Month: September 2020

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden will campaign in three U.S. states today, after the two faced-off last night at the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, leading up to the November election.  

Trump, 74, will spend the day in Minnesota with a fundraiser in the afternoon before a rally in Duluth. Biden, 77, and his wife, Jill, will embark on an all-day train tour through a half-dozen cities in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, areas that Trump won four years ago. Pennsylvania, which narrowly voted for Trump in 2016, is seen by many strategists as the most crucial of the six most competitive states that will likely decide the election outcome, which also include Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.  Ohio, which Trump carried in his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton, is among the Republican-leaning states that Biden hopes to put into play in November.

Tuesday’s debate, marred by interruptions, insults and anger, appeared unlikely to sway or significantly alter the campaign’s dynamics. During a segment on race relations, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump whether he would denounce white supremacists and call on them not to add to the violence that has occurred amid protests in some U.S. cities. Rather than denounce those groups, Trump pivoted to attack left-wing agitators known as antifa, drawing criticism from some social justice leaders. Trump also declined to say he would accept the election results, repeating his unfounded assertion that widespread voting by mail would lead to fraud.

Takeaways From Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s First U.S. Presidential Debate

Via www.usnews.com

President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, meet in…

09/29/2020 9:13 PM

 

Editorial credit: chrisdorney / Shutterstock.com

On Tuesday, Disney announced that it is laying off about 28,000 employees in the United States due to a loss of business related to the coronavirus pandemic. The company announced the layoffs across its parks, experiences and products segments in a letter to employees.

Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney Parks, Experience and Products, said 67% of those laid off will be part-time employees.  D’Amaro wrote in the letter to employees that it was a “difficult decision” to make, adding, “As you can imagine, a decision of this magnitude is not easy. For the last several months, our management team has worked tirelessly to avoid having to separate anyone from the company. We’ve cut expenses, suspended capital projects, furloughed our cast members while still paying benefits, and modified our operations to run as efficiently as possible, however, we simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while operating at such limited capacity.” D’Amaro said he hopes laid off cast members and employees can return to the company once it rebounds from the pandemic.

The company’s theme parks in Florida, Paris, Shanghai, Japan and Hong Kong have reopened after shutdowns earlier this year, though the locations in Anaheim, Calif., remain closed.

Disney to lay off 28,000 at its parks in California, Florida

Via abcnews.go.com

The Walt Disney Co. is planning to lay off 28,000 workers in its theme parks division in…

09/29/2020 7:24 PM

 

Editorial credit: Jerome LABOUYRIE / Shutterstock.com

House Democrats unveiled a scaled-back $2.2 trillion aid on COVID-19 relief, even though there was no progress in continuing negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The latest proposal would revive a $600-per-week pandemic jobless benefit and send a second round of $1,200 direct payments to most individuals. It would scale back an aid package to state and local governments to a still-huge $436 billion, send a whopping $225 billion to colleges and universities, and deliver another round of subsidies to businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program.

Pelosi said Monday that she remains in contact with Mnuchin, with whom she negotiated several earlier relief packages. The two spoke briefly on Sunday and Monday evening and are slated to talk again Tuesday morning, according to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill..

Pelosi’s office has said she’s considering putting the new measure up for a floor vote if talks this week with the Trump administration prove fruitless. “Democrats are making good on our promise to compromise with this updated bill, which is necessary to address the immediate health and economic crisis facing America’s working families right now,” Pelosi said in a letter to her colleagues. “We have been able to make critical additions and reduce the cost of the bill by shortening the time covered for now.”

Democrats unveil scaled-down $2.2T coronavirus relief package

Via www.msn.com

House Democrats on Monday unveiled a scaled-back $2.2 trillion coronavirus … The beleaguered…

09/28/2020 7:33 PM

 

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Late on Monday, Microsoft Corp confirmed that a recent change it introduced likely caused a major outage, affecting users’ access to multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook.com and Microsoft Teams. The developer of Windows and Office software said it did not “observe an increase in successful connections” even after it rolled back the change to mitigate the impact.

Microsoft said on its status page, “We’re pursuing mitigation steps for this issue. In parallel, we’re rerouting traffic to alternate systems to provide further relief to the affected users.”

Microsoft also said they were working to evaluate other solutions while they investigate the root cause of the outage.

                

Microsoft 365 suffers major outage

Via www.msn.com

Microsoft 365 was down Monday evening, affecting users’ access to multiple services including…

09/28/2020 8:50 PM

 

Editorial credit: Volodymyr Kyrylyuk / Shutterstock.com