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Facebook Drops Australian News Ban, Bows to Government Regulation

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0

SIMON KENT

In an extraordinary backflip, Facebook announced Tuesday it will reverse its block on Australian users sharing news on its site and accept proposed government media bargaining laws that force it to pay for content.

The capitulation came after Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Facebook “arrogant,” warning against “Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”

“Mark Zuckerberg said to me today [restoring pages] will occur in coming days,” Frydenberg said, the ABC reports.

Frydenberg added Australia had been a “proxy battle” for the rest of the world on the regulation of Google and Facebook.

“I have no doubt that so many other countries are looking at what is happening here in Australia, because of this innovative code the Morrison government is now pursuing, so Facebook and Google have not hidden the fact that they know that the eyes of the world are on Australia, and that is why they have sought to get a code here that is workable,” he said.

The result was immediately applauded across the Australian media landscape and in government circles:

Facebook initially argued it had been forced to block Australian news in response to the proposed legislation, objecting to having to negotiate and set up a “fairer” negotiation process between the tech giants and news companies over the value of news content.

Morrison very quickly made clear his conservative coalition government would set the terms and Facebook would have to comply as part of the long-running dispute.

Google was also caught up in the fight, but it signed payment deals with three major Australian media outlets while Facebook tried to make Canberra blink first.

It didn’t, and Morrison won wide praise for backing local media outlets over Big Tech operators.

India and the UK have already said they watched the media battle Down Under with interest and have flagged plans to follow Canberra’s lead.

Canada has gone one step further, and as Breitbart News reported Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said last Thursday his country will now make Facebook compensate Canadian news organizations for using their content just as Australia has succeeded in doing.

He called Facebook’s action against Australia “highly irresponsible” and said Canada would “move forward to put in place fair legislation between news media and web giants.”

“Last week, I met with my Australian, Finnish, German and French counterparts to work together on this issue. The more of us around the table adopting similar regulations, the harder it will be for Facebook to continue such actions. There is strength in numbers!” he said.

Breitbart

Dr. Anthony Fauci: No Indoor Dining or Theaters Yet, Even with Coronavirus Vaccine

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
Credit: Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks.

CHARLIE SPIERING

Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended Tuesday Americans not to go out to eat or go to a theater, even after getting the coronavirus vaccine.

“There are things, even if you’re vaccinated, that you’re not going to be able to do in society: for example, indoor dining, theaters, places where people congregate,” he said. “That’s because of the safety of society.”

Fauci said he wanted Americans to continue restricting their public activities due to high levels of coronavirus in the country.

He said even vaccinated people could “conceivably be infected” by the virus and have it in their nasopharynx, which is why he recommended that vaccinated Americans continue to wear masks.

“[W]e hope that when the data comes in, it’s going to show that the virus level is quite low and you’re not transmitting it, we don’t know that now,” he said.

Farci responded to a question from Chris Megerian at the Los Angeles Times during a press briefing. Megerian expressed concern the public messaging was underselling the vaccine, making Americans less enthusiastic about getting it.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said some guidance for individual behavior would change but the community restrictions would remain.

Acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt said Americans should be interested in taking the vaccine because “they want to live.”

“They don’t want to be sick and they don’t want to die,” he said. “And that is a very important benefit that people don’t often talk about quite as much but that the public, we believe, clearly understands.”

He said the Biden administration would continue to study the data and loosen restrictions only after it was safe.

“The scientific team is going to continue to study based upon prevalence, based upon vaccination levels, and based upon the data, and we’ll come out with more,” he said.

 

Breitbart

Former Clinton Adviser Warns US Becoming ‘Totalitarian’ Under Lockdown Orders

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

BY JACK PHILLIPS(EPOCH TIMES) 

A former advisor to Bill Clinton said the United States is becoming a “totalitarian state” due to COVID-19 lockdown orders.

Former Democratic adviser Naomi Wolf, who aided former President Clinton during his second reelection bid, told Fox News on Monday night that the nation is “moving into a coup situation, a police state” as a result of lockdowns.

“That is not a partisan thing,” Wolf told the network. “That transcends everything that you and I might disagree or agree on. That should bring together left and right to protect our Constitution.”

In recent months, Wolf has used her Twitter account to warn about governors’ lockdown orders as well President Joe Biden’s willingness to implement additional shutdowns due to the pandemic.

“The state has now crushed businesses, kept us from gathering in free assembly to worship as the First Amendment provides, is invading our bodies … which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, restricting movement, fining us in New York state … the violations go on and on,” she said in the Fox News interview.

Wolf further explained that authoritarianism is being implemented under the guise of safety and security.

“We’re at something I never thought I would see in my lifetime … it is step 10 and that is the suspension of the rule of law and that is when you start to be a police state, and we’re here. There is no way around it,” she remarked.

