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mariacallous · 2 years

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Veterans Affairs leaders aren’t planning any changes in their abortion access rules in the wake of warnings from 15 Republican attorneys general that they plan to fight those policies in court.

Last week, the coalition of state officials sent a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough blasting the administration’s “lawless and hasty executive actions taken at the behest of its political base” concerning abortion.

“We will not allow you to use this rule to erect a regime of elective abortions that defy state laws,” the group wrote. “And we will enforce our duly enacted state laws and hold you accountable for violations of federal law. Those who perform abortions based on the [new] rule — and in defiance of state or federal laws — do so at their own risk.”

The letter was sent from the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch but also includes signers from Texas and Florida, two states with the largest veteran populations in America. Officials from Arizona, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia also signed on.

In September, VA officials announced that department physicians would offer abortion access to veterans and eligible dependents in cases of rape, incest and pregnancies that endanger the life or health of an individual.

That move came in response to the June Supreme Court ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Since then, multiple states have banned or limited the procedure.

VA officials said the new rule means that staff can help veterans get an abortion at an outside health care facility or perform abortions on federal property, even in states where the procedure has been outlawed.

The department has conducted several abortions since the decision, although officials did not provide specific numbers or locations.

In a statement in response to the attorneys general letter, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said the department remains “committed to providing veterans the full range of reproductive health services to ensure their health and well-being.”

Those services include not only abortion procedures but also fertility services, contraceptives and menopause care, he said.

“VA provides access to abortion counseling and abortions when the life or health of the pregnant veteran would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest,” he said.

“As VA Secretary Denis McDonough has said, ‘pregnant veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most..’”

VA officials have said the new rule will not allow “elective” abortions, but the language allows abortion procedures to be considered when a veteran’s health is endangered.

Multiple Republican lawmakers have threatened to impose financial sanctions against the department when they take control of the House majority next year. Democratic leaders meanwhile have vowed to fight any such attacks.

VA officials have said about 300,000 women veterans currently enrolled in department health care services are of child-bearing age.

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sportyconnect · 1 year

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In the sports world, it's all about strategy, and securing car insurance is no different. With the right knowledge and decision-making, you can score the cheapest car insurance in Utah without sacrificing the quality of coverage. This comprehensive guide will help you navigate the dynamic auto insurance market in Utah and make an informed choice. Utah, renowned for its breath-taking national parks and unmatched ski resorts, houses an intricate and vibrant auto insurance market. Factors like your age, the type of car you drive, and your driving record can significantly affect car insurance rates in Utah. What Factors Influence Car Insurance Rates in Utah? "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs When it comes to car insurance, great work means understanding the factors affecting your premiums and using that knowledge to secure better rates. Here are a few vital considerations: Location: Rates within Utah can differ notably, even though they may be lower than those in New York or California. Factors like crime rate and population density play a role. Driving Record: A clean driving record can result in lower insurance premiums. However, any infractions such as speeding tickets or accidents can lead to a rate increase. Age and Vehicle Type: Younger, less experienced drivers often face higher rates. Also, the make and model of your car can affect the cost of your car insurance. Top Providers for the Cheapest Car Insurance in Utah According to various sources, the following are some of the most affordable car insurance companies in Utah: WalletHub: State Farm: $50 per month Geico: $51 per month Progressive: $52 per month Nationwide: $53 per month Farm Bureau Financial Services: $54 per month Bankrate: USAA: $419 per year State Farm: $478 per year Progressive: $486 per year Geico: $494 per year Farm Bureau Financial Services: $502 per year NerdWallet: State Farm: $50 per month Geico: $51 per month Progressive: $52 per month Nationwide: $53 per month Farm Bureau Financial Services: $54 per month As shown, the cheapest car insurance companies in Utah can differ depending on the source. Hence, comparing quotes from multiple insurers is crucial to find the best deal tailored to your needs. The Balance Between Cost and Coverage While scouting for the most affordable car insurance in Utah, it's paramount to balance cost with coverage. Cheapest does not always mean the best. Insurance exists to shield us from potential financial risks following an accident. So, ensure you're getting an adequate level of coverage to meet your needs while hunting for the most affordable rates. The Art of Cutting Costs on Car Insurance in Utah In the journey of navigating through the landscape of affordable car insurance, knowledge is power. It's not merely about finding the cheapest providers. It's also about understanding what actions you can take to further reduce your premiums and get the best value for your money. Let's delve into some strategies you can use to minimize your car insurance rates in Utah. Maintain a Clean Driving Record It cannot be emphasized enough how much a clean driving record can impact your insurance premiums. Insurers see a pattern of safe driving as a sign of a lower risk driver, which can potentially lower your insurance rates. This fact is not unique to Utah. For instance, a flawless driving record can also help secure the cheapest car insurance in states like Florida and Michigan. So, it is universally beneficial to cultivate good driving habits. Leverage Discounts "Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving." - Warren Buffett While it's necessary to look at the broad picture of yearly premiums, don't forget to investigate potential discounts that insurers offer. Various companies provide discounts for: Safe Driving: As mentioned earlier, keeping your record clean can reward you with a safe driver discount.

Bundling Policies: Purchasing multiple insurance types (like home and auto insurance) from the same provider can often save you money. Pay-in-Full Discounts: If you're able to pay your premium in full, instead of monthly installments, some insurers may offer a discount. Rethink Your Coverage An essential aspect of securing cheap car insurance involves reevaluating your coverage needs. For example, if your vehicle is older and not worth much, you might decide to drop collision or comprehensive coverage, which can lead to significant savings. However, remember that this decision comes with the risk of having to cover all the costs if your vehicle is damaged or totaled. Compare, Compare, Compare As shown in our previous segment, rates vary from one company to another. Just as you would compare car insurance rates in Texas and New Jersey, the same applies to insurers within Utah. Comparing quotes from different providers can help you spot the best deal that suits your requirements. The Vehicle Factor and Understanding Utah's Insurance Laws In the world of car insurance, the type of vehicle you drive and the legal requirements for your state can make a significant impact on your premiums. Let's explore these topics as they relate to securing the most affordable car insurance in Utah. The Make and Model of Your Car The make and model of your vehicle play a crucial role in determining your insurance rates. Sports cars, for instance, usually come with higher insurance costs than sedans or SUVs. Safety ratings, the cost of parts, and theft rates can all influence how much you pay for car insurance, not just in Utah, but also in other states such as California or Georgia. If you're planning to buy a new car and want to keep your insurance costs low, consider doing some research beforehand. Look into the average insurance costs for different makes and models, and consider this information when making your purchasing decision. Age and Experience of the Driver Your age and experience as a driver can also influence your insurance rates. Generally, younger and less experienced drivers face higher insurance costs. If you're a parent looking for car insurance for your teen driver, expect to pay more than what you would pay for your own policy. Utah's Car Insurance Laws and Requirements In Utah, all motorists must carry auto insurance. The state follows a "no-fault" system, which means that after most traffic accidents, an injured person's own insurance company pays for medical expenses and lost wages, no matter who was at fault for the accident. The minimum auto insurance requirements in Utah are as follows: $25,000 for bodily injury per person per accident $65,000 for bodily injury to others per accident $15,000 for property damage per accident $3,000 for personal injury protection (PIP) Knowing these requirements can help you make informed decisions when choosing your insurance coverage. However, while choosing the minimum coverage can lead to cheaper insurance rates, it may not fully protect you in the event of a serious accident. "Cheap insurance isn't always the best insurance. You get what you pay for." - Anonymous Finding the cheapest car insurance in Utah requires careful consideration of various factors. From the company you choose, the vehicle you drive, to your adherence to safe driving rules, all play a part in determining your premium. Just like you'd compare options in New York or Illinois, a thorough comparison and understanding of your needs can land you the most affordable and suitable car insurance in Utah. #SportyConnect

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tastydregs · 1 year

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Robot Lawyers Are About to Flood the Courts

The hype cycle for chatbots—software that can generate convincing strings of words from a simple prompt—is in full swing. Few industries are more panicked than lawyers, who have been investing in tools to generate and process legal documents for years. After all, you might joke, what are lawyers but primitive human chatbots, generating convincing strings of words from simple prompts?

