, but it may be the simplest and lowest-cost approach.”

Other dairy experts said such an approach could be problematic.

Juha Nousiainen, senior vice-president at Valio, a Finnish dairy, warned that breeding cattle to burp less methane could create digestive problems.

Methane is produced by microbes in the cow’s gut as it digests fibre, not by the animal itself, he said.

Back on his farm, Loewith is eager to see how the breeding decisions will play out.

“If it’s something that you’ve doubled down on generation after generation, then the impact becomes more significant.”

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Covers energy, agriculture and politics in Western Canada with the energy transition a key area of focus. Has done short reporting stints in Afghanistan, Pakistan, France and Brazil and covered Hurricane Michael in Florida, Tropical Storm Nate in New Orleans and the 2016 Alberta wildfires and the campaign trails of political leaders during two Canadian election campaigns.

The post The climate-friendly cows bred to belch less methane appeared first on Reuters.

The renowned economist walked back on harsh criticisms toward Fed chair Jerome Powell last year, when he gave the US central bank a “D” grade for acting too late in its inflation fight, triggered by the US central bank itself via its easy-money policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“He does get a better grade,” Siegel said, referring to Powell, in a Fox Business interview on Sunday. “I will admit I thought his rapid rise in rates would slow down the economy much faster than we have seen,” he added. 

The Fed has hiked rates by 500 basis points over the past year in a bid to tame inflation from 40-year highs above 9%. It’s been triumphant in its efforts, with inflation rising at 3% through June. All of this while skirting a recession most investors have been so worried about. 

In fact, the US economy appears to be in better shape than economists expected. Growth in the second quarter beat analysts’ expectations, jobs numbers are robust, and consumers keep spending despite dwindling savings. 

“There is amazing resilience,” Siegel said. “I see a lot of resilience and my call for recession probability has definitely gone down over the last two months,” he continued. “I would say its 2-1 against the recession at least for the rest of 2023 and early 2024,” Siegel said. 

As “the fight of inflation is going extremely well,” the “Stocks for the Long Run” author added that further rate hikes by the Fed are not necessary. 

“The hikes that have been put in place so far have not really squeezed the economy,” he continued.

No doubt there is a slowdown in the economy with recent employment numbers coming in below economists expectations, Siegel said. Should signs of a slowdown in consumer spending become apparent to the Fed, they will need to stop raising rates, or even start cutting them even though there is some inflation in the US economy. 

The post Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel warms up to the Fed after giving it a D grade in its inflation fight – doesn’t see the US slumping into recession this year appeared first on Business Insider.

NetChoice, a national trade association that includes major tech platforms, and the Chamber of Progress, a tech-industry coalition, said in a joint court filing that “Montana’s effort to cut Montanans off from the global network of TikTok users ignores and undermines the structure, design, and purpose of the internet”.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, filed a suit in May seeking to block the first-of-its-kind US state ban, arguing it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of the company and users.

A hearing on TikTok’s request for a preliminary injunction is set for October 12.

TikTok, which is used by more than 150 million Americans, has faced growing calls from United States lawmakers for a nationwide ban over concerns about possible Chinese government influence.

TikTok says it “has not shared, and would not share, US user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users”.

The tech groups said, “If allowed to take effect, the ban will usher in a Balkanized internet where information available to users becomes regionally divided based on local politicians’ whims or preferences.” They added, “the internet, as a whole, will become fragmented and its value to humanity diminished”.

Montana could impose fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok. The law does not impose penalties on individual TikTok users.

TikTok estimates 380,000 people in Montana use the video service, or more than a third of the state’s 1.1 million people.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new downloads of TikTok but a series of court decisions blocked the ban from taking effect.

The post Tech groups back TikTok in lawsuit seeking to block Montana ban appeared first on Al Jazeera.

In June, the amount of cash in circulation in Russia hit a record 17.9 trillion rubles, or $187 billion, data from the Russian central bank shows.