Covid-19 vaccine station
Motorists wait to get their COVID-19 vaccine at a federally-run vaccination site set up on the campus of California State University of Los Angeles in La., on Feb. 16, 2021. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo, File)

“They are using that to engage in emergency orders that simply strip us of our rights; rights to property, rights to assembly, rights to worship, all the rights the Constitution guarantees,” she said, arguing that “lockdowns have never been done in society and really, we are turning into a … totalitarian state before everyone’s eyes.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. infectious disease official Anthony Fauci on Tuesday told CNN that he expects the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to soon relax some CCP virus recommendations aimed at curbing its spread for people who have been vaccinated.

“I believe you’re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you’re dealing with something like your own personal family, when people have been vaccinated,” Fauci said, adding he expected the new guidance “pretty soon.”

Fauci, throughout the CCP virus pandemic, has drawn criticism by conservatives and advocates for rescinding lockdown orders on schools for making what they describe as inaccurate predictions about the virus.

Reuters contributed to this report.

“Kids in Cages” Might Return As Thousands Of Unaccompanied Minors Face Packed HHS Shelters

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
AP

(TJVNEWS) Thousands of migrant children might face ‘the cages’  after the child-shelter network run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reduced its capacity by 40%, leaving them 93% full, according to a WSJ report.

Once the HHS shelters reach capacity, migrants will be housed in facilities run by the Border Patrol, the infamous facilities with the “cages” which the corporate media used as a visual tool to assail the Trump administration and create a narrative that Trump was heartlessly tossing migrant children in cages.

AP after months of faux outrage, in 2018 finally fact-checked the dramatic images which were circulated online to demonize Trump:

The photos, taken by The Associated Press, were from 2014, during the Obama administration, but were presented by liberal activists as if they showed the effects of Trump’s immigration policy now. Villaraigosa, Favreau and some others deleted their tweets when the mistake was pointed out.

They had linked to a June 2014 online story by The Arizona Republic titled “First peek: Immigrant children flood detention center.” The story featured photos taken by AP’s Ross D. Franklin at a center run by the Customs and Border Protection Agency in Nogales, Arizona. One photo shows two unidentified female detainees sleeping in a holding cell. The caption refers to U.S. efforts to process 47,000 unaccompanied children at the Nogales center and another one in Brownsville, Texas.

 ‘The cages,’ described by the Wall Street Journal as “stark cells – with just a bench and a toilet – that are designed to hold single adults for a few hours rather than children for days.”

“They’ve seen a very large growth in a very short period of time,” said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, who oversaw the shelter network during the Obama administration. “The closer you get to 100% capacity, the harder the system is to manage.”

WSJ reported:

The Biden administration has a discontinued the practice of sending children back to Mexico or their home countries if they were traveling with an adult who wasn’t a parent. The change is in line with immigration law, which forbids the government from quickly deporting unaccompanied children—defined as any child not traveling with his or her parent. But the change has sent more children to HHS shelters as well.

 

 

Big Tech Employees Contributed Generously to Biden’s Presidential Campaign

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0

By Ilana Siyance
President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign achieved success thanks to generous donations from employees of large technology corporations.

As reported by the Wall St Journal, recently released campaign finance records have revealed that the tech donations surpassed contributions from employees at usual Democratic fundraising sources like banks and law firms. The records show that President Biden received over $15.1 million from employees of just five big tech companies—namely Google’s parent Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon Inc, Apple Inc, and Facebook Inc. The single largest source of employee money for Biden’s campaign was $5.3 million donated by employees of Alphabet. In the past, Democratic Presidential candidates also got heavily funded by tech companies, but top employee cash was also coming from other sectors. Of course, corporations are banned from directly donating to campaigns, but their employees can contribute freely as individuals.

In 2016, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s top donors included employees from personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, and JPMorgan Chase bank, as well as Google, Microsoft and Apple, as per election records. In 2012, President Barack Obama’s top donors included Microsoft and Google, in addition to Deloitte, Time Warner (now part of AT&T Inc), and the law firm DLA Piper.

By Contrast, Mr. Trump’s top donors in 2020 were corporate employees of American Airlines Group Inc, Boeing Co., Bank of America Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp, and Wells Fargo & Co, as per the Center for Responsive Politics’s analysis.

The research highlights and substantiates Republicans assertions that big tech companies are biased against them. Republicans have also said that Facebook and Google censored online content on their platforms in line with their own liberal views. “There is a disconnect between the tech industry and many Republicans,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “We don’t like Silicon Valley — and they don’t like us.”

Despite the support Democrats received from the big techs, Bid has hinted that he will not support continuity for the broad legal immunity that big tech conglomerates currently enjoy. Still, time will tell how the Biden administration will proceed. A crucial factor that tech companies are waiting on, is the administration’s key picks for the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division head. Those appointments will largely indicate the government’s course of action regarding existing investigations and initiation of new probes, as per the WSJ.