For America’s state and local courts, this joke is about to get a lot less funny, fast. Debt collection agencies are already flooding courts and ambushing ordinary people with thousands of low-quality, small-dollar cases. Courts are woefully unprepared for a future where anyone with a chatbot can become a high-volume filer, or where ordinary people might rely on chatbots for desperately-needed legal advice.

Garbage In, Garnishments Out

When you imagine a court, you might picture two opposing lawyers arguing before a judge, and perhaps a jury. That picture is mostly an illusion. Americans have the right to an attorney only when they’re accused of a crime—for everything else, you’re on your own. As a result, the vast majority of civil cases in state and local courts have at least one party who does not have a lawyer, often because they have no other option. And because court processes are designed for lawyers, every case with a self-represented litigant requires more resources from courts, assuming the person without a lawyer shows up at all.

Add enough cases like this to a court’s docket, and the results are ugly. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, thousands of foreclosure cases hit court dockets all at once. Many of the cases were rife with defects: false affidavits, bad notarizations, backdated paperwork, inadequate documentation, and so on. But foreclosures were pushed through anyway, and people lost their homes.

This wasn’t a one-off. It’s a warning of what happens when the world changes and courts don’t adapt. To see that future for robot lawyers, take today’s high-volume filers: debt collections agencies. Small-dollar ($5,000 or less) debt cases, filed en masse by collections agencies, increasingly dominate local court dockets. While nationwide data is hard to find (more on that later), in 2013, the Pew Charitable Trusts found that small-dollar debt cases made up a quarter of all civil (non-criminal) cases filed in the United States. In 1993, it was just over 10 percent. And cases are on the rise, in red and blue states.

The goal of debt collection cases is simple: Turn hard-to-collect debt into easy-to-collect wage garnishments. In most states, when someone loses a debt case, a court can order their employer to redirect their wages toward a creditor instead. The easiest way for that to happen? When the defendant doesn’t show up, defaulting the case. The majority of debt cases end in default: Either the defendant chooses not to show, is confused about what they need to do or should do, or, just as often, never receives notice of a case at all. “Sewer service,” where plaintiffs deliberately avoid notifying defendants of a legal case (for example, by sending a case to an old address), has been a festering problem in debt and eviction cases for decades, and continues to this day. In some cases, people find out they’ve been sued only after noticing that their paycheck has been garnished.

When a case does default, many courts will simply grant whatever judgment the plaintiff has requested, without checking whether the plaintiff has provided adequate (or any) documentation that the plaintiff owns the debt, that the defendant still owes the debt, or whether the defendant has been properly notified of the case. Sometimes, even the math is wrong: One study of Utah’s courts found that 9.3 percent of debt cases miscalculated the interest plaintiffs were entitled to after a judgment. In other words: garbage in, garnishments out.

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paypant · 1 year

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route22ny · 4 years

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On Tuesday, I received an absentee ballot. It was the second absentee ballot I had received from the New York City Board of Elections in two weeks. I had filled out, completed, and mailed back the first ballot. Now I was holding another one that also had my name on it. After speaking to a Board of Elections representative on the phone, I was told to fill out this second ballot, too, because the first one no longer counted.

If you live in New York City, you might already know why this happened. The contractor screwed up printing the first ones, sending secrecy envelopes with the wrong names on them. As it happened, my first ballot was not one of the screwed up ones—I was aware of the problem and had checked to make sure before filling it out—but the BOE decided to send everyone in Brooklyn a new ballot regardless.

This is hardly the first time the New York City Board of Elections messed up and I highly doubt it will be the last. But in this case, the latest screw-up was the final nudge I needed to push me over the edge. I am not going to vote by mail. I'm voting in person on Election Day. And I really think most of you should, too.

When we started this project, a lot of us thought the USPS would be a potential weak link in the voting-by-mail chain. This made sense at the time given the slowdowns implemented by Louis DeJoy and the agency's financial situation. But thanks to extensive public outcry and five separate federal judges issuing injunctions against the USPS from messing with election mail, I feel really good about the postal service delivering the overwhelmingly vast majority of ballots in a timely fashion to local election officials. There will, of course, be screw ups and small issues affecting a few dozen voters here and a few hundred voters there, but they will be nothing in comparison to the much larger systemic issues with mail-in voting in this country that have nothing to do with the ballot getting from place to place.

I am hardly the only one coming to this realization in recent weeks. Derek Thompson at The Atlantic had a great article about how voting in-person is much safer than we thought months ago while voting by mail has a number of issues in terms of having people's votes actually count. Democratic strategists around the country have been getting wise about the problem as well, shifting tactics to urge more people to vote in person.

Unfortunately, voting by mail seems like a process designed more to weed out ballots rather than count them. The rules vary by state, but generally speaking, the more fields voters have to fill out and the more rules they must comply with, the higher the rejection rate.

Some states like New York simply require a signature which needs to match the one the local election officials have on file. Young voters in particular are vulnerable to having their ballots rejected due to a signature not matching, a study by a voting non-profit in California found, because young people don't put much thought into creating a distinctive signature and refine it over time, exactly the kind of process that would get their ballot thrown out. Most young people's signatures are scribbles they make up to sign credit card receipts quickly. I, for one, can verify that I did not think about creating a unique identifier that would ensure my vote was counted when I came up with my John Hancock. As a helpful New York Times interactive demonstrated, it can be really challenging to match signatures if you don't know what you're doing. This is great for rejecting fraudulent ballots, but it means throwing out a lot of legitimate ones, too.

Back in June during the primaries, 80,000 ballots from New York City out of 400,000 were thrown out, about one out of every five ballots, a staggering toll of voter disenfranchisement. And voters were not notified of what they did wrong so they could correct it in future elections. It is a pretty shitty feeling sitting here with no idea whether my vote in the primary—which in NYC is the most important election for determining local candidates—was counted!

According to the Times, 28 states and DC will give aspiring voters a chance to "cure" ballots with problems (and the courts are generally friendly to these requirements on due process grounds). For the first time, New York will be one of those states this November. But, for my own voting purposes, I don't have a ton of faith in the Board of Elections to execute that process well, given that with the surge of mail-in voting we could be talking about millions of mail-in ballots in the city alone requiring hundreds of thousands of cures if not more.

And that is just regarding signatures. Three states, including the battlegrounds Wisconsin and North Carolina, require witnesses as well as signatures. In Wisconsin, witnesses are required to put in their address. According to an investigation by the non-profit news organization Reveal, 13,834 ballots were thrown out in the Wisconsin primaries because some fields on the witness form were not filled out properly, a number that is sure to increase in the general election with its higher turnout. The voters weren't notified or given a chance to correct them, nor will they be allowed to in November.

All of this would be a regrettable reality if the health risk of voting in-person was quite high. But for most people, it simply isn't. As Thompson noted, other countries have held nationwide elections with in-person voting without tracing any outbreaks to the voting booths, nor have any outbreaks been traced back to primary voting. As long as people generally behave themselves and wear masks, the voting booth ought to be no more dangerous from a pandemic standpoint than the grocery store check-out line.

That being said, I am still a huge proponent of universal vote-by-mail as a concept every state should strive towards. People in states that have had that in place for years such as Washington, Utah, and Colorado should absolutely continue to vote by mail if they prefer. Those states have experience with high volumes of vote-by-mail, signature verification, and robust methods for allowing voters to cure ballots. It is the states like New York, Ohio, and Texas that have suddenly implemented expanded and complicated vote-by-mail procedures I'm worried about. And, of course, if you have pre-existing health issues that make even going to the grocery store or the voting booth an uncomfortable prospect—or if you simply can never be bothered to vote in person but find vote-by-mail an acceptable middle ground—roll the dice with vote-by-mail. It's better than putting yourself at unnecessary risk or not voting at all.

But if you aren't sure what your signature looks like, aren't familiar with your state's vote-by-mail laws, or generally feel fine about voting in person as usual, it's something we should do. This is an extremely important election and I want to do everything in my power to ensure my vote counts. It turns out the USPS isn't a weak link in the vote-by-mail chain at all. In fact, it may be the strongest.

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This Week In Mail

Americans generally agree on the post office. They overwhelmingly like the post office. And a new poll finds they support it being run like a public service and not a business by a two-to-one margin.

The courts are already playing an important role in this year's election. So far, that role has been to reject GOP claims of voter fraud in mail-in voting and generally uphold whatever election rules the state law requires, regardless of whether that law makes voting easier or harder.

Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office reviewed documents from eleven lawsuits against the Postal Service to cobble together evidence that new management has a super aggressive plan to slash the number of work-hours after the election, which would likely hobble the post office and make current service levels impossible.

Despite the court injunctions and DeJoy's promises, service has not returned to its pre-DeJoy levels in some areas. Senator Bob Casey from New Jersey published evidence of first class mail backlogged by weeks.

Perhaps on a related note, the USPS is blocking elected officials from inspecting facilities claiming it's too close to the election, which as far as I can tell is a completely made-up reason. Previously, some facilities had scrambled to hide backlogged mail before elected officials showed up.

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Subscribe to Aaron Gordon’s reporting on the USPS here

#USPS #postal service #save the post office #Aaron Gordon #VOTE

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hanofearl · 4 years

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Burn Resources, Get Money

While having a business plan on hand at all times may seem cliché, it is actually the mark of an efficient and well-thought-out business. Business owners who do not have a business plan can often be stumped when put in an impromptu networking situation. They also may cause their business to fail because they have no direction where they want to go or no plan for how to get where they are going. A business plan is essential to the success of your business because it determines how various resources should be allocated and enables strategy in interpersonal settings.

Spend Wisely and the Rewards are Mighty

Businesses always come with budgets and it is the responsibility of the business owner to determine how the budget should be spent to obtain various types of assets. These decisions can be difficult, but spending money wisely can result in positive growth for the business. However, unwise decisions can lead to heavy losses to the business and even can result in business failure. Having a business plan can help determine what are wise investments and what are wastes of money.

For example, having a business plan can help determine if the business needs to hire new people to help run the business[1]. Whether it’s a personal assistant or an accountant or another professional to lend their services to the business, it’s important to be able to attract people with talents and skills that the business owner or other employees don’t already have[2]. It diversifies your business and grows the business’s potential[3]. The business plan allows for easier determination if hiring help is cost-effective or is a waste of resources.

Another resource that needs to be invested in wisely is renting office space. Rent is a financial obligation that is often fixed and can be a financial drain if the space isn’t used[4]. It may be more financially prudent to buy instead of lease. The business plan helps determine how much your business has the potential to grow and if investing in space is worth the financial risk[5].

Networking Events are Strategic Social Interactions

The idea of networking may seem daunting to the new business owner. It may seem like a forced and manipulative way to talk to friends and family. Or it may be hard to remember the reasons someone should invest in the business on the fly. However, networking is essential to business growth. A business plan allows for ease in talking with friends, family, lenders, and investors about why they should care about the business.

The act of starting an independent business can be scary for friends and family. They will want to know exactly what the direction is, how the business is going to get there, and if there are contingencies for things going wrong. All these concerns can be assuaged easily if there is a business plan[6]. It provides an easy way to answer all these questions and can also calm personal anxieties about the business by being a reminder that there is a plan and it’s not all unknown[7].

Having a business plan on hand sets anxious feelings investors and lenders can have as well. Investors and money lenders are essential because they help get the business off the ground and help it grow to reach more clients. They need to know how risky investing in this business is and what are the advantages of investing in this business[8]. A business plan prepares for addressing these issues intelligently and honestly, which helps grow the business[9].

How to Be A Wise Spender and Strategically Social

These skills are hard to learn, but ultimately extremely rewarding in the end. As a freelance typesetter and book designer, I have a unique skill set that will help me have a successful business. There are not as many freelance typesetters as there are freelance copyeditors. My plan is to use purchased resources and networking to grow my business so it can sustain my lifestyle during grad school in the way a part-time job would.

There are quite a few purchasable resources that I will need to have to have a successful business. Firstly, I will continue my subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, which is approximately $32 a month. While this may seem expensive to some, it is an essential resource for typesetting and book design. Having a Creative Cloud subscription gives me access to InDesign and Adobe’s vast array of fonts and other free resources. It is also industry standard to use the Creative Cloud, so I need it to remain competitive with other freelancers. Secondly, I plan on selectively investing in fonts when I find ones that I like enough to reuse multiple times. This will be a rare purchase, due to the wide variety of Adobe fonts, but it may sometimes be necessary. I will need to be especially judicious when buying fonts. Lastly, I will probably invest in some kind of website subscription so I can display my design portfolio effectively. I will have to ruminate for a long time about this, since there are some free website building platforms that are good. I may want to save money, but I also may want to look more professional by spending money on my own domain name. All these decisions need to be taken into consideration with great care, especially since I currently don’t have a constant source of income.

Networking will also be essential to building my freelancing business. I know a few people heavily involved in the small publishing scene in Utah, so I will let them know I am open for business and will post on the Facebook groups for networking that I am on. I also have a couple contacts in the New York book publishing scene, so I will reach out to them and find out if they know of any online freelancing communities that I can join. Additionally, I will also probably become that annoying person on social media that posts all the time about my small business. I may need to create social media pages separate from my art accounts just so it doesn’t get too confusing for any of my followers. I am uncomfortable when I feel like I am manipulating my friends, but I am going to have to do these things to be a competitive freelancer.

Conclusion

The business plan allows for business growth by determining how resources should be allocated and aiding in interpersonal business practices. A business needs to have potential to grow to succeed in the market. If there is no potential for growth, the business is essentially dead in the water. There will be no investors, no clients, and no hope at explaining bankruptcy to friends and family. A business plan is essential for success.

Bibliography

Berry, Tim. “15 Reasons You Need a Business Plan.” Entrepreneur. March 13, 2006. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83818.

Now from Nationwide. “What is the Importance of a Business Plan?” September 19, 2019. https://blog.nationwide.com/importance-of-a-business-plan/.

Nunn, Les, and Brian McGuire, “The Importance Of A Good Business Plan.” Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 8 no. 2 (2010) 95-106.

[1] Tim Berry. “15 Reasons You Need a Business Plan,” Entrepreneur, March 13, 2006. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83818.

[2] “What is the Importance of a Business Plan?” Now from Nationwide, September 19, 2019. https://blog.nationwide.com/importance-of-a-business-plan/.

[3] Nationwide, “What is the Importance…”

[4] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[5] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[6] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[7] Les Nunn and Brian McGuire, “The Importance Of A Good Business Plan,” Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 8 no. 2 (2010) 95-106.

[8] Nunn, “The Importance…”

[9] Nunn, “The Importance…”

#editing #business plan #editing and publishing #researched writing

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Saturday, July 10, 2021

Billionaire Blastoff (AP) Two billionaires are putting everything on the line this month to ride their own rockets into space. Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson is due to take off Sunday from New Mexico, launching with two pilots and three other employees aboard a rocket plane carried aloft by a double-fuselage aircraft. Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos departs nine days later from West Texas, blasting off in a fully automated capsule with three guests: his brother, an 82-year-old female aviation pioneer who’s waited six decades for a shot at space and the winner of a $28 million charity auction. They will go 55 miles to 66 miles (88 kilometers to 106 kilometers) up.

Severe heat wave builds across Western U.S. after nation’s hottest June on record (Washington Post) Last week, a “thousand-year” heat wave baked the Pacific Northwest and adjacent British Columbia with widespread highs topping 100 degrees, resulting in a death toll in the hundreds. Lytton, Canada, climbed to 121 degrees and established new national records three days in a row before the town burned in heat-intensified wildfires. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday that the heat wave helped the United States clinch its hottest June on record. Eight states had their hottest Junes, including Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. These four states are at the heart of yet another heat wave developing in the West that could challenge records and bring dangerously hot temperatures. It will mark the third punishing heat wave in the West this summer, including last week’s in the Pacific Northwest and a record-breaking event in mid-June. This heat wave will not likely be as extreme as the event in the Pacific Northwest, but temperatures could challenge all-time highs around Las Vegas, Redding, Calif., and Sacramento and a few other places between California’s Central Valley and southern Nevada.

Political Crisis in Haiti Deepens Over Rival Claims to Power (NYT) The political storm in Haiti intensified on Thursday as two competing prime ministers claimed the right to run the country, setting up an extraordinary power struggle over who had the legal authority to govern after the brazen assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in his home the day before. Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, says he has taken command of the police and the army, declaring a “state of siege” that essentially put the country under martial law. But constitutional experts questioned his right to impose it, and his claim to power was quickly challenged by a rival. Two days before his death, Mr. Moïse had appointed a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who was supposed to take up the role this week and told a local newspaper that he was the rightful prime minister instead. The dueling claims created a volatile political crisis that left constitutional experts confused and diplomats worried about a broad societal collapse that could ignite violence or prompt Haitians to flee the country en masse, as they have after natural disasters, coups or other periods of deep instability.

