The decline in oil prices and the value of investment assets since the start of the coronavirus outbreak will have an adverse impact on the "financial solvency" of the state, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Saturday. "Kuwait is facing the big and unprecedented challenge of shielding our economy from the external shocks caused by this virus, specifically the decline in oil prices and the value of investments and assets, which will have a negative impact on the financial solvency of the state," the emir was cited by the state news agency KUNA as saying. It wasn't clear if the comment meant that Kuwait could delay the payment of government dues, or whether it was a general statement about the deterioration of the state's finance as a result of the economic impact of the health crisis.

Republican-controlled legislatures are increasingly trying to strip Democratic governors of their executive authority to close businesses and schools, a power grab by lawmakers that channels frustration over the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic but could come with long-term consequences for how their states fight disease. The efforts to undermine Democratic governors who invoked stay-at-home orders are most pronounced in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all three of which have divided government and are key to President Donald Trump's path to reelection. Democratic governors there face lawsuits, legislation and other moves by Republicans trying to seize control of the response to the virus.

Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Cheniere Energy, Inc...

The American economy plunged deeper into crisis last month, losing 20.5 million jobs as the unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, the worst devastation since the Great Depression.The Labor Department's monthly report Friday provided the clearest picture yet of the breadth and depth of the economic damage -- and how swiftly it spread -- as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.Job losses have encompassed the entire economy, affecting every major industry. Areas like leisure and hospitality had the biggest losses in April, but even health care shed more than 1 million jobs. Low-wage workers, including many women and members of racial and ethnic minorities, have been hit especially hard."It's literally off the charts," said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. "What would typically take months or quarters to play out in a recession happened in a matter of weeks this time."From almost any vantage point, it was a bleak report. The share of the adult population with a job, at 51.3%, was the lowest on record. Nearly 11 million people reported working part time because they couldn't find full-time work, up from about 4 million before the pandemic.If anything, the numbers probably understate the economic distress.Millions more Americans have filed unemployment claims since the data was collected in mid-April. What's more, because of issues with the way workers are classified, the Labor Department said the actual unemployment rate last month might have been closer to 20%.It remains possible that the recovery, too, will be swift, and that as the pandemic retreats, businesses that were fundamentally healthy before the virus will reopen, rehire and return more or less to normal. The one bright spot in Friday's report was that nearly 80% of the unemployed said they had been temporarily laid off and expected to return to their jobs in the coming months.President Donald Trump endorsed this view in an interview Friday morning on Fox News. "Those jobs will all be back, and they'll be back very soon," Trump said, "and next year we're going to have a phenomenal year."But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said that such optimism was misplaced, and that many of the jobs could not be recovered."This is going to be a hard reality," Swonk said. "These furloughs are permanent, not temporary."Many businesses have indicated that employees can work from home throughout the summer, hurting sales at downtown restaurants. Meetings and conferences have been put off as well, reducing demand at hotels and other gathering places. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more businesses will fail, deepening the downturn.The broad nature of the job cuts, too, means it will take longer for the labor market to recover than if the losses were confined to one or two areas."There is no safe place in the labor market right now," said Martha Gimbel, an economist and labor market expert at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative. "Once people are unemployed, once they've lost their jobs, once their spending has been sucked out of the economy, it takes so long to come back from that."Carrie Hines, a managing director at an advertising firm in Austin, Texas, had the kind of professional job -- adaptable to working from home -- that seemed insulated from the pandemic's effects. But her firm worked closely with companies in the airline, hotel and amusement park industries. When their business evaporated as a result of the outbreak, it was only a matter of time before Hines' firm felt the impact. She was laid off April 20."I was shocked," she said. "I've never had a gap in work since college."Hines and her husband are cutting back where they can, and they have canceled plans to send their three children to summer camp. "I never imagined this kind of job market where the entire advertising industry has been crushed," she said.The scale of the job losses last month alone far exceed the 8.7 million lost in the last recession, when unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009."I thought the Great Recession was once in a lifetime, but this is much worse," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global.The only comparable period is when unemployment reached about 25% in 1933, before the government began publishing official statistics. Then, as now, workers from a variety of backgrounds found themselves with few prospects for quickly landing a new job.The government's official definition of unemployment typically requires people to be actively looking for work, making the measure ill-suited to a crisis in which the government is encouraging people to stay home. Some 6.4 million people left the labor force entirely in April, meaning they were neither working nor looking for work.Joblessness -- by any measure -- could be even higher in the report for May, which will reflect conditions next week. Some economists say the unemployment rate should fall over the summer as people begin to return to work. Several states have begun to reopen their economies, and others are expected to do so in coming weeks.But with the virus untamed, it's not clear how quickly customers will return to businesses. And epidemiologists and economists warn that if states move too quickly, they could risk a second wave of infections, imperiling public health and the economy."That would stop people from shopping and cause austerity," Bovino said.For businesses, the uncertainty about the path of the pandemic and about consumers' response to it is making planning difficult.When Austin Ramirez heard about the coronavirus earlier this year, his initial concern was for his supply chain. Ramirez runs Husco International, a manufacturer of hydraulic and electromechanical components for cars and other equipment. The company has a factory in China and receives parts from suppliers there and around the world.By April, virtually the entire U.S. auto industry was shut down, Husco included. (The company's nonautomotive production continued at a reduced rate.) Ramirez said he didn't know when business would bounce back. His goal is to weather the storm."There's no visibility or certainty on what the future demand is going to look like," he said. "We can't build a business model that relies on there being a big recovery six months from now."While most of Husco's roughly 750 North American workers have been furloughed during the crisis, the company has mostly avoided large-scale, permanent job cuts. Ramirez said he expected that most of his workers would come back when he needs them.But particularly in industries like retail and hospitality, layoffs that were initially temporary might not remain so as bankruptcies mount and business owners confront shifts in consumer behavior.Most forecasters expect the unemployment rate to remain elevated at least through 2021, and probably longer. That means that it will be years before workers enjoy the bargaining power that was beginning to bring them faster wage gains and better benefits before the crisis.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Investors in MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:MX) had a good week, as its shares rose 6.5% to close at...