In First, Israeli Team Develops Biological Therapy that is Suitable Alternative to Antibiotics

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a biological substitute for the treatment of tuberculosis, which in the future could serve as an alternative for the traditional “chemical” antibiotic therapy. Photo by Kobi Richter/TPS on 12 February, 2020

By: TPS

Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a biological substitute for the treatment of tuberculosis, which in the future could serve as an alternative for the traditional “chemical” antibiotic therapy.

In the course of the new and groundbreaking study, led by Dr. Natalia Freund and the doctoral candidate Avia Waston at the Sackler Medical Faculty, the research group succeeded in isolating monoclonal antibodies, derived from single cells, which hindered the growth of tuberculosis germs in laboratory mice.

The antibodies were isolated from a patient who had contracted tuberculosis but had since recovered. This is, in fact, the first time in history that researchers have managed to develop a “biological antibiotic” and demonstrate that human monoclonal antibodies can act as a substitute for the traditional chemical antibiotics and protect mice from the pathogenic bacterial challenge.

The study was carried out in a collaboration with two additional laboratories from the US and China.

For the last century, antibiotics have served as the main treatment against germs, being both efficient and cheap. Antibiotics are chemical agents, which are designed to block and destroy specific cells, such as microbial cells. However, since some biological mechanisms are common to both human and microbial cells, the range of antibiotics that can safely be used without harming the patient is limited.

For example, cell wall components of many strains of microbes are common to human cells. Therefore, any damage caused to the microbial cell walls can lead to extensive damage to body systems.

Furthermore, in recent years, the number of microbial strains that are antibiotic resistant has increased, presenting new challenges of how to defend the body from microbes in the post-antibiotic era.

For these reasons, Dr. Natalia Freund and her laboratory team have spent the recent years searching for a biological substitute for known antibiotics.

Antibodies are proteins that are produced naturally by our immune response following infection or a vaccine. They harbor many advantages such as specificity, stability and safety. For these reasons, antibodies are in widespread use in the clinic for treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases and viral infections such as COVID-19.

The research team chose Tuberculosis, which is caused by infection of the bacilli Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as a test model, and were successful, for the first time ever, in devising an effective treatment on the basis of anti-bacterial antibodies naturally developed during infection.

Another reason for the choice of tuberculosis is, that although the vaccine against tuberculosis was developed 100 years ago, and is based on the attenuated bacillus bovis (BCG) strain, it is not effective in adults and does not prevent infection.

In addition, in recent years, more varieties of disease have developed that are resistant to the only treatment that is currently available, namely, treatment with antibiotics. Since tuberculosis germs are very infectious, transferred in the air and detrimental to the lungs, the spread of resistant strains of tuberculosis that modern medicine cannot combat is a real danger.

Currently, approximately one-quarter of the world’s population is infected by tuberculosis, with the rates of drug-resistant strains peaking to as high as 40% in some countries. In Israel, there are about 200 active tuberculosis cases per year.

Dr. Natalia Freund explained that “new ways to kill bacteria are urgently needed. Advances in biological medicine have enabled us to rout the germs in new ways that are not based solely on antibiotics, and therefore allow a solution to the challenge posed by resistant germs.”

“Our study is an initial proof of concept of employing monoclonal antibodies as an effective therapy in combating bacterial pathogens,” said Dr. Freund.

It should be noted that owing to the size and complexity of the tuberculosis bacillus, isolation of monoclonal antibodies to it has been extremely challenging. The researchers in Freund’s laboratory have succeeded in pinpointing a phosphate pump protein on the bacillus cell wall, which supplies energy to the bacterium and is highly specific and conserved to all tuberculosis strains.

The two types of antibodies the researchers have isolated, which block the action of the pump, inhibit the bacteria growth and reduced the bacterial levels by 50% in mice as compared with mice that were not treated with antibodies.

Furthermore, these antibodies have been found to be active against three different strains of the tuberculosis bacillus; and seeing that the antibodies are directed against the phosphorus pump, which is common to all strains of this bacillus, it is expected that the vaccine will be effective against many other strains that were not investigated, including those that are resistant to antibiotics.

In view of the success of the study, Dr. Freund’s laboratory is investigating the possibility of extending the “biological” substitute for antibiotics to include other diseases.

“The model that has proven successful in this study will enable us to extend our future work to include other diseases such as pneumonia and staphylococcus infections,” Freund concluded. (TPS)

 

 

Trump Org May Struggle to Fill Tiffany Vacancy in Weak Market

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
As reported by Crain’s NY, Trump’s building at 6 E. 57th St. will be losing retail tenant Tiffany & Co, which occupied space there while undergoing renovations at its nearby flagship boutique. Photo Credit: visit5thavenue.com

By Serach Nissim

Midtown Manhattan continues to struggle with vacant retail space due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Trump Organization has not been immune to the decline in luxury shoppers, and empty storefronts.  The company’s trophy building near Fifth Avenue will also face the challenges of needing to fill gaps in retail space.