Brexit bill (Reuters) Brexit’s unfortunate fallout continues. The European Union has said that the United Kingdom is liable to pay 47.5 billion euros ($56.2 billion) to the E.U. as part of its post-Brexit financial settlement. The E.U.’s consolidated budget report for 2020 said the money is owed under a series of articles which both sides agreed to as part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The amount is significantly higher than the U.K. expected. Its Office for Budget Responsibility predicted in its March 2018 economic and fiscal outlook report that the bill would amount to 41.4 billion euros ($49 billion). Britain and the E.U. were in a 47-year relationship, and the divorce has been dicey. It took more than four years of acrimonious negotiations and lingering mistrust before the two finally struck a trade and cooperation agreement at the end of December.

Thailand to impose tighter restrictions to slow virus spread (Reuters) Thailand will announce new travel restrictions, mall closures and curbs on gatherings in the capital Bangkok and surrounding provinces starting next week, in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, two government sources told Reuters. The government will issue a stay-home order from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. for 14 days and bar gatherings of more than five people in the capital and high-risk areas, the sources said.

China’s gaming curfew (Foreign Policy) Chinese gaming giant Tencent will begin using facial recognition technology to prevent minors playing mobile video games past a nationwide gaming curfew. China established the 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew in 2019 to combat gaming addiction—deemed a mental health disorder in 2018 by the World Health Organization. Chinese children and teenagers had been circumventing the nighttime ban by using adult’s credentials to log in to the gaming service, prompting the technological intervention.

Biden Accelerates Withdrawal Timetable (Foreign Policy) U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, despite the Taliban’s rapid territorial gains in recent weeks. In a White House address, Biden said that all combat troops would leave Afghanistan by August 31, even earlier than a Sept. 11 deadline he set back in April. Heading off criticism from some conservatives, who have called for a small combat troop presence to remain in the country, Biden—a long-time skeptic of prolonged U.S. involvement in Afghanistan—questioned the cost of such a move. “Let me ask those who want us to stay: How many more—how many thousands more Americans, daughters and sons—are you willing to risk?” Biden said. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.” Although nearly all U.S. troops are set to depart Afghanistan by August, a substantial number—roughly 650—will remain in the country to provide security for the U.S. embassy and Kabul’s international airport.

Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran’s waning hold (AP) Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force commander brought one main directive for Iraqi militia faction leaders long beholden to Tehran, when he gathered with them in Baghdad last month: Maintain calm, until after nuclear talks between Iran and the United States. But he was met with defiance. One of the six faction leaders spoke up in their meeting: They could not stay quiet while the death of his predecessor Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone strike went unavenged. Militia attacks have only been increasing against the U.S. in military bases in both Iraq and Syria. Three missile attacks in the last week alone resulted in minor injuries, stoking fears of escalation. There have been at least eight drone attacks targeting the U.S. presence since Biden took office in January, as well as 17 rocket attacks, according to coalition officials. The attacks are blamed on the Iranian-backed militias that make up the bulk of Iraq’s state-supported Popular Mobilization Forces. The Biden administration has responded by twice targeting Iraqi militia groups operating inside Syria, including close to the Iraqi border.

Israel levels family home of alleged Palestinian attacker (AP) Israel on Thursday demolished the family home of a Palestinian-American man accused of carrying out a deadly attack on Israelis in the occupied West Bank, rejecting pleas from his estranged wife that he rarely lived in the house, which she shared with their three children. The demolition drew a rebuke from the United States, which is opposed to punitive home demolitions and has taken a more critical line toward Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank since President Joe Biden took office this year. “The home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price. “There is a critical need to lower the temperature in the West Bank. Punitive demolitions exacerbate tensions at a time when everyone should be focused on principally ensuring calm.”

Religion (Public Religion Research Institute) A new survey of 50,334 Americans over the course of 2020 tracked how religion in the United States has continued to change over recent years. According to the survey, 36 percent of those 18 to 29 years old considered themselves unaffiliated with a religion, substantially higher than the 23 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds who considered themselves as much in 2006, and the 10 percent who were unaffiliated in 1986. That’s also double the rate of religiously unaffiliated compared to those aged 50 to 64. Still, a majority—54 percent—of those 18 to 29 are Christians, though that’s down from the 70 percent of all Americans.

Laughter can make you more productive at work (CNBC) Being inundated with bad news and working from home, for some alone, during the coronavirus pandemic has made it harder than ever for workers to find the time for laughter, but experts argue that it can really make a difference when it comes to productivity. Daniel Sgroi, an economics professor at the U.K.’s University of Warwick, told CNBC via telephone that laughter can trigger the activation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, both of which are considered mood-boosting hormones. Sgroi explained that laughter “fast tracks networks in the brain to help you concentrate and focus,” working as the equivalent of a productivity boost. Research that Sgroi co-authored, published in 2015, found evidence of a link between happiness and productivity. One of the techniques used in his study was to use comedy to make participants laugh and be happier, which he said boosted productivity by up to 12%. “So it’s almost like being happy generates more time,” he said, explaining that someone who is happy might be able to do in one hour what it takes someone who is less happy to do in an hour and 20 minutes.

#headlines #news

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sonnenburgconsulting · 9 months

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

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Even more striking than the scale of need are the shifting demographics of who is eating here and why. The homeless population is getting younger, staffers say, and more likely to have children and full-time jobs. In one hour, over taco salad and Fanta, I meet fast-food employees, a former car salesman who lost his home in the financial crisis and a pregnant 31-year-old whose baby is due the same month her housing vouchers run out.

But the biggest surprise about St. Vincent’s may be the state in which it’s located. Just four years ago, Utah was the poster child for a new approach to homelessness, a solution so simple you could sum it up in five words: Just give homeless people homes.

In 2005, the state and its capital started providing no-strings-attached apartments to the “chronically” homeless — people who had lived on the streets for at least a year and suffered from mental illness, substance abuse or a physical disability. Over the next 10 years, Utah built hundreds of housing units, hired dozens of social workers ― and reduced chronic homelessness by 91 percent.

The results were a sensation. In 2015, breathless media reports announced that a single state, and a single policy, had finally solved one of urban America’s most vexing problems. Reporters from around the country came to Utah to gather lessons for their own cities. In a widely shared “Daily Show” segment, Hasan Minhaj jogged the streets of Salt Lake City, asking locals if they knew where all the homeless people had gone.

But this simplistic celebration hid a far more complex truth. While Salt Lake City targeted a small subset of the homeless population, the overall problem got worse. Between 2005 and 2015, while the number of drug-addicted and mentally ill homeless people fell dramatically, the number of people sleeping in the city’s emergency shelter more than doubled. Since then, unsheltered homelessness has continued to rise. According to 2018 figures, the majority of unhoused families and single adults in Salt Lake City are experiencing homelessness for the first time.

“People thought that if we built a few hundred housing units we’d be out of the woods forever,” said Glenn Bailey, the executive director of Crossroads Urban Center, a Salt Lake City food bank. “But if you don’t change the reasons people become homeless in the first place, you’re just going to have more people on the streets.”

This is not just a Salt Lake City story. Across the country, in the midst of a deepening housing crisis and widening inequality, homelessness has concentrated in America’s most prosperous cities. So far, municipal leaders have responded with policies that solve a tiny portion of the problem and fail to account for all the ways their economies are pushing people onto the streets.

The reality is that no city has ever come close to solving homelessness. And over the last few years, it has become clear that they cannot afford to.

Eric (not his real name) is exactly the kind of person Utah’s policy experiment was intended to help. He is 55 years old and has been homeless for most of his life. He takes medication for his schizophrenia, but his paranoia still leads him to cash his disability checks and hide them in envelopes around the city. When he lived on the streets, his drug of choice was a mix of heroin and cocaine. These days it’s meth.

Despite all his complications, Eric is a success story. He lives in a housing complex in the suburbs of Salt Lake City that was built for the chronically homeless. He has case workers who ensure that he takes his medications and renews his benefits. While he may never live independently, he is far better off here than in a temporary shelter, a jail cell or sleeping on the streets.

