British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was briefly left lost for words on Monday when he lost his place in notes during a speech before regaling business leaders with an anecdote about his recent visit to a Peppa Pig theme park. Searching through his notes, Johnson sighed, said "blast it" and repeatedly muttered "forgive me" as he briefly interrupted his speech to the Confederation of British Industry in Port of Tyne, northern England. He recovered, talking about technology "unicorns" and then a visit to Peppa Pig World, a park based on the children's animated TV show about an exuberant pink pig and her friends and family. "Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World," Johnson told the business executives. "I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place: it has very safe streets, discipline in schools." Johnson asked the audience of business executives who had been to the theme park in Hampshire, southern England, which says it is the world's largest Peppa Pig World and "perfect for toddlers". "I am surprised you haven't been there," Johnson said to those executives who had not visited the park, which includes various rides for young fans of Peppa. "Who would have believed that a pig that looks like a hairdryer or possibly a Picasso-like hairdryer, a pig that was rejected by the BBC, would now be exported to 180 countries with theme parks both in America and China?"
In the speech, Johnson, who also performed an impression of a car, told business leaders about what he terms the green industrial revolution. He also said the job of government should sometimes be to "get out of your hair" and ensure less regulation and taxation. Johnson was unabashed when reporters asked him about the speech and said he had made the points he had wanted. "I think that people got the vast majority of the points I wanted to make," Johnson said. "I thought it went over well." Johnson has had a difficult couple of weeks, being criticised for his handling of a "sleaze" crisis over lawmakers (MPs) being paid for second jobs outside parliament, and accused of policy reversals on high-speed rail and social care plans. read more "Tory (Conservative) MPs were worried last week that No 10 was losing its grip - not sure any of them will feel better if they were watching this morning's speech," the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said on Twitter. - Reuters
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JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon skipped Hong Kong’s stringent quarantine in his first visit to Asia in two and a half years, saying the restrictions were making it harder for the Wall Street bank to retain talent.Dimon arrived in Hong Kong on Monday for a 32-hour visit after being granted an exemption from the city’s Covid rules, which can impose as many as three weeks in hotel quarantine.
- Bloomberg How did radical, even violent, extremism infiltrate the ranks of police departments across the country?Now, an investigative report Friday by those same reporters reveals what many have long suspected: Active-duty police officers in some of our country’s largest departments are members of the Oath Keepers, which is also now under increased scrutiny for some members’ roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. At least 18 Oath Keepers associates, including the head of the militia organization, have been charged in the Capitol assault.
The Chicago Police Department was found to have 13 active employees on the Oath Keepers membership list. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had at least three active-duty deputies. And at least two active NYPD officers appeared on the list. The investigative work by this joint team of journalists to identify current cops in specific departments raises two questions about radicalization in the ranks: How did we get here, and what do we do about it? The concern about potential violent extremism among police officers extends well beyond the Oath Keepers membership roster. This isn’t the first time that credible accusations of radicalization have been made against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Two recent reports from Loyola Law School and the RAND Corp. detail the problems in that agency. As noted in the work by NPR and WNYC/Gothamist: “Those reports found a significant portion of Sheriff's Deputies have participated in subgroups, which have been accused of violent attacks and racial discrimination over decades. The reports specifically note one group active in the Compton, Calif., station known as 'The Executioners,' whose members have a tattoo resembling a skeleton wearing a Nazi helmet. According to the RAND Corporation report, which was commissioned by county officials, a whistleblower alleged that 'the Executioners encouraged shootings of civilians and had assaulted at least one other deputy at the station.'" The same leaked Oath Keepers data also exposed that dozens of police officers in Oregon had paid dues to the Oath Keepers. Ed Mullins, until recently the head of the NYPD’s police union, had been known to give TV interviews on Fox with a QAnon coffee mug displayed in his office. Earlier this year, NYPD Deputy Inspector James Kobel resigned when an investigation concluded he was the author of racist online posts on a department message board. And white supremacy ideology has surfaced in multiple other departments. How did radical, even violent, extremism infiltrate the ranks of departments across the country? While racism, extremism and bias in policing aren’t new phenomena, this current conduct has surfaced with startling brazenness. At least three factors contributed to a perfect storm of dangerously polarized policing: First, President Donald Trump strategically cultivated cops in his bid to win and maintain power by recruiting those who already wielded it. “Cops for Trump” rallies, often led by then-Vice