As reported by Crain’s NY, Trump’s building at 6 E. 57th St. will be losing retail tenant Tiffany & Co, which occupied space there while undergoing renovations at its nearby flagship boutique.  The Jewelry chain hopes to move back to its own store, with renovations complete, by mid-2022. The companies holding the lease at the Trump building, Wharton Properties and SL Green Realty, will not extend it when it expires in the beginning of 2022.

That would leave the Trump Organization with 74,000-square-feet of unleased space, a big gap to fill.  The space was formerly known as NikeTown, named after the previous tenant.   Filling the five stories of space, will likely be a challenge, especially since the pandemic ravaged demand for retail space.  With tourists nonexistent and shoppers still wary of going out and about, Manhattan store vacancies have been soaring, with even well-known icons breaking their leases to vacate long-time storefronts.

While there is still time before Tiffany & Co leaves the Trump building, the overall market does not seem rosy for landlords, even after the pandemic subsides. Furthermore, the Trump brand will have its own unique impediments, as the former President of the U.S. Donald Trump, has lost a good deal of popularity, particularly in New York City, which may leave potential tenants unwilling to be associated with the Trump name.  “Leasing any retail or office space at this point in New York is difficult,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, president of a brokerage named Wharton Property Advisors, but not connected with the lease holder which bears a similar name.  The 57th Street building is “a Triple-A location. The building itself, the spaces are really nice, it’s a lot of glass and steel. It’s extremely nice spaces. But for some users there’s definitely a stigma,” she said.

Mr. Trump won only 12 percent of the Manhattan vote in 2020. The City of NY has said it is canceling management contracts with the Trump Organization, because of the Capital riot, which Trump was accused of inciting. As per Crain’s, some Trump-branded properties have already stripped themselves of his name or are considering doing so.

Eric Trump, Executive Vice President of the organization, declined to comment, as did spokespeople for Wharton Properties and SL Green.

 

 

Centrist Democrats Flex Muscles, Create Headaches for Biden

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
AP”

(AP) A moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia is suddenly one of the most powerful people in Washington.

Sen. Joe Manchin has had multiple one-on-one phone calls with President Joe Biden. He can send the White House into a tailspin with a single five-minute interview or three-sentence statement. And he may have already derailed some of the administration’s policy priorities and a Cabinet nominee.

And it’s not just Manchin who’s wielding outsize influence over Biden’s agenda. With a 50-50 split in the Senate leaving little room for error on tough votes, other moderate Democrats like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Jon Tester of Montana also hold significant political clout in Biden’s Washington, making for a muscular counterweight to the progressives who make up the party’s base.

“Each and every one of these members has the ability to be the king- or queen-maker on Capitol Hill,” said Jim Manley, a longtime aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “If they stick together, and flex their muscles — especially given the tight margins in both the House and the Senate — they can have a real impact.”

While Biden spent much of the 2020 Democratic primary and general election campaigns being hounded by progressives for not embracing far-left positions on everything from criminal justice to health care, his first month in office has won praise from some of his most prominent former antagonists on the left like Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Now it’s the moderates who are creating headaches for the Democratic president.

Late last week, Manchin all but tanked the Biden administration’s nominee for Office of Management and Budget director, Neera Tanden, when he issued a brief statement opposing her nomination because of her controversial tweets attacking members of both parties. Tanden’s prospects for approval immediately sank. Political observers are also waiting to see if Manchin will support Surgeon General nominee Vivek Murthy, whom he opposed in 2014.

A few weeks back, Manchin created a stir when he publicly criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for doing a TV interview with a local West Virginia station that was seen as an effort to pressure him to support the COVID-19 bill. He received a call from the White House shortly after his complaint to try to smooth things over.

Manchin is one of a handful of centrist Democrats who have expressed skepticism about Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill, threatening to derail the president’s top priority if they don’t win concessions. Manchin, Sinema and Tester have all called for more targeted aid for Americans, and they, along with five other centrist Democrats and seven Republicans, all signed onto an amendment barring “upper-income taxpayers” from being eligible to receive stimulus checks.

“The challenge here is, I don’t want to do too much, and I don’t want to do too little,” Tester said. “I want to make sure it’s targeted and justified.”

Manchin and Sinema also oppose Biden’s proposal to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, likely ensuring that it’s removed from the final COVID-19 bill even if the Senate parliamentarian rules it can be included. They’ve also both drawn the ire of progressives for their refusal to support eliminating the 60-vote threshold for approving most legislation, with one progressive group threatening to recruit primary challengers to oppose them.

Moderates are certain to influence the Biden administration’s next big legislative push as well, a major infrastructure and jobs bill that will include climate planks. Manchin and others from rural states want to see money commitments for rural infrastructure and investments to offset any oil and gas industry job losses.

Neither Manchin nor Sinema are seen as particularly vulnerable to a primary challenge. The political realities of a red-leaning state like West Virginia, or a purple state like Arizona, are in fact what guide the senators’ staunch centrism, says former Manchin chief of staff Chris Kofinis.