The amount of cash circulating in the Russian economy saw a massive spike from 13.8 trillion rubles in January 2022 to 15.8 trillion rubles in February 2022, coinciding with its invasion of Ukraine, according to official data.

The cash in circulation then fell steadily till June last year before jumping 6% on-month to 15.2 trillion rubles in September — which coincided with Putin’s mobilization of reservists to fight the war. The amount of cash in circulation has been trending upward since then.  

On Monday, an economist told the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta that Russians are hoarding cash amid economic uncertainty — particularly after authorities restricted foreign currency withdrawals and transfers right after the war in Ukraine started.

“People don’t like depending on banks. Having cash means you have money,” Igor Lipsits, an economist and professor at Russia’s HSE University, told Novaya Gazeta. Russians who hold bank accounts in neighboring countries like Kazakhstan are also depositing their money in sanctions-free banks instead, he added to the media outlet.

Other than economic uncertainties, there’s also been an increase in demand for cash in newly Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine, a top-ranking Russian central bank official said in May, Russia’s RBC news outlet reported.

“The increased demand for cash is linked to the fact that the new regions, where bank payments are less common, need it,” said Alexey Zabotkin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, per RBC.

On top of the higher demand, compensation paid to the families of dead mercenary Wagner Group fighters could also be contributing to the record amount of cash in Russia’s economy.

Several women confirmed to Bloomberg in June that they had collected the compensation — amounting to about 5 million rubles per person — in bags from pickup points around Russia. Many of them were told not to deposit cash at banks to avoid taxes and other complications.

About 22,000 Wagner fighters had died in the Ukraine war as of May 20 this year, according to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel.

Compensation for so many deaths would amount to more than 100 billion rubles worth of payments, much of which could be cash flowing in Russia’s economy.

To be sure, the increased cash circulating in Russia is contributing to higher inflation, Nikolay Korzhenevsky, another economist told Novaya Gazeta.

Russia’s inflation rate hit 3.25% in June from a year ago — increasing from 2.5% over the same period in May. To tame inflation, the Russian central bank its central bank raised interest rates by one percentage point on July 21 — double the 0.5 percentage point analysts polled by Reuters had expected.

The post The wartime economy is making Russians hoard cold hard cash more than ever — the money in circulation reached a record $187 billion in June appeared first on Business Insider.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Tuesday that facial recognition technology can only be used to process facial information when there is a specific purpose and sufficient necessity as well as with strict protective measures.

The use of the technology will also require an individual’s consent, the CAC said in a statement. It added that non-biometric identification solutions should be favoured over facial recognition in cases where such methods are equally effective.

Biometric identification, especially facial recognition, has become widespread in China. In 2020, local media reported that facial recognition was used to activate toilet roll dispensers in public toilets, which triggered public and regulatory concerns at the time.

Many Chinese courts and local governments have since ruled against and fined companies for facial recognition overuse, according to the South China Morning Post.

CAC’s draft rules state that image-capturing and personal identification devices should not be installed in hotel rooms, public bathrooms, changing rooms, toilets and other places where they may infringe on others’ privacy.

The regulator added that image-capturing devices should be installed in public places for only public safety purposes and with prominent warning signs next to them.

The draft rules come amid Beijing’s effort to tighten data regulation by issuing an array of regulations. Most notably, China introduced its first law focusing on user privacy, the Personal Information Protection Law, in 2021, in a bid to rein in companies’ overuse of user data.

The post China drafts rules for facial recognition tech amid privacy complaints appeared first on Al Jazeera.

Cruz and 50-odd employees and supporters wanted to get the attention of management and customers alike on the busiest day of the year for the Philippine fast food chain.

Cruz is among nine Filipino former employees at the Journal Square branch who claim they were terminated by Jollibee management in February after petitioning for better wages and working conditions.

Standing in front of the cashier, the 19-year-old former fry cook held up a megaphone and yelled the demands of the new “Justice 4 Jollibee Workers” campaign, including reinstatement, back pay, an apology from Jollibee and a hike in the base pay from $14 to $17 an hour.