A Facebook post offers what appears to be a fictitious excerpt from a real Supreme Court ruling to claim that COVID-19 emergency measures are illegal.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned on Saturday that if provinces move too quickly to reopen their economies, a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic could send Canada "back into confinement this summer." Trudeau, who represents a Montreal, Quebec parliamentary riding, told reporters in a daily briefing that he is concerned about the virus' spread in that province, the country's epicenter. Although health officials have pointed to a flattening rate of daily cases in many provinces, Trudeau said Canada was "not in the recovery phase yet."

Mazda Motor Corp has sought loans totalling about 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion) from Japan's three megabanks and other lenders to ride out the coronavirus epidemic, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Saturday. The megabanks - Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Financial Group - along with the Development Bank of Japan, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings and others are set to agree, with some already having extended the loans, the person said, declining to be identified because the information is not public.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirmed. Defendant is a divorced spouse who holds an interest in property that Plaintiff obtained a judgment lien against the other spouse’s interest. Plaintiff argued that Defendant’s interest was subordinate to Plaintiff’s interest. The trial court held that Defendant’s interest vested upon the entry of the judgment of divorce and that Plaintiff could execute only against the other spouse’s interest.

(United States Supreme Court) - In plaintiffs' section 1983 suit against several police officers alleging that the prohibition of carrying pictures of aborted fetuses during their demonstrations violated their First Amendment rights, the Fourth Circuit's judgment affirming the district court's grant of plaintiffs' motion for a permanent injunction but denial of attorney's fees, on the ground that plaintiff is not a prevailing party because he did not secure monetary damages, is vacated and remanded where a plaintiff "prevails" when actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff. Here, the injunction ordered the defendant officials to change their behavior in a way that directly benefited the plaintiff.

(California Court of Appeal) - In a dispute between two factions of a church over control of church property, the trial court's judgment is affirmed over meritless claims that it erred: 1) when it found in favor of respondents based on appellants' excommunication from the Holy Hill Community Church (Church) by the Western California Presbytery (WCP); 2) by admitting evidence of events occurring after the cross-complaint was filed; and 3) when it prevented appellants' counsel from cross-examining a representative of the WCP whose testimony was sought by respondents.

(California Court of Appeal) - Revived the California Labor Commissioner's lawsuit alleging that a preschool operated by a religious congregation violated wage-hour laws. Held that the preschool teachers were not considered ministers and, therefore, were not covered by a constitutional doctrine that prevents ministers from bringing certain types of claims against their employers. Reversed a summary judgment ruling.

(United States Second Circuit) - In a copyright infringement action brought by record companies and music publishers against internet music services that allowed users to search for free music, dealing with the requirement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor that an internet service provider adopt and reasonably implement a policy to terminate repeat infringers, under 17 U.S.C. section 512, the District Court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of defendants and decision overturning a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs is: 1) vacated as to partial summary judgment to the defendants based on the conclusion that defendant qualified for safe harbor protection under the DMCA because the District Court applied too narrow a definition of 'repeat infringer'; 2) reversed as to judgment as a matter of law to the defendants on claims that defendant permitted infringement of plaintiffs' copyrights in pre‐2007 MP3s and Beatles songs because there was sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that defendant had red‐flag knowledge of, or was willfully blind to, infringing activity involving those categories of protected material; 3) remanded for further proceedings related to claims arising out of the District Court’s grant of partial summary judgment; and 4) affirmed in all other respects.