President Mike Pence, played out in packed venues across the country, including one where Pence warned officers that they “won’t be safe” if Joe Biden were elected president. Trump also promoted the false notion that only his supporters were defenders of police, which caused most police unions, including the country’s largest, to endorse Trump for president. Second, the violent summer of 2020, triggered by the murder of George Floyd and the routine excessive use of force by police, led to civil unrest. Those nationwide protests didn’t just require protracted police presences — the protests were aimed at the police themselves. While most Americans were validly questioning and appalled by the police brutality in the Floyd case, over 2,000 police officers were injured by protesters. To police, the violence against them became a self-fulfilling MAGA prophecy — caused not by their own colleagues’ misconduct but, as they were led to believe, by far-left liberals and minorities intent on destroying the country. Third, the “defund the police” movement was the wrong branding at precisely the worst time in terms of police perceiving that they, indeed, lived in an “us versus them” society. In fact, it wasn’t just the police who bristled at the notion that their agency budgets could be slashed and their jobs reassigned. In Minneapolis, voters last week rejected a proposal to abolish the police department and turn it into a reshaped public safety agency. But for many officers, the radicalization process had already happened. Counter-radicalization of police officers won’t be easy, but it can be done. The answer isn’t to defund the police, because, in reality, corrective measures are likely to require increased budgets. Those measures must include changing the way police candidates are recruited. Targeted recruitment of college-educated, proven problem solvers, from a wide variety of academic, cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds, will take more money, not less. Enhanced screening and vetting, including polygraphs and social media analysis, to identify and weed out those applicants more likely to default to physicality over verbal de-escalation or to act upon biases and violent ideologies, can be accomplished — but again, it will cost more, not less. Such vetting and background investigation can’t end with the application process but rather must be systematically incorporated throughout officers’ careers. - MSNBC Leaders from nearly every country in the world have converged upon Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that experts are touting as the most important environmental summit in history. The conference, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as the check-in for the progress countries are making after entering the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, a value that would be disastrous to exceed, according to climate scientists. More ambitious efforts aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Not one country is going into COP26 on track to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to experts. They will need to work together to find collective solutions that will drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. "We need to move from commitments into action," Jim Harmon, chairman of the World Resources Institute, told ABC News. "The path to a better future is still possible, but time is running out." All eyes will be on the biggest emitters: China, the U.S. and India. While China is responsible for about 26% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, more than all other developed countries combined, the cumulative emissions from the U.S. over the past century are likely twice that of China's, David Sandalow, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News. After a quick greeting with Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson kickstarted COP26 with opening remarks. Johnson said that while the average age of leaders in the room was over 60, the results of the COP26 conference will be judged by the young people outside and children who are not yet born. "If we fail they will not forgive us. They will know that Glasgow was the historic turning point when history failed to turn," Johnson said. U.N. Secretary-General Anthony Guterres echoed the need for urgency in his remarks, highlighting the need to mitigate and reduce global emissions by 45% by 2030.
"Enough of treating nature like a toilet," Guterres said. "Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves." - ABC News White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday that she had tested positive for COVID-19, days after pulling out of the president's overseas trip due to a family emergency. Psaki is vaccinated, and said she is only experiencing mild symptoms. Psaki said in a statement on Sunday that emergency was "members of my household testing positive for COVID-19." "Since then, I have quarantined and tested negative (via PCR) for COVID on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday," Psaki said. "However, today, I tested positive for COVID. While I have not had close contact in person with the president or senior members of the White House staff since Wednesday — and tested negative for four days after that last contact — I am disclosing today's positive test out of an abundance of transparency. I last saw the president on Tuesday, when we sat outside more than six feet apart, and wore masks." Psaki said she planned to return to work in person after quarantining for 10 days following a negative rapid test, which she said is the White House requirement. Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is accompanying President Biden on his current trip to Europe, told reporters Monday that he tested negative for COVID-19 on Sunday. She said the president wasn't tested because of Psaki — he was tested because it was part of a requirement to enter the U.K.