“For all fellow workers who have experienced or are currently experiencing similar struggles, we want you to be brave and take action,” Cruz, who migrated to the US in 2021, told Al Jazeera.

For Cruz, whose family back in the Philippines consider Jollibee a beloved brand, his alleged treatment by the company was “extra heart-breaking”.

Jollibee, which specialises in fried chicken and other fast food, is one of the most iconic Philippine brands.

The chain operates more than 6,500 branches worldwide, about half of which are located outside the Philippines.

In the first quarter of 2023, Jollibee Food Corporation (JFC) posted revenue of about $1bn – which was up 28.5 percent from the previous quarter – 20.2 percent of which came from North America.

JFC has announced plans to add 500 more stores in the US, which has by far the largest overseas population of Filipinos, in the next five to seven years.

In 2021, Esquire magazine ranked Jollibee as the 13th-biggest fast-food chain in the world and the only non-American company in the top 15.

But the Journal Square workers say that Jollibee is not just exporting its popular Filipino fast food but a record of unfair labour practices as well.

Since they launched their campaign, workers from more than a dozen other branches in the US and even the Philippines have reached out to them with negative experiences.

Jollibee’s Journal Square management has argued that the layoffs were necessary due to financial difficulties, a claim Cruz and the other workers say makes little sense when considering the branch hired 13 new employees two weeks after their firing.

Cruz and the other workers have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and are waiting on the outcome of its investigation into whether the company violated their right to organise to improve their working conditions.

“Hopefully, the NLRB will be sympathetic. To us it’s a very slam-dunk case – it’s obvious that Jollibee violated labour rights,” Jackie Mariano, a lawyer with the advocacy group Mission to End Modern Slavery, told Al Jazeera.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, Jollibee North America said the layoffs had been a purely financial decision related to the conditions at that branch.

“The action was due to financial circumstances specific to this store and not related to other claims being circulated online,” a spokesperson said. “With its location near a commuter hub, the Journal Square branch has not recovered from customer behaviour changes after the pandemic, including people working from home instead of offices.”

On July 14, Facebook took down the “Justice 4 Jollibee Workers” campaign page, citing the use of the Jollibee logo as a “violation of community standards”.

Mariano said Jollibee is notorious for a practice in the fast food industry known as misclassification, where workers are retained as part-time staff indefinitely despite usually working close to full-time shifts. The practice allows an employer to avoid granting staff benefits such as paid leave and full-time wages.

Cruz said that his managers often extended his break hours to keep his working hours just below the eight-hour threshold even as he worked extra shifts, and burdened him with extra responsibilities, such as lifting heavy items in the stockroom, without additional pay.

“At 14 dollars an hour, you can barely survive living so close to such a Metropolitan area where everything is super expensive,” Cruz said.

In February, Jollibee-owned Smashburger was ordered to pay damages to 241 employees after being found to have violated New York City’s paid and sick leave laws.

“It’s Jollibee’s motive to maintain high profits by cutting labour costs,” Mariano said.

“That’s where they got all that capital, from unpaid benefits. It also relies on the labour export programme of the Philippines with 4 million Filipinos in the US comprising the company’s market base.”

Conditions at home

Allegations of poor labour practices at Jollibee stretch all the way back to the Philippines, where the company was founded in 1978.

Janine, who spent a year working at two Jollibee branches in Antipolo City in 2021, said she was denied overtime pay for shifts stretching from 3pm to 1am and would be forced to buy leftover food at the end of the day.

“I once had to take out three orders of spaghetti!” Janine, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera, adding that she earned 375 Philippine pesos ($6.65) a day, minus a 50 pesos fee ($0.89) for a recruiting agency.

As in the US, Jollibee in the Philippines has been accused of depriving employees of benefits and job security by keeping them as contract workers indefinitely.