(United States Second Circuit) - In an amended opinion involving a copyright infringement action brought by record companies and music publishers against internet music services that allowed users to search for free music, dealing with the requirement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor that an internet service provider adopt and reasonably implement a policy to terminate repeat infringers, under 17 U.S.C. section 512, the District Court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of defendants and decision overturning a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs is: 1) vacated as to partial summary judgment to the defendants based on the conclusion that defendant qualified for safe harbor protection under the DMCA because the District Court applied too narrow a definition of 'repeat infringer'; 2) reversed as to judgment as a matter of law to the defendants on claims that defendant permitted infringement of plaintiffs' copyrights in pre‐2007 MP3s and Beatles songs because there was sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that defendant had red‐flag knowledge of, or was willfully blind to, infringing activity involving those categories of protected material; 3) remanded for further proceedings related to claims arising out of the District Court’s grant of partial summary judgment; and 4) affirmed in all other respects.

(United States Second Circuit) - Reversed the denial of a post-trial JMOL motion. In overturning a $1.3 million jury verdict, the appeals court held that a business owner failed to prove that two prosecutors and an investigator in the Nassau County District Attorney's Office tortiously interfered with his contracts in violation of New York law when they conducted a fraud investigation against a media company he owned but then did not ultimately file charges against him. The appeals court concluded that there was no evidence that anyone stopped performing under a specific contract because of anything said or done by the defendants.

(United States Second Circuit) - In a trademark suit brought by a provider of healthcare services against a provider of digital health-related content, the District Court's injunction which prohibited defendant from using its marks within plaintiff’s geographic service area, but placed no restriction on defendant's use of its marks on the Internet or outside plaintiff's service area, is affirmed but remanded for expansion of the injunction's scope, where the current limitations placed on defendant were based on an incorrect standard and fail to give plaintiff and the public adequate protection from likely confusion.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirming the district court's summary judgment in favor of Fox, holding that their use of the name 'Empire' was protected by the First Amendment and therefore was outside of the reach of the Lanham Act and their use of the word as a show title did not infringe on a record label's trademark rights.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirming a bankruptcy court decision that the rejection of an executory contract left the plaintiff with only a pre-petition damages claim in lieu of any obligation by the debtor to further perform under a trademark license agreement.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirming the district court's determination that New York law allows for derivative litigation rights in a suit on Lanham Act claims and a motion for preliminary injunction under the first-filed rule, but vacating the dismissal of the complaint and injunction motion in favor of a first-filed Georgia action because the Georgia suit was transferred to New York, so the reasoning behind the first-filed ruling no longer pertains, and affirming the district court's award of costs, including attorney fees incurred in the Georgia state action.

(United States Supreme Court) - Held that a bankrupt company's rejection of a trademark licensing agreement did not deprive its licensee of the rights to use the trademark. The U.S. Supreme Court interpreted Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code, which enables a debtor to reject any executory contract, meaning a contract that neither party has finished performing. Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the 8-1 Court.

(United States Supreme Court) - Revived a maritime tort lawsuit against manufacturers of turbines and other equipment for three Navy ships. Family members of two deceased Navy veterans claimed that the manufacturer violated a duty to warn sailors of the health risks faced from asbestos fibers released into the air. The U.S. Supreme Court found merit in the plaintiffs' contentions. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion for a 6-3 majority, clarifying the circumstances in which a duty to warn exists in the maritime context.

(United States Supreme Court) - Held that a bankrupt company's rejection of a trademark licensing agreement did not deprive its licensee of the rights to use the trademark. The U.S. Supreme Court interpreted Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code, which enables a debtor to reject any executory contract, meaning a contract that neither party has finished performing. Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the 8-1 Court.

(United States Supreme Court) - Addressed what law applies on the Outer Continental Shelf, holding that California wage-and-hour law was inapplicable to a worker on an offshore drilling platform. Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, if federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

#architektura #architekt #dom #design

#architektura #architekt #dom #design

Aside from a few wild guesses, Izuku had no idea how this had happened. But here he was, about to bear All Might's child, and all he could think to blame it on was a jar of rice.

When surveyed, people who received universal basic income instead of regular unemployment benefits reported better financial well-being, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future.

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and benefits recipients’ mental and financial wellbeing

I can’t stop laughing at this.

The Pandemic Is the Time to Resurrect the Public University via Instapaper https://ift.tt/3dsBHFd

It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope is also predictable.

"Give your video calls a makeover, with this selection of over 100 empty sets from the BBC Archive." Very good. (via @wonderlandblog)

Rivalling One Direction-ers in devotion, Australian fans of the musical maestro André Rieu are set to again be wowed at the cinema screenings of his 2016 Maastricht concert.