Mr. Biden, 78, received the two-dose Pfizer vaccine in December and January, and received his booster shot on September 27. - CBS News Business groups ask White House to delay Biden Covid vaccine mandate until after the holidays10/25/2021 Worried that President Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate for private companies could cause a mass exodus of employees, business groups are pleading with the White House to delay the rule until after the holiday season.
White House officials at the Office of Management and Budget held dozens of meetings with labor unions, industry lobbyists and private individuals last week as the administration conducts its final review of the mandate, which will require businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure they are vaccinated against Covid or tested weekly for the virus. It is estimated to cover roughly two-thirds of the private-sector workforce. OMB officials have several meetings lined up Monday and Tuesday with groups representing dentists, trucking companies, staffing companies and realtors, among others. Retailers are particularly concerned the mandate could trigger a spike in resignations that would exacerbate staffing problems at businesses already short on people, said Evan Armstrong, a lobbyist at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “It has been a hectic holiday season already, as you know, with supply chain struggles,” Armstrong told CNBC after meeting the White House last Monday. “This is a difficult policy to implement. It would be even more difficult during the holiday season.” Thirty percent of workers said they would leave their jobs rather than comply with a vaccine or testing mandate, according to a KFF poll published last month. Goldman Sachs, in an analysis published in September, said the mandate could hurt the already tight labor market. However, it said survey responses are often exaggerated and not as many people will actually quit. The Occupation Safety and Health Administration delivered its final rule to OMB on Oct. 12, and the mandate is expected to take effect soon after the agency completes its review. The National Retail Federation and the retail leaders group asked White House officials in meetings last week to give businesses 90 days to comply with the mandate — delaying the effective date to late January at the earliest, lobbyists said. The Business Roundtable told CNBC it supports the White House’s vaccination efforts, but the administration “should allow the time necessary for employers to comply, and that includes taking into account employee retention issues, supply chain challenges and the upcoming holiday season.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which met with OMB on Oct. 15, also asked the administration to delay implementing the rule until after the holiday season. Officials at OMB declined to comment. However, former officials at OSHA, which will enforce the mandate, told CNBC that businesses will likely have some time to implement the rules. Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of OSHA during the Obama administration, said the administration will probably give businesses about 10 weeks, as they did for federal contractors, until employees have to be fully vaccinated. However, the compliance date could come sooner for weekly testing, he said. “OSHA has always had provisions where its required equipment, for example, that may be in short supply to suspend enforcement if an employer can show its made a good faith effort to procure that equipment,” Barab said. “They may make a relatively early date for weekly testing but also provide some additional time in case supplies are not adequate.” The National Association of Manufacturers, in a letter to OMB and OSHA head James Frederick last Monday, asked the administration to exempt businesses from the requirements if they have already implemented company-wide mandates, or achieved a certain level of vaccination among employees through voluntary programs if certified by a local public health agency. Robyn Boerstling, a top lobbyist for the manufacturers’ group, called the federal requirements “redundant and costly” for companies that already support vaccination among their staff. Boerstling also expressed concern that businesses with barely more than 100 employees could lose valuable people to competitors who are not covered by the mandate. “A realistic implementation period can allow for workforce planning that is necessary given the acute skilled worker shortage and ongoing supply chain challenges by supporting the need to keep manufacturing open and operational,” Boerstling wrote in the letter to the administration last Monday. Industry lobbyists have also raised concerns about the cost of testing, and who will cover those costs. The Retail Industry Leaders Association believes employees who choose not to get vaccinated should pay for their weekly testing. “If folks are allowed to refuse vaccination, and the employer takes testing obligations from a cost standpoint, then there’s no real motivation for those employees to get the vaccine,” Armstrong said. With an estimated 4 million unvaccinated retail workers, testing costs will also add up quickly, he said. However, Barab said OSHA generally requires employers to cover the cost of equipment and procedures called for under its rules throughout the agency’s 50-year history. Industry concerns about the impact of Biden’s vaccine mandate on employment come after a record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August, the highest level of turnover in 20 years. The retail industry was particularly hard hit, with 721,000 workers leaving their positions. Goldman Sachs says the mandate would actually boost employment by reducing Covid transmission and mitigating health risks that have been a drag on labor force participation, encouraging many of the 5 million workers who have left the job market since the pandemic to return. Global supply chains are also strained amid a surge in pandemic-related demand for durable goods, factory shutdowns in places like China and Vietnam, and a shortage of truck drivers and skilled longshoremen on the West Coast. The White House admits there is little it can do to tackle the macro issues like increased demand and foreign factory operations. But it has recently taken some steps to help, like brokering a deal to keep major West Coast ports open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “We’re already having supply chain issues; we’re already having workforce shortage issues,” Ed Egee, a top lobbyist at the National Retail Federation, told CNBC after the group’s meeting with OMB last Tuesday. “This mandate cannot be implemented in 2021 without having serious repercussions on the American economy.” - CNBC Former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell died Monday morning due to complications from COVID-19, his family said in a statement. "He was fully vaccinated. We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment," the family said. "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American. Powell was 84 years old. He served under four presidents -- Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- at the very top of the national security establishment, first as deputy national security adviser and then as national security adviser. Finally, he was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the senior ranking member of the U.S. armed forces and top military adviser to the president.