In 2018, the Philippines’s Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said JFC topped the list of companies with the most contractual employees.

When DOLE ordered the company to regularise nearly 7,000 of its workforce, JFC submitted an appeal before laying off 400 workers.

JFC did not respond to a request for comment. But it has maintained in past statements that it complies with all labour standards and only deals with “reputable” contractors, insisting that the onus for regularising workers lies with the recruitment agencies.

In the same year, JFC chairman Tony Tan Caktiong told reporters that contractualisation was a thing of the past and had been supplemented by the outsourcing of employee roles.

Jerome Adonis, the secretary general of the trade union Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), said becoming a regular employee with a contractor and with the primary company are two very different things.

“How can you bargain for your full rights, wages and benefits with an agency which merely depends on the temporary contract between them and Jollibee for example?” Adonis told Al Jazeera, adding that workers do not enjoy an employee-employer relationship with Jollibee even if they are stationed at the company’s branches.

“That’s how it circumvents the law,” Adonis said.

KMU estimates that about 29,000 of JFC’s more than 36,000 employees are contractual, an increase since the DOLE’s 2018 directive.

Denise, who worked as a branch manager at JFC for 12 years, said that Jollibee usually handpicks a few workers who will be regularised directly with the company.

“It’s performance-based. You need to apply and then we evaluate,” Denise, who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.

Adonis, the trade union leader, said such a standard is “unfair and arbitrary”.

“They’re making workers compete for their own rights. They should be direct hires while their fundamental rights to unionise should be respected,” he said.

The post Jollibee, Philippine icon, accused of exporting poor pay, conditions appeared first on Al Jazeera.

“I am proud to announce that the DGA-Producers Pension & Health Plans Board of Trustees has unanimously approved the creation of a critically important free major medical plan for Health Plan participants and their eligible dependents who have been financially impacted by the work stoppage,” said DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter. “This innovative effort by the Plans’ trustees will help Plan participants facing financial hardship retain basic health coverage during this difficult time.”

The new DGA benefit comes in the wake of a similar move by the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan – which covers members of IATSE, Teamsters Local 399 and several other unions – which recently eased the requirements that their members need to qualify for health coverage in order “to help participants and dependents affected by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.” 

So, among Hollywood’s major guilds, that leaves only members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA without similar protections, even though the major health plans are all funded by, and have management trustees represented by, the same companies. Carol Lombardini, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, against which SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are striking, serves on the boards of all four major P&H Plans.

The frequently asked questions page of the WGA’s strike site notes, “There is no Health Fund requirement that the Health Plan extend health insurance coverage during a strike, and Trustees are 50% management and 50% Guild. If you fall out of coverage during the strike, extended benefits may be available under COBRA.” The WGA has been on strike since May 2.

SAG-AFTRA has been on strike since July 14, and its members are also facing the loss of health care coverage. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild’s national executive director, said in a recent podcast “As far as health and pension go, eligibility requirements are going to remain the same” during the strike. We would love to adjust those requirements or make special exceptions, however, as many of our members undoubtedly know, the Pension & Health Plans are run by a joint board of trustees, half of which are controlled by the studios and streamers – the management-side trustees – so there is no vision on the horizon where we can get these management trustees to agree to make adjustments to the eligibility requirements.”

The DGA’s P&H Plans’ new benefit is available to participants and their eligible dependents who meet certain eligibility requirements. The Major Medical Plus Plan will offer network-only medical coverage with certain benefit exclusions and prescription drug benefits.

Its strike-related Major Medical Plus Plan will be offered initially for three months from October 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023, with consideration for future quarters of eligibility to be determined later should the strikes.  It will provide the following benefits:

• Network coverage, including mental health and substance abuse benefits
• Prescription drug coverage
• Emergency Services (with specific guidance regarding non-network providers)

Hearing aids, chiropractic, acupuncture and foot orthotics are excluded from coverage under the Major Medical Plus Plan, as are dental benefits, vision benefits and special arrangements with UCLA Health/EIMG.