The problem for policymakers is that Eric is no longer emblematic of American homelessness. In Salt Lake City, just like everywhere else, the population of people sleeping on the streets looks a lot different than it used to.

As the economy has come out of the Great Recession, America’s unhoused population has exploded almost exclusively in its richest and fastest-growing cities. Between 2012 and 2018, the number of people living on the streets declinedby 11 percent nationwide — and surged by 26 percent in Seattle, 47 percent in New York City and 75 percent in Los Angeles. Even smaller cities, like Reno and Boise, have seen spikes in homelessness perfectly coincide with booming tech sectors and falling unemployment.

In other words, homelessness is no longer a symbol of decline. It is a product of prosperity. And unlike Eric, the vast majority of people being pushed out onto the streets by America’s growing urban economies do not need dedicated social workers or intensive medication regimes. They simply need higher incomes and lower housing costs.

“The people with the highest risk of homelessness are the ones living on a Social Security check or working a minimum-wage job,” said Margot Kushel, the director of the UCSF. Center for Vulnerable Populations. In 2015, she led a team of researchers who interviewed 350 people living on the streets in Oakland. Nearly half of their older interviewees were experiencing homelessness for the first time.

“If they make it to 50 and they’ve never been homeless, there’s a good chance they don’t have severe mental illness or substance abuse issues,” Kushel said. “Once they become homeless, they start to spiral downward really quickly. They’re sleeping three to four hours a night, they get beat up, they lose their medications. If you walk past them in a tent, they seem like they need all these services. But what they really needed was cheaper rent a year ago.”

Other research has found the same connection between housing costs and homelessness. In 2012, researchers found that a $100 increase in monthly rent in big cities was associated with a 15 percent rise in homelessness. The effect was even stronger in smaller cities.

“Once you’re homeless, it’s a steep hill to climb back up,” Bailey said. “When an eviction is on your record, it’s even steeper. And even if you do get back into housing, you’re still one illness or one car problem away from becoming homeless again.”

And rising affluence isn’t just transforming the economic factors that cause homelessness. It is also changing the politics of the cities tasked with solving it. Across the country, as formerly poor neighborhoods have gentrified, politicians are facing increasingly strident calls to criminalize panhandling and bulldoze tent encampments. While city residents consistently tell pollsters that they support homeless services in principle, specific proposals to build shelters or expand services face vociferous local opposition.

“The biggest hindrance to solving homelessness is that city residents keep demanding the least effective policies,” said Sara Rankin, the director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at Seattle University School of Law. The evidenceoverwhelminglydemonstrates that punishing homeless people makes it harder for them to find housing and get work. Nonetheless, the most common demands from urban voters are for politicians to increase arrests, close down soup kitchens and impose entry requirements and drug tests in shelters.

“Homelessness is a two-handed problem,” Rankin said. “One hand is everything you’re doing to make it better and the other is everything you’re doing to make it worse. Right now, we spend far more effort undoing our progress than advancing it.”

No municipality demonstrates this dynamic better than Salt Lake City. Thanks to rising housing and construction costs, the building of new homeless housing has slowed to a trickle. A plan to replace the city’s central homeless shelter with a handful of smaller, suburban facilities has been delayed and scaled down due to neighborhood opposition. In 2017, after years of demands by downtown residents and businesses, Utah initiated a $67 million law enforcement crackdown on the population sleeping on the streets of its state capital. In its first year, the campaign resulted in more than 5,000 arrests — and just 101 homeless people being placed into housing.

And there are no signs that it’s going to get better. The economy is creating new homeless people faster than cities can house them.And the worse the problem gets, the harder it becomes to solve.

“The entire system has stalled,” said Andrew Johnston, the vice president of program operations for Volunteers of America Utah, one of the largest service providers in Salt Lake City. “As the economy has improved, policymakers seem to believe that the market will supply affordable housing on its own. But if you don’t put public and private money into it, you’re not going to get it.”

Three years after she escaped from homelessness, Georgia Gregersen’s most enduring memory is how quickly she fell into it.

“I’m a waitress, I’m at home with a new baby and three months later I’m sleeping in an empty parking garage,” said Gregersen, who now lives in a Salt Lake City suburb.

Her story plays out as a series of unraveling safety nets. She had been trying to get clean for years, but the waitlists for rehab were months long. She got on methadone when she found out she was pregnant, but it cost $85 per week, almost as much as she had been spending on heroin. After her son was born she was eligible for daycare vouchers, but the never-ending paperwork — “something was always wrong or required another appointment” — meant she never actually got them.

Eventually, the cost of childcare and the stress of being a single mom got to her and she relapsed. Within weeks she had lost her job and handed her son over to her parents. Her aunt, with whom she had been staying, asked her to move out.

Sleeping outside made her even more desperate to get clean, but everywhere she turned her options were cut off. Every halfway house and detox center in Salt Lake City was full. When she applied for subsidized housing, a government official told her it would take two years just to get on the waiting list.

“I thought, I’ll probably be dead by then,” she said.

Gregersen spiraled downward in 2015, right around the time Utah announced it had ended chronic homelessness. Unlike the recipients of that experiment — most of whom required 24-hour, lifelong support — Gregersen didn’t need permanent supportive housing. She needed every other form of support to be adequately funded and available when she needed it.

“We always look to one thing to be the answer,” she said, “but I needed everything, and in concert.”

Gregersen’s story perfectly encapsulates the challenge of urban policy in a changing and deteriorating America. Truly ending homelessness will require cities to systematically repair all the cracks in the country’s brittle, shattered welfare system. From drug treatment to rental assistance to subsidized child care, the only way to address the crisis is through a concerted — and costly — expansion of government assistance.

And yet, even as homelessness becomes a defining feature of urban growth, no city in America can afford to meaningfully address it.

“Politicians keep proposing quick fixes and simple solutions because they can’t publicly admit that solving homelessness is expensive,” Kushel said. Before the 1980s, she points out, most of the responsibility for low-income housing, rental assistance and mental health treatment fell on the federal government.

Since then, though, these costs have been systematically handed over to cities. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of low-income households receiving federal rental assistance dropped by more than half. Hundreds of thousands of mental health treatment beds have disappeared. Despite having far deeper pockets, the federal government now spends less per homeless person than the city of San Francisco.

The relentless localization of responsibility means that cities are spending more than they ever have on homelessness and, at the same time, nowhere near enough. L.A.’s recent $1.2 billion housing bond is one of the largest in American history. It will construct 1,000 permanent supportive housing units every year — in a city where 14,000 people need one. According to a 2018 analysis, Seattle would have to double its current spending to provide housing and services for everyone living on the streets.

Smaller cities have an even wider spending gap. According to Salt Lake City’s Housing & Neighborhood Development Department, building one unit of affordable housing costs roughly $154,000. Providing a home to all 6,800 people currently accessing homeless services would cost the city roughly $1 billion — two-thirds of its entire annual budget.

“We know that it’s cheaper in the long run to provide housing for homeless people, but cities don’t get money back when that happens,” said Tony Sparks, an urban studies professor at San Francisco State University. Expanding social support and building subsidized housing require huge upfront investments that may not pay off for decades. Though the costs of managing a large homeless population mostly fall on hospitals and law enforcement, reducing the burden on those systems won’t put spending back in city coffers.

“If you know how city budgets work, everything goes into a different pot,” Sparks said. “When you save money on health care, it just goes back into the health care system. It doesn’t trickle sideways.”

But all the challenges of funding their response to homelessness doesn’t mean cities are entirely powerless. For a start, municipal leaders could remove the zoning codes that make low-income housing and homeless shelters illegal in their residential neighborhoods. They could replace encampment sweeps and anti-panhandling laws with municipally sanctioned tent cities. They could update their eviction regulations to keep people in the housing they already have.

Cities can also, crucially, address the huge diversity of the homeless population. Rankin points out that for young mothers, the most frequent cause of homelessness is domestic abuse. For young men, it is often a recent discharge from foster care or prison. The young homeless population is disproportionately gay and trans.