He was the first African-American ever to hold that post and the first to be secretary or state. During that time he helped shape American defense and foreign policy. He was in top posts during the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the downsizing of the military after the end of the Cold War, the 1989 invasion of Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, the 1992-93 engagement in Somalia and the crisis in Bosnia. SLIDESHOW: Colin Powell through the years"Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of Colin Powell," Bush said in a statement. "He was a great public servant, starting with his time as a soldier during Vietnam. Many Presidents relied on General Powell’s counsel and experience. He was National Security Adviser under President Reagan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under my father and President Clinton, and Secretary of State during my Administration. He was such a favorite of Presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad. And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man." Powell retired from the Army after the Gulf War, and his supporters urged him to enter politics, touting him as the only candidate with the moral stature needed to unite the country and heal longstanding racial wounds. After his retirement, from 1994 to 2000, Powell was engaged in several notable humanitarian and personal efforts. In 1994, he, former President Jimmy Carter and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., embarked on a peacekeeping mission in Haiti, in which they were able to help bring to an end to military rule and establish an elected government for the country. In 1995, Powell published his autobiography, "My American Journey," in which he touched on everything from his military experiences to more personal matters. Powell was also a co-chair for America's Promise, a non-profit organization geared toward empowering young people, for which he served as chairman from 1997-2000. The media spotlight first found the four-star Army general during the 1991 Gulf War, when, as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he appeared on television screens across the world. With his steady gaze, he conveyed intelligence, certainty and straightforwardness. After the allied coalition expelled the Iraqi army from Kuwait, Powell's celebrity grew, and his name became synonymous with integrity for many Americans across the political spectrum. A decade later, as President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Powell played a pivotal role in another conflict. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the homeland, Powell worked to build an international coalition and used his long military experience to help design a strategy for the war on terrorism. He tried to prepare the country for a different type of war, one where the enemy might be hard to identify. "I was raised a soldier, and you are trained, there is the enemy occupying a piece of ground. We can define that in time, space and other dimensions, and you can assemble forces and go after it," Powell said at the time. "This is different. The enemy is in many places. The enemy is not looking to be found. The enemy is hidden. The enemy is very often right here within our own country. And so you have to design a campaign plan that goes after that kind of enemy." Throughout his service in the military, Powell never made his political leanings known. Although he served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, it wasn't until 1995 that Powell announced that he had registered as a Republican. He formally supported the candidacy of Democratic presidential candidates Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The reelection campaign of former President Donald Trump brought out Powell's political side in the last years of his life, when he called on voters not to support the incumbent, Republican president. "I think he has not been an effective president," Powell told CNN's Jake Tapper in June 2020. "He lies all the time. He began lying the day of inauguration, when we got into an argument about the size of the crowd that was there. People are writing books about this favorite thing of lying. And I don't think that's in our interest." "The values I learned growing up in the South Bronx and serving in uniform were the same values that Joe Biden’s parents instilled in him in Scranton, Pennsylvania," Powell said in a video message at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. “I support Joe Biden for the presidency of the United States because those values still define him, and we need to restore those values to the White House." After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Powell told CNN he "can no longer call myself a fellow Republican" and that "we need people who will speak the truth." Powell spent his entire adult life in service to his country. He leaves behind his wife of 48 years, Alma Powell, and his son, Michael. - ABC News WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state and top military officer, died on Monday at the age of 84 due to complications from COVID-19. He was fully vaccinated, his family said in a statement on Facebook. "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," his family said. Powell was one of America's foremost Black figures for decades. He was named to senior posts by three Republican presidents and reached the top of the U.S. military as it was regaining its vigor after the trauma of the Vietnam War. Powell, who was wounded in Vietnam, served as U.S. national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989. As a four-star Army general, he was chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the 1991 Gulf War in which U.S.