“Every one of these senators are still going to sit there and think, what do my constituents want? What do they need? And I think moderates in general tend to be much more sensitive to that because of the unique nature of politics in their states, which are by nature usually more divided,” Kofinis said.

The White House shares those political concerns.

To defend and expand their majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats will need to win over suburban moderate voters in tough, Republican-leaning House districts and in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio, where they hope to win statewide. Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia will also need to maintain support among moderate voters if they hope to win reelection in tough states.

Their significance to the final vote on the COVID-19 bill means some moderates are already getting extra attention from the White House.

Biden has spoken to Manchin multiple times, according to a Manchin aide, including at least once right after the president was sworn in. Sometimes Manchin reaches out to the president, while sometimes the president reaches out to him.

But moderates don’t always get — and aren’t always looking for — personal attention from the president.

Some of those who come from deep-red states, where being seen as too cozy with a Democratic president would be politically problematic, avoid saying whether they’ve spoken to Biden at all.

Some, like Sinema and Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, say their staffs are in almost daily touch with the White House.

“I suspect they have Joe Manchin on speed dial,” King joked. But he said the dynamic varies from member to member depending on where they stand on the COVID relief bill.

Tester said he’s not yet at the point where he’s looking for personal calls from the president because his staff members are the ones deeply involved in the details of the negotiations, and they’re in frequent contact with their White House counterparts.

But he was aware of the power he wields to get the president on the phone if he needs to.

“I’m not going to ring his doorbell every time I have an urge to ring his doorbell,” he said. “I’m going to use that ability to contact him when it’s of highest value.”

NYS to Reshape Midtown by Redeveloping Area Near Penn Station

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
New York State is pursuing plans to reshape Midtown Manhattan by redeveloping the area near Penn Station. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

New York State is pursuing plans to reshape Midtown Manhattan by redeveloping the area near Penn Station.

As reported by Crain’s NY, Empire State Development has drafted early plans to develop eight sites by the Midtown Manhattan transit hub, which has been the busiest train station in the  Western Hemisphere.  The ambitious project would result in 10 mixed-used buildings with a total of about 20 million square feet for offices, retail, hotel and maybe even residential space.

The plan announced on Friday, would almost double the size of building permitted at the sites.  The draft is in line with the promise Gov. Andrew Cuomo made last year, to increase the train station’s track capacity by 40 percent and make new developments which will pay for the improvements.   “Moynihan Hall is just the beginning. Now we will expand our vision with a new Manhattan Midtown West development project to create a new west side transit hub, and build upon it with new residential, commercial and public works projects that will combine to form a new, vibrant, exciting district extending over 140 acres,” Cuomo promised during his extensive State of the State speeches. “Taken together, the Moynihan Hall, the block south of Penn Station and the renovated Penn Station will double our capacity, and make travel easier, safer, more reliable, and more enjoyable”.

The early plans would have the state partner on the project with Vornado Realty Trust, a giant real estate investment trust which owns a lot of the land on which the project will be developed.  Vornado owns and operates close to 20 million square feet of prime office properties, and is the largest owner and manager of street retail in Manhattan, with a portfolio of more than 2.4 million square feet.  Vornado will be eager to replicate its achievements attained in Hudson Yards.  The company has already spent over $2 billion to redevelop some 5 million square feet by Penn Station, including the new Moynihan Trail Hall, at the Farley Building.  Previously the iconic post office, the Farley Building inked a deal in August, for Facebook to lease all the office space.

Pennsylvania Station has already been undergoing major improvements and redevelopment since 2017, with hopes to address space constraints and transform the station into a modern gateway to New York.  Related Companies, Vornado Realty, and Skanska were awarded the contract to develop the Moynihan Train Hall.  The project architect was Skidmore and Owings & Merrill.

Midtown Wholesale Startup Raises $23M in Funding as Small Businesses Shift to Online Sourcing

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0

By: Benyamin Davidsons

On Friday, Abound, a wholesale online startup, secured a venture-capital funding round of $22.9 million.

The Midtown Manhattan-based company, launched in October 2019, connects independent product-makers with small businesses such as boutiques or gift shops to buy and resell their products in the US and UK.  As reported by Crain’s NY, this is the first venture investment round for Abound.  The startup has 30 employees, who are currently operating remotely. Before the pandemic hit, the company was operating out of a WeWork location near Bryant Park.  The wholesale marketplace seeks to help independent retailers find and stock unique products.  Abound says it will use the money to expand the platform which has added 15,000 buyers and sellers just over the past 12 months.  The capital will help the company strengthen its engineering and marketing staff, said the firm’s CEO, Bill Shope.