All these populations are already interacting with dozens of municipal agencies that haven’t been designed to serve them. Even without major new funding sources, cities could do a lot better with the systems they already have. Schools, for example, could provide social workers for unhoused students. Libraries could invite health care workers to help homeless patrons manage their chronic illnesses. Law enforcement agencies could reorient themselves around outreach and harm reduction rather than arrests and encampment sweeps.

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bowtochris · 4 years

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So Much Fucking Shit Happened This Month OMG

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

March

1st: Afghan president Ashraf Ghani rejects a clause in the U.S.–Taliban deal setting the release of Taliban prisoners Former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg suspends his presidential campaign.

2nd: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar suspends her presidential campaign Two dozen more cases are reported in the U.S., bringing the total number of infected Americans to 102.

3rd: Three tornadoes, two at least EF 3 in strength, rip through downtown Nashville and surrounding towns, killing 25 people. Myanmar turns a Silversea Cruises cruise ship away due to fears of coronavirus

4th: The United States Armed Forces says it has carried out its first airstrike against the Taliban since a peace deal was signed on February 29, 2020. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suspends his presidential campaign. The United States confirmed 11 total deaths, with the first death outside of Washington state in California. California's total of infections has jumped to 51. The country confirmed 33 new cases, bringing the total number to 159.

5th: The Republican-controlled Arizona House of Representatives passes a bill banning transgender females from women's sports. In total, the US confirmed 69 more cases, bringing the total number to 228. Three more deaths were reported, bringing the total number to 14.

6th: SpaceX successfully launches a Dragon spacecraft in orbit to resupply the International Space Station. Florida confirms its first two deaths from the coronavirus.

7th: The Xinjia Express Hotel, which was being used for quarantining those with COVID-19, collapses in Quanzhou, Fujian, China. Ten people were killed and twenty-three are trapped. Thirty-eight have been rescued alive. The total number confirmed cases of for the US increased to 444. There was 1 new death, 11 in total.

8th: California U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Kamala Harris endorses former Vice President Joe Biden in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson endorses Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. The first COVID-19 death is confirmed in Canada.

9th: Black Monday - Prior to opening, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures market experienced a 1,300 point ... This predicted 1,300 point drop would establish 9 March as being among the most points the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped in a single day. By the end of the day, it fell a total of 2,013.76 points. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit confirms a 2016 ruling that Led Zeppelin's 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven" was not unlawfully copied from Spirit's instrumental "Taurus". The United Kingdom's largest retailer Tesco say they will be restricting the sale of essential food and household items in response to fears of mass panic buying.

10th: Vladimir Putin backs a constitutional amendment that would allow him to remain in power after 2024 and make a lifetime presidency possible. Iran reports 881 new confirmed cases and 54 more COVID-19 deaths, the highest number of deaths in a single 24-hour period in the country to date, bringing the total to 8042 cases and 291 deaths.

11th: The bond market falls, in the first time since the financial crisis of 2007–08 that the stock and bond markets moved in the same direction. American film producer Harvey Weinstein is sentenced to 23 years in prison for two felony sex crimes. The world's largest annual video game industry event E3 2020 is officially cancelled due to concerns over the coronavirus.

12th: Black Thursday - All three major United States trading indexes fall 7% during early trading, leading to a 15-minute trading halt. They all closed over 9% down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 10%, the largest one-day percentage drop since ... 1987. First day where every story on Wikinews is coronavirus-related.

13th: Delta Air Lines says it will cancel all flights to Europe for the next 30 days. Florida, Arizona, Illinois, and Ohio will proceed having Democratic Party primaries despite the coronavirus outbreak. Astronomers discover 139 new "minor planets" in the Solar System that are beyond the orbit of Neptune.

14th: A total of 16 U.S. states have closed all of their schools. Italy's Ministry of Health reports 250 more deaths from COVID-19, the highest number of deaths in a single 24-hour period in the country to date. The Mayor of Bergamo Giorgio Gori says churches are now being used to store dead bodies as the city's morgues are full.

15th: The first one-on-one debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries takes place between former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders in Washington, D.C., instead of Arizona as originally scheduled and without an audience as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues a recommendation to suspend gatherings of 50 or more people for the next two months. The governors of five states: California, Ohio, Illinois, Washington and Massachusetts, order bars and restaurants to close in response to the pandemic.

16th: The Dow closes 2,997 points or 12.9% lower - its largest daily points movement. The U.S. has 4,459 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of today, resulting in 86 deaths. West Virginia remains the only state with no confirmed cases.

17th: The Senate of Spain ratifies North Macedonia's accession protocol for NATO, becoming the last of NATO's 30 members to do so. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady announces he will not re-sign with the team, and will instead select free agency. West Virginia confirms its first case of COVID-19, becoming the last U.S. state to do so. Governor Jim Justice ordered restaurant dining rooms, bars, and casinos to close for two weeks.

18th: An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 hits Salt Lake City, Utah, with several aftershocks reported and tens of thousands of residents left without power. The earthquake is the largest in the state since the 1992 St. George earthquake. COVID-19 cases in Washington exceed 1,000. The United States reports its 150th death from COVID-19, with a total of at least 9,400 confirmed cases nationwide.

19th: Tulsi Gabbard ends her presidential campaign in the 2020 presidential election U.S. President Donald Trump calls for the Syrian government to release journalist and veteran Marine Austin Tice, arguing the "U.S. has done a lot for Syria". U.S. Senate Republicans unveil a $1 trillion economic stimulus package proposal to aid businesses and the American public during the coronavirus pandemic.

20th: The parliament of Ghana votes to legalize the medical and industrial use of cannabis. Madagascar confirms its first cases of COVID-19. The United States moves Tax Day from April 15 to July 15 due to the spread of the coronavirus.

21st: China reports zero domestic cases of COVID-19 for a third consecutive day. Yonhap News Agency reports that North Korea has fired two projectiles from Pyongan Province into the Sea of Japan. Ketchikan, in Southeast Alaska, shelters in place after six people test positive for COVID-19 in the town of 8,000 residents.

22nd: Pope Francis, in a call for a worldwide prayer, announces he will hold a special service to pray for the end of the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Senate votes down a coronavirus relief stimulus bill. Former film producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein tests positive for COVID-19. He is put in isolation at the Wende Correctional Facility.

23rd: Colorado abolishes the death penalty and commutes sentences of death row inmates. The ancestor, Ikaria wariootia, of all animals with a bilateral body plan is discovered as a fossil in rocks of South Australia. Rapper-turned-informant 6ix9ine requests an early prison release over fears of COVID-19.

24th: I'm allowed to work from home starting today. In Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty University reopens, despite the coronavirus. The 2020 Summer Olympics has been postponed to 2021 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

25th: Turkey indicts 20 Saudis for the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. None of them are Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The United States has its deadliest COVID-19 day to date, with 223 related deaths. New York City records 81 more deaths from COVID-19, bringing the city's death toll to 280. Mayor Bill de Blasio has warned that more than half of all New Yorkers could become infected.

26th: The United States Space Force launches its first satellite into space aboard a Atlas V rocket. A bomb explodes near a Sikh crematorium in Kabul, wounding a child and disrupting funerals for 25 people bombed and shot the day prior. 2020 G20 Riyadh summit - World leaders convene virtually to coordinate a response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. reaches 1,200. The total number of cases in the country is 83,097. The U.S. has surpassed China in number of active cases, making it the country with the most cases in the world.

27th: Pope Francis delivers a special Urbi et Orbi blessing in an empty Saint Peter's Square, praying for the end of the coronavirus pandemic and offering a plenary indulgence to repentant sinners. The House of Representatives passes a $2 trillion stimulus relief bill as an effort to save the economy during the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump signs the bill. Uzbekistan reports the first death from COVID-19, a 72-year-old woman with underlying health conditions in the city of Namangan. The USNS Mercy, which has 1,000 beds, arrives in Los Angeles to offer assistance during the COVID-19 crisis.

28th: In a televised address, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi offers to release five Saudi prisoners of war in exchange for the release of dozens of Palestinian activists convicted by Saudi Arabia earlier this month. New York postpones its primary from April 28 until June 23 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

29th: North Korea fires two short-range ballistic missiles into the ocean, the latest in an unprecedented flurry of launches. Both South Korea and Japan condemn the launching. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo extends the stay-at-home order for non-essential workers to April 15.

