Day: October 30, 2023

Striking Hollywood actors and studios remain far apart on key issues and will meet on Tuesday, the actors union said late on Monday.

“While talks over the past week have been productive, we remain far apart on key issues, the union said in an update to its members.

When asked about speculation that negotiations could be over by Halloween, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland also said major issues have yet to be resolved.

“I don’t think we can put a timeline on it at this point,” Crabtree-Ireland told Reuters.

A representative for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, the union made a comprehensive counteroffer to AMPTP, the group representing Walt Disney (DIS.N) Netflix (NFLX.O) and other major media companies.

The two sides had suspended talks earlier this month as they clashed over streaming revenue, the use of artificial intelligence and other issues.

Members of SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors and other media professionals, have been on strike since July.

As Israel intensifies its ground operations in Gaza, its forces have entered the Jenin Refugee Camp; VOA is there. We take a look at Turkey’s diplomatic balancing act and King Charles’ trip to Kenya, a former British colony. Plus, a plan to renovate the world’s largest slum in India.

About 5,000 migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti set out on foot from Mexico’s southern border Monday, walking north toward the U.S.

The migrants complained that processing for refugee or exit visas takes too long at Mexico’s main migrant processing center in the city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border. Under Mexico’s overwhelmed migration system, people seeking such visas often wait for weeks or months, without being able to work.

The migrants formed a long line Monday along the highway, escorted at times by police. The police are usually there to prevent them from blocking the entire highway, and sometimes keep them from hitching rides.

Monday’s march was among the largest since June 2022. Migrant caravans in 2018 and 2019 drew far greater attention. But with as many as 10,000 migrants showing up at the U.S. border in recent weeks, Monday’s march is now just a drop in the bucket.

“We have been traveling for about three months, and we’re going to keep on going,” said Daniel González, from Venezuela. “In Tapachula, nobody helps us.”

Returning to Venezuela is not an option, he said, because the economic situation there is getting worse.

In the past, he said, Mexico’s tactic was largely to wait for the marchers to get tired, and then offer them rides back to their home countries or to smaller, alternative processing centers.

Irineo Mújica, one of the organizers of the march, said migrants are often forced to live on the streets in squalid conditions in Tapachula. He is demanding transit visas that would allow the migrants to cross Mexico and reach the U.S. border.

“We are trying to save lives with this kind of actions,” Mújica said. “They (authorities) have ignored the problem, and left the migrants stranded.”

The situation of Honduran migrant Leonel Olveras, 45, was typical of the marchers’ plight.

“They don’t give out papers here,” Olveras said of Tapachula. “They ask us to wait for months. It’s too long.”

The southwestern border of the U.S. has struggled to cope with increasing numbers of migrants from South America who move quickly through the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama before heading north. By September, 420,000 migrants, aided by Colombian smugglers, had passed through the gap in the year to date, Panamanian figures showed.

Donald Trump can whine all he wants about the gag order that Judge Tanya Chutkan has imposed on him, but that’s all he can do – whine. Even as we wait to see if Jack Smith hits Trump with felony witness tampering charges for his social media posts from this past weekend, Trump is still whining the day away.

Judge Chutkan didn’t include herself in the gag order, presumably because she doesn’t care what a helpless Donald Trump says about her. To that end, Trump is whining on social media tonight that the judge is a “TRUE TRUMP HATER” and that “she has been diagnosed with a major, and incurable, case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!!!” Well okay then.

For reference, whenever a normal sane member of society takes a negative view of Donald Trump on anything, Trump’s whack job base decides that the person is suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” This is such a nonsense phrase that you can pretty much identify anyone using it as being mentally incompetent. And now Trump is indeed self-identifying as mentally incompetent.

The post “Diagnosed with a major and incurable case” – Donald Trump has berserk meltdown over gag order appeared first on Palmer Report.

Putin attempts a “cui bono” defense in Dagestan disgrace; Moscow builds up forces in Bakhmut; Russia plans “meat assaults” in Avdiivka; AFU makes gains and shoots down Russian jet

I write these words as rain pours down. It falls from the sky in buckets. Torrents of rain are pelting the trees; the streets are waterlogged. There is fury outdoors. October has been a stormy month for many, including Donald Trump. And November is set to be even worse for him. His rain is metaphoric, but it is nonetheless still rain, and it is set to pour down on the fuming orange ball of crud in mystical and important ways.

Let us wax poetic about Trump’s upcoming November rain. There will be lots of it. Will he manage to stay dry? The answer to that question is no, he will not.

NOV. 6. This is the day when Trump is set to testify in his New York fraud case. Oops, let me backtrack a little.

NOV. 5. That is the day when a mad and disgusting truth social rant is expected.

It’ll probably happen at night, the night before his testimony. Bad Judge! Bad, BAD and WICKED people. Oh yes, Trump’s rants have become so predictable.