Investors are pouring money into Abound because the pandemic has shifted the ways in which small businesses source their goods, Shope said.  “The traditional process for wholesale buying and distribution is the trade shows,” Shope said. “The trade shows are all canceled for 2020 and into 2021, so we had plenty of brands coming to us to showcase their products.”  Now that small shops and e-retailers cannot hunt in person for fun products as road warriors, managers are turning to Abound and similar companies to stock up with unique products. Similarly, small producers who can no longer show off their wares due to the pandemic are matching up with sellers through the online platform.

The wholesale platform carries roughly 180,000 products, including vintage art, handmade soaps, makeup, stationery, and coffee beans from independent producers. Shope said the firm’s products are customized and it does not view Amazon as a competitor.  “Boutique and independent retailers differentiate themselves by having these types of products that surprise and delight and make you want to stroll in on a Sunday afternoon,” Shope said.  Abound competes with San Francisco–based wholesalers Faire and Tundra, which are also venture-backed startups.

Abound’s obtained venture funding round was led by Left-Lane Capital, a New York firm whose prior notable investments include HelloFresh, The Farmer’s Dog and SpotHero.  Despite the investment, Abound will still need to capturing market share, as well as overcome the retail slump. The pandemic is still devastating in-store retail across the board, and at the end of last year confidence among Abound’s target audience of small-business owners was down  to an eight-year low.

 

 

Former 5th Ave Valentino Boutique Sued for $13M Over Defaced Italian Marble

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
Valentino, the glamorous Fifth Avenue boutique built for Italian Luxury Designer Valentino now lays empty, with bare white walls. Photo Credit: boutiques.valentino.com

By Benyamin Davidsons

The glamourous Fifth Avenue boutique built for Italian Luxury Designer Valentino now lays empty, with bare white walls.

The posh retail store located at 693 Fifth Ave, in Midtown Manhattan had cost millions to build, using the same marble terrazzo that adorns palaces in Venice, Italy.  On Friday, the landlord of the space filed a lawsuit against Valentino, saying the expensive natural stone was covered in white paint, alleging that Valentino is responsible to pay $13 million, to cover the costs of restoring the stones.

As reported by Crain’s NY, the suit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, says that the landlord paid for the imported precious marble slabs as well as Carrara chippings to create a luxurious atmosphere at the shop, and it was supposed to be returned in the same condition.

This is not the first fallout between the landlord and Valentino.  In June, after the pandemic struck, the Italian designer had sued the property holder, 693 Fifth Owner LLC, to break its lease eight years early.  The fashion icon had said in its suit that the pandemic had toppled its day to day business, leaving no tourists or clients for the store, and making it impossible to operate its shop as planned.  The landlord had refused to end the lease, and a judge had dismissed the retailer’s suit. Notwithstanding, in December, Valentino vacated the space.  According to the landlord’s complaint filed Friday, Valentino owes a total of $207 million for the remainder of the lease as well as damages to the store.

The landlord maintains that there is $184 million worth of payments remaining on the lease, as well as the cost for repairs, and says that in addition Valentino should pay for the $15 million in rent it will forgo while repairing damage to the shop.  The landlord’s lawsuit says that the retailer’s earlier lawsuit and vacate notice “were an opportunistic attempt to capitalize upon and pervert the international Covid-19 pandemic in order to mitigate market difficulties the House of Valentino had been suffering since well before the Covid-19 pandemic”.

As per Crain’s, the owner’s lawyer said they had tried to work with Valentino during the pandemic, but Valentino sued anyway, and has since signed a lease for an 8,700-square-foot store at 135 Spring St. in SoHo.  “What was surprising was what Valentino left behind when it abandoned the store,” said Attorney Robert Cyruli. “The expensive, imported store installation was effectively destroyed. My client expected more from a well-known international luxury brand.”

A representative for Valentino declined to comment.

 

 

Merrick Garland Wants Former Facebook Lawyer to Lead DOJ Antitrust Division

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
AP

SEAN MORAN

Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland hopes to tap a former Facebook lawyer as the leader of the DOJ’s antitrust division, according to a report released Thursday.

The Intercept reported Thursday that Garlands hopes to install Susan Davies, a former Facebook lawyer, to lead the antitrust division.

Davies represented Facebook in a lawsuit brought by an advertiser, Sambreel Holdings LLC, contending that Facebook kicked it off the tech giant’s platform after Facebook lured away all of its clients and banned users from downloading it.

Davies has also reportedly worked for clients to facilitate mergers, fending off antitrust enforcement.

The Intercept wrote that Garland’s potential hiring of lawyers such as Davies could prove insufficient in their task of preventing consolidation and anticompetitive behavior.

The outlet reported:

 But when it comes to antitrust enforcement, the framework in place during the Obama years proved to be insufficient to the task of slowing or reversing consolidation across sectors. Simply installing talented members of the legal establishment will lead to the same failures without a serious rethinking of antitrust policy.

Garland’s potential hiring of Davies would appear to stand in contrast to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign platform.

Biden’s campaign said in 2020 that he would work with Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), who led an antitrust investigation in the House.