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37q · 4 years

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Reports of domestic violence increased in March in many cities around the country as the coronavirus pandemic spread, according to law enforcement officials — raising concerns about families’ safety as they isolate at home.

Of the 22 law enforcement agencies across the United States that responded to NBC News’ request for data on domestic violence calls, 18 departments said they had seen a rise in March. Houston police received about 300 more domestic violence calls in March than they did in February, a roughly 20 percent increase. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, police fielded 517 additional calls about domestic violence in March compared to the same month last year, an 18 percent jump, while Phoenix police received nearly 200 more calls, an increase of nearly 6 percent.

“The financial stress alone creates a ticking time bomb for some families with a history of domestic violence,” said Steve Mueller, sheriff of Cherokee County, South Carolina, which saw a 35 percent increase in cases in March compared to February. “Unfortunately many of these domestic violence cases occur in front of children and often the children become victims of abuse and assault, as well.”

The rise in reports of domestic violence incidents comes as shelters for abuse victims scramble to find ways to stay open. Many regularly operate near capacity and sometimes turn to local hotels to house families when they run out of space, which gets expensive quickly. Several nonprofit shelters said they’ve canceled or postponed fundraisers because of stay-at-home orders, blowing six-figure holes in their annual budgets.

“We are contending with soaring demand in services but at the same time declining resources and financial support,” said Alejandra Y. Castillo, CEO of YWCA USA, which has dozens of shelters for abuse victims nationwide.

While the numbers from police and shelters are preliminary, they appear to support what many experts expected to happen: As city and state leaders ordered people to stay home to ward off COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, domestic abuse would become more prevalent. Victims rights advocates and police attribute the phenomenon to the stress from businesses and schools closing, leaving many people out of work and financially strained. Similar increases in domestic violence have been documented after natural disasters, such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

The United States recorded its first coronavirus-related death at the end of February, and businesses began closing in mid-March when President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. Soon after, on March 16, six counties in California’s Bay Area issued one of the first major shelter-in-place orders, which was soon followed by other cities and statewide orders. That’s when many police and domestic violence service providers say they began seeing an escalation in calls.

In addition to Houston, Phoenix and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, law enforcement in Boston; Milwaukee; Seattle; San Antonio; Salt Lake City; Utah County, Utah; Fresno County, California; Montgomery County, Texas; East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; Buffalo, New York; Sparks, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Nassau County, New York; Cherokee County, South Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina said that domestic violence cases increased in their jurisdictions in March.

“Those domestic violence incidents are dangerous and can escalate quickly and so we have a real concern about those numbers,” said Detective Greg Wilking, of the Salt Lake City Police Department, where the weekly domestic violence cases jumped from 73 to 96 in mid-March.

Police in Cincinnati, Denver, New Orleans and New York City said their rates of domestic violence calls and arrests remained flat through March.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline’s call volume has remained average during this period — between 1,800 and 2,000 per day. During the second half of March, 1,765 hotline callers reported that their abusive partner was leveraging COVID-19 to “further isolate, coerce, or increase fear in the relationship,” according to Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. And she worries those numbers don’t capture the full picture.

“We are especially concerned that survivors will be unable to reach out for help due to their abusive partner monitoring their behaviors while they are in isolation,” Ray-Jones said.

As domestic violence shelters gear up for a potential increase in abuse victims seeking a place to go, many expect money to become an issue.

Twenty-one YWCA associations have told the organization’s national headquarters that they predict a drop in funding for their domestic violence and sexual assault services, and a dozen anticipate closing a program or facility for abuse victims.

Sharon Roberson, president of YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee, said they’re rushing to figure out what to do if one of their shelter clients shows symptoms of the coronavirus. Local hotels and colleges have already told the shelter that they won’t house sick clients, Roberson said. She considered renting RVs, but the shelter doesn’t have the funds to cover that, so now the Nashville branch is holding a set of beds empty in an isolated area within the facility for any client with COVID-19.

“We’ve had to substantially adjust the way we go about doing our business,” Roberson said, noting that calls to their crisis line increased by 55 percent in recent weeks. “We’re scrambling around to figure out how to keep people safe, with the idea we could be dealing with people who have a very contagious illness. Hospitals are very important, but we’re a version of that — we have people dealing with significant trauma and they need to have a safe space to go.”

Donna Garske, executive director of the Center for Domestic Peace, a nonprofit shelter in San Rafael, California, said they have 21 women and about 50 children in transitional housing, apartments that the shelter helped the women find. But nearly all of those women have lost their jobs or had their work reduced because of stay-at-home orders, she said, making it more difficult for them to pay rent.

The Center for Domestic Peace is trying to secure emergency funding to help those women, Garske said, even though the shelter just had to cancel its biggest annual fundraiser.

“If we’re not out of this by the end of June, that would be a major concern,” Garske said.

(If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).)

#ipv tw #domestic violence tw

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associatedbankroutingnumber · 4 years

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Zions Bank Wire Transfer

Zions First National Bank is a subsidiary of Zions Bancorporation which operates via over 500 places of work and six hundred ATMs in 10 Western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. As a complete-provider bank, Zions offers commercial, installment and loan loans; agree with services; overseas banking offerings; digital and online banking offerings; automated deposit and nationwide banking and switch services; as well as the extra familiar checking and financial savings applications.

Wire switch is the fastest mode of receiving cash in your Zions Bank account. You can obtain cash from within USA (Domestic Wire Transfers) or from a foreign us of a (International wire switch). The transaction is initiated by way of the sender via a monetary group, however, you want to offer your banking info to the sender for successful transfer of cash.

International wire transfer is one of the fastest manner to get hold of money from foreign countries. Banks use SWIFT community for changing messages required for performing international wire switch. Usually, the receiving bank (in USA) and the sending financial institution (in different u . S . A .) want to have a right away association in region to start the fast transfer – this is every now and then known as correspondent banking.

If your money transfer includes forex conversion, there's a excessive risk you will get a terrible alternate price from the banks and as a end result pay high hidden prices. We recommend offerings like TransferWise for getting excellent conversion quotes and decrease cord switch expenses.

Domestic cord transfers are run via both the Fedwire gadget or the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS). Wire transfers are distinctive from ACH transfers. Wire transfers are actual time transfers (receiver commonly get the money, equal day) and costs extra than ACH switch (which takes 2-4 days for switch of money).

You can acquire funds in your Zions Bank account from any bank within USA the use of home twine switch. You need to provide the following information to sender of the finances who will initiate the domestic cord transfer via his/her financial group.

Apart from the wire switch costs, if the switch involves foreign money conversion, banks make cash on foreign money conversion as properly by using giving retail conversion rates to you which of them is commonly 1-2% decrease than the marketplace charge. We suggest the usage of services like TransferWise for purchasing quality conversion quotes with decrease twine switch prices.

To transfer price range to an International/Domestic account out of your Zions Bank account, you want to fill Wire Transfer Request Form which can be availed from any Zions Bank branch.

For international wires asked after Zions Bank each day reduce-off time, because of fluctuations within the forex charges, worldwide cord transfers for quantities apart from U.S. Forex may be predicted and processed on the subsequent business day on the forex fee legitimate at that point.

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bankroutingassociated-blog · 4 years

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Zions Bank Wire Transfer

To transfer price range to an International/Domestic account out of your Zions Bank account, you want to fill Wire Transfer Request Form which can be availed from any Zions Bank branch.

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ourmrmel · 6 years

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Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, Details a Website Development Business.

Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching for Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching. Mel Feller maintains offices in Texas and in Utah.

When obtaining a business loan for a website development business, it is imperative that you have a properly structured business plan that will assist you in showcasing how you intend to operate your Web Development business, how the business will operate, how you intend to market the business, the anticipated financial results of your company, and how you intend to repay your debt obligations. This sample loan business plan will provide you with the framework that you need in order to acquire a business loan for starting or expanding this type of business.

Executive Summary

Introduction

When obtaining a business loan for a web development business, it is imperative that your business plan has a clear and concise executive summary that provides an outline of what are seeking to accomplish, how much capital you are seeking to raise, the management biography of the business owner, and an overview of the anticipated profit and loss statements of the business. Here is an example of how the title paragraph should be written:

Web Development, Inc. (“the Company”) is seeking a business loan of 0,000 in order to launch the operations of a web development business that will be based in San Francisco, California. The Company was founded in (Insert Year). The business was founded by Mr. John Doe.