-led forces expelled Iraqi troops from neighboring Kuwait. Powell, a moderate Republican and a pragmatist, considered a bid to become the first Black president in 1996 but his wife Alma's worries about his safety helped him decide otherwise. In 2008, he broke with his party to endorse Democrat Barack Obama, who became the first Black elected to the White House. Powell will forever be associated with his controversial presentation on Feb. 5, 2003, to the U.N. Security Council, making President George W. Bush's case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent danger to the world because of its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Powell admitted later that the presentation was rife with inaccuracies and twisted intelligence provided by others in the Bush administration and represented "a blot" that will "always be a part of my record". Reporting by Will Dunham and Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Alex Richardson
- Reuters British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday cancelled a planned trip to India, scheduled to take place next week, saying it was a sensible move in light of a surge in COVID-19 infections there.
India is enduring a second wave of the virus, with infections passing the 15 million mark, second only to the United States. Delhi is due to go into lockdown on Monday night. read more "(Indian Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and I have basically come to the conclusion that, very sadly, I won’t be able to go ahead with the trip," Johnson told reporters. "I do think it’s only sensible to postpone." Johnson had already postponed the trip once from January, when COVID-19 infections were high in Britain. A joint statement from the British and Indian government said the trip had been cancelled. "Instead, Prime Ministers Modi and Johnson will speak later this month to agree and launch their ambitious plans for the future partnership between the UK and India." Relations with India are seen as a key component of both Britain's post-Brexit ambitions to reinvigorate trade with countries outside the European Union, and a diplomatic push to gain more influence in the Indo-Pacific region. "Of course it will be frustrating, but we’ll try and replicate as much as we can remotely, and then look forward to doing it in person as and when circumstances allow, and hopefully before the COP (climate) summit in November, and hopefully we’ll get Narendra Modi over for the G7 in June," Johnson said. Britain has invited India to attend the G7 summit it is hosting in June. British health officials said on Sunday they were investigating a COVID-19 variant originating in India, but they did not yet have enough evidence to classify it is as a variant of concern. - Rueters Joe Biden wants to be the next FDR. Some fear he’s the second coming of Jimmy Carter.
Joe Biden wants to be the next FDR. Some fear he’s the second coming of Jimmy Carter. Former President Jimmy Carter is best remembered as presiding over "stagflation" at home and humiliation abroad. Taking office at a time of economic distress, the one-time peanut farmer from Georgia failed to inspire Americans and was bounced after only four years. Some wonder whether Biden will follow the same path. LIZ PEEK: BIDEN FLIP-FLOPS ON US RACISM – HERE'S WHAT PROMPTED THE NEW WHITE HOUSE MESSAGE Americans are anxious about a recent employment report that came up hundreds of thousands of jobs short, prices spiking for everything from chicken to diapers and gasoline, and a president who continues to push trillions more in spending while at the same time threatening enormous tax increases. Joe Biden’s White House has its foot on the gas and the accelerator at the same time. CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER Meanwhile there are signs that 78-year-old Biden, who frequently appears to lose his train of thought and seems incapable of jousting with the press, will be tested by our adversaries. It is not comforting that Biden has frequently boasted about the two-hour telephone conversation he held with China’s President Xi Jinping early in his presidency; it’s not clear whether Biden thinks that call noteworthy because he could maintain his focus for two hours or because anything of consequence was said. So far, Biden’s most notable foreign engagement was his convening of a global climate summit, at which he weirdly (singularly) wore a mask on a zoom call while pledging a wildly expensive and potentially harmful 50% cut in U.S. emissions by 2030. In response, the leaders of China and Russia promised… nothing. - Fox News |
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