“The report recommended broad changes to laws that would punish big companies, such as making it illegal for Amazon and Google to give greater preference to their own products over competitors’ merchandise on their platforms. The recommendations also included expanding federal regulators’ powers to block future tech mergers,” the Washington Post noted last week.

Zephyr Teachout, author of Break ‘Em Up and a big tech critic, said in January, “Bringing in anybody from Big Tech to a leadership role in antitrust is a political, policy, and managerial disaster. We know how the revolving door works. The ideology of big companies shapes the ideology of government.”

Breitbart

House Democrats Target Newsmax, Fox News for De-platforming From Cable

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0

By Marisa Herman  (NEWSMAX)

Democrats are waging an assault on the First Amendment, with two Democrat House lawmakers demanding answers from cable television providers on the role they play in the “spread of dangerous misinformation.”

The letter, signed by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., and released to the press Monday, targets only conservative-leaning outlets, including Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN.

On Wednesday the House subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is scheduled to hold a hearing on disinformation and extremism in media.

Cable service companies such as Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox, and Altice all received the same letter on Monday pressing for answers on policies related to the spread of disinformation, rumors, and conspiracy theories on networks they carry.

The letter directly only assails conservative news networks Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN and accuses them of airing misinformation on various topics — among them, the coronavirus, the 2020 election, and the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Newsmax issued a statement Monday decrying what the company said was an attack on the First Amendment. The Newsmax statement read:

“The House Democrats’ attack on free speech and basic First Amendment rights should send chills down the spines of all Americans. Newsmax reported fairly and accurately on allegations and claims made by both sides during the recent election contest. We did not see that same balanced coverage when CNN and MSNBC pushed for years the Russian collusion hoax, airing numerous claims and interviews with Democrat leaders that turned out to be patently false.”

Newsmax noted that the Eschoo-McNerney letter makes several false or misleading characterizations of its coverage.

While Newsmax reported on President Trump’s contest of the 2020 elections, covering the claims he and his attorneys made, the Democrats said such reporting was “incendiary.”

The letter also states, “As a violent mob was breaching the doors of the Capitol, Newsmax’s coverage called the scene a ‘sort of a romantic idea.’”

The claim was made on Newsmax by a Touro College law professor and prominent liberal, Thane Rosenbaum, who was describing the rally before any violence or illegal activity had taken place at the Capitol.

In fact, Newsmax hosts began condemning the illegal activity that took place at the Capitol in real time, and did so repeatedly throughout the day.

The Democratic letter also alleges that Newsmax “amplified allegations that members of the Chinese Communist Party helped to develop the COVID-19 vaccine.” Newsmax stated it has no idea what House Democrats are alleging here, as Newsmax did not report anything unusual about China and the COVID-19 vaccine.

In their letter the lawmakers also questioned what the cable providers will do, if anything, to combat the spread of such alleged falsehoods.

The Democrats even goes as far to ask whether the outlets will continue to be carried by the providers and questions their “ethical principles.” Tellingly, the Democrats are not targeting any leftwing media like CNN and MSNBC.

“It’s cancel culture coming to our news media and our sources of information,” said David Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision PR Group. “It’s an orchestrated attack, not just by Democrats, but also by other left-wing networks to silence conservative voices completely. It’s an attempt at almost outright censorship.”

While Democrats aren’t trying to “outlaw the networks” they are calling out, Johnson said the letter is a “form of intimidation” to force cable providers to drop these networks in order to do away with conservative voices in media.

“To our knowledge, the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets,” Eshoo and McNerney wrote.

The letter continues: “Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date? “If so, why?”

The Congressmen request companies provide a response to them by March 8.

Eshoo has previously advocated for the return of the Fairness Doctrine for both radio and television. She has gone on the record backing the doctrine to apply to both cable and satellite programming.

Under the Fairness Doctrine, TV and radio stations were required to balance opposing viewpoints on a topic. Many conservatives are opposed to the doctrine, which they say impedes on First Amendment rights.

The doctrine was repealed by the Reagan administration’s Federal Communications Commission in 1987.

Eshoo and McNerney, who have districts that represent Silicon Valley, don’t mention social media companies like Facebook and Twitter in their letter, nor do they raise questions about the disinformation these platforms may have helped spread.

Biden Claimed He Was Arrested for Trespassing at Capitol

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

By Charlie McCarthy(NEWSMAX)

President Joe Biden once said on national television he had been arrested for trespassing at the U.S. Capitol.

While appearing on the “Late Show with David Letterman” in 2007, Biden was asked what it felt like to walk into the Senate chamber after having been elected as a 29-year-old to become freshman senator from Delaware.

Biden said he previously had walked on the Senate floor.

“I walked in when I was 21 and I got arrested,” Biden told Letterman. “It was a Saturday. I was down visiting some friends at Georgetown University, and I came up on a Saturday morning because I was fascinated with the Senate, and they had a Saturday session.