Products and Services

In the next segment of the business loan and business-planning document, you should display the products and services that you will be providing to the public. For instance:

Web Development, Inc. will provide customers with a broad range of web development services including website development, web application development, e-commerce site development, and web hosting. The business will earn substantial revenues from the website development services coupled with recurring streams of revenue from the web hosting revenues that will be generated on a monthly basis.

Business Loan Terms

Now it is time to discuss the anticipated terms of the business plan that you are seeking. An example paragraph of how this is stated:

At this time, Mr. Doe is seeking a conventional business loan for 0,000. The interest rate, loan terms, and loan covenants are to be determined during negotiation. However, this business plan assumes that the business will receive a seven-year business loan with a seven percent interest rate due on the outstanding principal balance.

Management Biography

Now that the summary of the business has been provided, it is time to provide a brief overview of the owner of the business. An example paragraph summing up the owner is as follows:

Mr. Doe is a highly experienced businessperson that has years of experience regarding the direct ownership and management of business. He will be able to effectively bring the operations of the Web Development business to profitability while ensuring that the business loan’s payments and its covenants are met at all times.

Financial Statements

The most important thing to your lender when applying for a business loan is how you intend to repay the bank. In this section of the business plan, you should provide an overview of the finances of the business discussing the anticipated revenues, expenses, and profits/losses. You can also discuss the applicable collateral within the business plan that will be used to secure your business financing.

Expansion Plans

One of the most important aspects of your business plan is how you intend to expand the business over a three to five year period. Banks and finance companies always want to see that the business will experience a moderate to strong level of growth. This is especially true in business lending because as your business grows the cash flow that secures your business loan will decrease proportionality against your monthly credit obligations. An example of how this is stated is as follows:

The Web Development business will continue to expand through organic means including increasing the Company’s advertising budget via the reinvestment into the after tax cash flows of the business.

The Financing

Use of Business Loan Proceeds

In this section of the business plan, you should focus on how the proceeds of the business loan will be used. An example of this would be as follows:

Web Development Office Establishment – ,000

Servers and Technology Equipment – ,000

Working capital – ,000

Management Equity

In this section of the business plan, you should discuss the percentage ownership of the business among the owners of the business. For example:

Mr. Doe will own 100% of the Web Development, Inc.

Board of Directors

When applying for business financing, the bank will also want to know who serves as the board of directors. For small businesses, usually the owner serves as the director of the business. An example of how this is worded:

Mr. Doe will be the sole director of Web Development, Inc.

Exit Strategy

Any bank or financing company is also going to want to know what you intend to do with the business over a set period. Many business owners will develop and expand a business with the intent to sell the company to a third party later. When drafting this part of the business plan you should focus on what you intentions are in regards to potentially selling the business. This is often worded as:

Mr. Doe would most likely sell the Web Development businesses to a third party for a significant earnings multiple. Website Development businesses usually sell for approximately one to three times earnings given the financial strength of the business. In this event, a business broker would sell the business and the business loan sought in this plan would be repaid according to the covenants of the business loan agreement.

Products and Services

When developing a business plan that is appropriate for obtaining a business loan or other business credit facility you need to clearly highlight the services or products that you will be offering to the public. An example of how this section is worded goes as follows:

As stated in the executive summary, Web Development, Inc. will specialize in the ongoing development of website development, web applications, and hosting services to the public on a nationwide basis. The business intends to hire a number of independent contractors that will work on the Company’s behalf when developing websites for the Company’s clients. The business will also generate recurring streams of revenues from the ongoing sale of hosting services for people that do not own their own website-hosting servers.

Industry and Market Analysis

The Current State of the Economy

It is important to let your financial institution know that you are well apprised of the financial situation of the general economy when you are applying for a business loan. This is especially true in today’s environment where lending has become more difficult and will remain more difficult in the near future. Specifically, you should gear this section of the business plan analysis towards the industry that you are operating within. For example:

The current economy has remained difficult over the past few years. However, Web Development businesses tend to operate with a strong degree of economic stability, as these businesses are able to generate recurring streams of revenue from the fees associated with hosting services. As such, the business will be able to remain profitable and cash flow positive in any economic climate despite the current deleterious conditions in the general economy.

The Web Development Industry

In addition to providing your business loan officer with an understanding of the general economy, it is important that you display that you have an equal understanding of the industry in which you are operating within. As such, you will need to provide your business loan institution of a brief overview of your industry and any potential changes that may affect the way that your company does business. An example of how an industry overview is as follows:

In the United States, there are approximately 100,000 companies and individual providers that are able to provide web development services to the public. Aggregately, these businesses generate more than billion per year while providing gross payrolls exceeding billion. The industry outlook is strong for the web development industry, as every business now wants to have a presence on the internet.

Target Market

In this section of the business loan application and business plan analysis, you should focus on the demographics of your localized market (or national market if applicable). This section should discuss how many people live in your area, the anticipated number of people that would require the use of Web Development Services, the median household income of people living in the area, poverty line statistics, and any applicable laws that would apply to your operation of Web Development Companies.

Competition

Many people that are developing new businesses or expanding existing businesses often feel that their business does not have any competition or limited competition at best. However, this is almost never the case. Unless you have re-invented the wheel – you will have competition. When applying for a business loan, you should clearly display your competition in your business plan. This is especially important to your banker as they will be able to gauge your ability to be successful in your targeted market. Many business loan underwriters will aggressively confirm that competitive nature of your local market and your local industry.

When drafting this section of the plan you should heavily discuss the competitive advantages that you intend to have over your competition.

Marketing Plan

In addition to all of the above information that we have covered, your business loan officer is also going to want to know how you intend to market your business to the public. Most people do not quite understand how to effectively market their business outside of prominent signage or flyer distribution. When applying for a business loan (again in this difficult lending climate), your banker is going to want to see that you have a clear methodology of how you intend to market your services or products to the public. In this section of the business plan – we will overview how to highlight your services/products to the public.

Marketing Overview Example

The Web Development will place prominent signage on the facility to draw a significant amount of foot traffic in its local location in San Francisco.

The business will maintain listings in the Yellow Books.

The Web Development business will also maintain an internet website that highlights the Company’s operations, hours of operation, and relevant contact information.

Marketing Strategies Overview

Additionally, you will be required to further drill down (in your business plan) how you intend to implement your strategies when you launch or expand your business’s operations. In this section of the business loan and business plan documents, you should amplify the bullet points from the section above. For instance:

The Web Development intends to use a number of strategies that will create instant traffic and customer flow to the Company’s location. These strategies include not only using prominent facility and road signage, but also distributing flyers to people that fall into the Company’s targeted demographics. The business will also regularly take out advertisements in localized newspapers that showcase the Company’s hours of operations, web development and web application development services, and specials that are occurring with the on a regular basis.

The business will also maintain a highly informative website that displays the Web Development Company’s services, its hours of operation, service information, and other relevant information in regards to the Company’s services. This website will be listed on major search engines such as Google as many people now use the internet to locate web development businesses.

The Financial Plan

Beyond any other part of your business loan application or business plan, the financials section of these documents are what matters most when applying for a business loan or any other type of credit facility. Ultimately, this section of the business plan showcases not only what your anticipated profitability will be, but also how you intend to repay the funds that you have borrowed through your business financing facility. An example of how this section is structure is as follows:

Assumptions

Web Development, Inc. will have an average annual growth rate of 10% per year.

Mr. Doe will acquire 0,000 through a business loan in order to launch the operations of the business.

Performa Financials for a Business Loan

Now it is time to display how you intend to repay your loan, generate a profit, and increase the book value of your business over a three to five year period. Through your business loan application, you will be required to have the following:

Profit and Loss Statement for your Web Development Business

Cash Flow Analysis for the Web Development Business

Balance Sheet for the Web Development

Business Loan Amortization Tables

Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, is a well-known real estate, business consultant, personal development consultant and speaker, specializing in performance, productivity, and profits. Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching For Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching, a real estate and business specific coaching company. His three books for real estate professionals are systems on how to become an exceptional sales performer. His four books in Business and Government Grants are ways to leverage and increase your business Success in both time and money! His book on Personal Development “Lies that Will Sabotage Your Success”. Mel Feller is in Texas and In Utah. Currently an MBA Candidate.

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