To qualify for the Major Medical Plus Plan, members must have worked under the Basic Agreement or the Freelance Live and Tape Television Agreement and meet either of the requirements below:

• Members and eligible dependents who lost Earned Active or regular Carry-Over coverage as of June 30, 2023, and did not have sufficient earnings to requalify effective October 1, 2023, for the applicable work period July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, and have at least $10,000 in initial compensation during the work period July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 and the DGA-Producer Health Plan is your primary plan; OR
• Members and their eligible dependents who will lose Earned Active or regular Carry-Over coverage as of September 30, 2023, and did not have sufficient earnings to requalify effective October 1, 2023, for the applicable work period July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, and have at least $10,000 in initial compensation during the work period July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 and the DGA-Producer Health Plan is your primary plan. 

Qualified participants may include their eligible dependents for the duration of the Major Medical Plus Plan coverage. Participants who qualify for the Major Medical Plus Plan will receive a letter from the Health Plan with information on how to elect the coverage.

The post DGA Pension & Health Plans Approve New Medical Plan To Help Members Impacted By Ongoing Strikes appeared first on Deadline.

“We’ve been believers in bundling for a long time,” the exec said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “Bundling has been one of the tried-and-true methods of value creation in media and certainly as we enter the streaming space, bundling is part of our strategy.”

The company’s quarterly report showed narrower streaming losses but only a modest gain in Paramount+ subscribers, to 61 million. The flagship streaming service integrated Showtime just before the June 30 end of the quarter, with higher prices accompanying the revamp. Revenue at Paramount+ — a majority chunk of the overall $1.7 billion in the Direct-to-Consumer division — increased 47% over the year-earlier quarter.

Bakish noted that the company has long pursued bundling in various forms. Paramount+ and Showtime were offered as a discount-priced bundle when they were still separate services, and the company also created hard bundles with pay-TV operators, especially outside the U.S.

Because of Paramount’s scale relative to tech giants as well as media rivals like Disney, Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery, investors and industry observers have long speculated about its options. Many have predicted an M&A move, though the dust has only recently settled after the chaotic years that led up to the closing of the ViacomCBS merger in December 2019.

Given the family control of the company’s shares and the significant regulatory hurdles standing in the way of a full-on merger, a streaming alliance could be a path forward. The need to consider such an initiative has only grown as the overall climate has grown more harsh to streaming, with Wall Street insisting on profitability rather than subscriber growth, and big questions looming about the economics of streaming. Paramount did enter into a joint venture with Comcast, SkyShowtime, which launched last year as a way for both companies to reach certain European markets with a less onerous financial commitment than a solo streaming effort.

“We are continuing to look at incremental opportunities” in bundling, Bakish continued. “The only thing we know for sure is, it will be a growing part of what we’re doing. As to the specifics of partnerships and timing, et cetera, we’ll see. But bundling is definitely a value-added element of streaming because it gives you access to consumer connections … and has certain attractive margin characteristics. So, we like bundling.”

Paramount+ With Showtime, which officially launched June 27, “is an example of pulling all these levers,” Bakish said, alluding to revenue growth via price increases, subscription gains and ad monetization, plus cost and operational efficiencies.

Blending the two services into one — a move that will be mirrored in linear TV in the coming months — has generated $700 million in cost savings, Bakish said.

The combination has also yielded “a stronger product for consumers and our partners, one that is more engaging with less churn,” he added. “For the last year or so, we’ve had a bundle of Showtime and Paramount in the market. Customers of that bundle consumed over 40% more titles” than those with single subscriptions to one or the other. “So, we have clear, predictive data that an integrated product will deliver enhanced consumer engagement in streaming and, soon, in linear.”

The post Paramount CEO Bob Bakish Says Streaming Bundling Will Increase, Possibly With Third Parties; Cites Evidence That Paramount+ Combo With Showtime Boosted Viewing appeared first on Deadline.