“I walked up. Those days, no guards stopping you everywhere, and they just got out of session. I walked in the back, all of a sudden, I found myself in the chamber and I was stunned. I walked up, sat down [in] the presiding officer’s seat. A guy grabbed me by the shoulder and said, ‘You’re under arrest.'”

Years later, Biden walked into the chamber to take the seat he earned by defeating incumbent J. Caleb Boggs, R-Del.

“As I walked onto the Senate floor through the same door, that same guy, cop, said to me, ‘Senator, you remember me?'” Biden said on the show. “I said, ‘Geez, I don’t.’ He said, ‘I arrested you nine years ago.’ He said, ‘Welcome back.'”

There was no evidence Biden actually was arrested for trespassing.

Biden’s appearance on Letterman’s show remains available on social media.

The president also once claimed he had been arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa during the apartheid era. However, he later backtracked by saying he meant he was “not able to move,” per Fox News.

The clip of Biden on Letterman’s show has resurfaced on social media after protesters trespassed and violently rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

YouTube Blocked Chess Channel After Mistaking ‘Black vs. White’ Strategy for Racism

By
Sholom Schreirber
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0

LUCAS NOLAN

Google-owned video platform YouTube mistakenly suspended the channel of a popular Croatian chess player after his discussion of “black versus white” in terms of chess strategy was flagged by the site’s algorithm as racism. The incident demonstrates that the AI tools the Masters of the Universe rely on to police their platforms are not yet up to the task.

The Daily Mail reports that last summer the popular Croatian chess player and YouTuber Antonio Radic saw his channel on the platform suspended without warning, although service was restored a day later.

Radic, known online as “Agadmator,” produces videos discussing various chess strategies and plays. Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon suspect that Radic’s discussion with a chess grandmaster of “black vs. white” chess pieces triggered YouTube’s AI filters.

The scientists ran simulations with software trained to detect hate speech and found that more than 80 percent of chess videos flagged for hate speech did not contain offensive speech but did include terms such as “black,” “white,” “attack,” and “threat,” all used in relation to chess.

Researchers suggested that social-media firms incorporate chess-related language into their algorithms to prevent this issue in the future.

At the time of the channel suspension, Radic suggested that the phrase “black against white” led to the ban. Ashiqur R. KhudaBukhsh, a computer scientist at Carnegie Melon’s Language Technologies Institute, stated that he believes that he may be right.

“We don’t know what tools YouTube uses, but if they rely on artificial intelligence to detect racist language, this kind of accident can happen,” KhudaBukhsh said.

YouTube declined to indicate what caused Radic’s video to be flagged, telling the Mail Online: “When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it. We also offer uploaders the ability to appeal removals and will re-review the content. Agadmator appealed the removal, and we quickly reinstated the video.”

Read more at the Daily Mail here.

Trump Reacts to Supreme Court Letting NY Prosecutor Obtain His Taxes

By
Sholom Schreirber
-
0
AP

ZACHARY STIEBER

Former President Donald Trump on Monday said New York officials investigating him are participating in a continuation of “the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country,” after the Supreme Court ruled that a New York prosecutor could obtain Trump’s tax returns.

“For more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S. The Tea Party was treated far better by the IRS than Donald Trump,” Trump said in a statement.

“The Supreme Court never should have let this ‘fishing expedition’ happen, but they did. This is something which has never happened to a President before, it is all Democrat-inspired in a totally Democrat location, New York City and State, completely controlled and dominated by a heavily reported enemy of mine, Governor Andrew Cuomo. These are attacks by Democrats willing to do anything to stop the almost 75 million people (the most votes, by far, ever gotten by a sitting president) who voted for me in the election—an election which many people, and experts, feel that I won. I agree!” he added.

The nation’s highest court decided not to take up an application from Trump’s lawyers for a hold on releasing Trump’s tax returns and other financial records. The application was made after an appeals court ruled last year that Trump needed to turn over the records.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, a Democrat, is seeking the information as part of a probe that he has said little about publicly.

In a brief statement following the ruling, Vance said: “The work continues.”

Other New York Democrat officials, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, have launched probes or taken action against Trump or his business in recent years, as they argue he’s broken the law.

In one example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is moving to cut off ties between the city and the Trump Organization, which runs popular ice rinks.

Trump on Monday called the targeting part of a “new phenomenon of ‘headhunting’ prosecutors and” attorneys general, who he alleged “try to take down their political opponents using the law as a weapon.”

The phenomenon “is a threat to the very foundation of our liberty,” he said, adding: “That’s what is done in third world countries.”

“Even worse are those who run for prosecutorial or attorney general offices in far-left states and jurisdictions pledging to take out a political opponent. That’s fascism, not justice—and that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me, except that the people of our Country won’t stand for it,” Trump continued.

“In the meantime, murders and violent crime are up in New York City by record numbers, and nothing is done about it. Our elected officials don’t care. All they focus on is the persecution of President Donald J. Trump. I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years (even before I was successfully elected), despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me. We will win!”

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