NOV. 13. There will be a motion hearing on Trump’s filing for an interim stay of summary Judgment. This will not go in Trump’s favor. Oops — let me backtrack a bit.

NOV. 12. Another rant is expected from Tuith Social. How could there NOT be? There ALWAYS is the day before a court hearing involving iq4.5. More November rain.

JACK SMITH. As you know, Smith made a filing accusing Trump of lying to delay his classified documents trial. We likely will be hearing more about this in November as well.

WHO WILL FLIP NEXT? It stands to reason that in Georgia the court will see more plea deals from Trump’s merry band of crazed insurrectionists. After all, October saw several of these nasty people take plea deals. I think there’ll be a whole lot more in the month of November.

So as you can see, Trump’s November is set to be – waterlogged. Court dates and filings and testimony and outbursts on truth social, is it not lovely that we can predict almost every day of the traitor’s rainy November? The way his November is shaping up, it’ll be worse for him than October — no easy feat.

The post When it rains it pours appeared first on Palmer Report.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday plans to vote on legislation that would bar the Biden administration from awarding funds to California’s High-Speed Rail project.

The White House on Monday said it opposed the bill that would also dramatically cut funds for U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak and mass transit programs.

The California high-speed rail program aims to ultimately move travelers from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin at speeds above 200 miles per hour in under three hours.

California recently won $202 million in federal funds for grade separation projects and is seeking$8 billion in federal grants over five years.

California voters approved an initial $10 billion bond for the project in 2008. The initial segment is now estimated to cost up to $35 billion and launch service as early as 2030. The full San Francisco to Los Angeles project is estimated to cost between $88 billion and $128 billion.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said in an Oct. 13 letter to President Joe Biden that combined with $754 million in state funding, the $3 billion federal grant would allow the state to complete an initial 119-mile segment, buy six electric high-speed trains and construct a new high-speed rail station in Fresno.

In June 2021, the Biden administration restored a $929 million grant for the California high-speed rail project. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump pulled funding for the project, hobbled by delays and rising costs, calling it a “disaster.”

Congress approved $66 billion for rail as part of the 2021 $1 trillion infrastructure bill, with Amtrak receiving $22 billion and $36 billion allocated for competitive grants.

Amtrak’s annual federal funding would be cut by 64% under the Republican proposal.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority declined to comment on the legislation.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday that he intends to end the participation of Gabon, Niger, Uganda and the Central African Republic in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade program.

Biden said he was taking the step because of “gross violations” of internationally recognized human rights by the Central African Republic and Uganda.

He also cited Niger and Gabon’s failure to establish or make continual progress toward the protection of political pluralism and the rule of law.

“Despite intensive engagement between the United States and the Central African Republic, Gabon, Niger, and Uganda, these countries have failed to address United States concerns about their non-compliance with the AGOA eligibility criteria,” Biden said in a letter to the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Biden said he intends to terminate the designation of these countries as beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries under the AGOA, effective Jan. 1, 2024.

He said he will continue to assess whether they meet the program’s eligibility requirements.

Launched in 2000, AGOA grants exports from qualifying countries duty-free access to the U.S. market. It is set to expire in September 2025, but discussions are already under way over whether to extend it and for how long.

African governments and industry groups are pushing for an early 10-year extension without changes in order to reassure business and new investors who might have concerns over AGOA’s future.

The Bank of Japan will likely revise up its inflation forecasts and discuss further tweaks to its bond yield control at its policy meeting on Tuesday, amid growing expectations the days of the controversial monetary tool are numbered.

The Japanese yen climbed to a two-week peak against the dollar after the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday that the BOJ would consider making adjustments to its yield curve control (YCC) at the two-day meeting ending on Tuesday.

One of the ideas the BOJ will consider at its meeting is to allow the 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield to rise above a 1% cap by revising its current guidance to conduct unlimited bond buying operations to defend that level, the Nikkei said.

“The BOJ will probably explain any such move as a technical adjustment instead of a big policy shift,” said Toru Suehiro, an economist at Daiwa Securities.

“JGB yields are already moving quite freely. Having them move even more freely won’t lead to a big change in markets.”

The BOJ sets a target of around 0% for the 10-year yield under YCC. Under criticism that its heavy defence of the cap is causing market distortions and an unwelcome yen fall, it raised its de-facto ceiling for the yield to 1.0% from 0.5% in July.

Since then, rising global bond yields and persistent inflation have put the BOJ in a tight spot with the 10-year JGB yield threatening to breach the 1% cap.

Sources told Reuters last week the BOJ could debate further tweaks to YCC at the Oct. 30-31 meeting to relax its grip on the 10-year yield.

Any such move would underpin the yen ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s expected decision to keep interest rates steady at its rate review on Wednesday.

The BOJ is widely expected to maintain the 0% target for the 10-year yield and that for short-term rates at -0.1%.

In fresh quarterly forecasts due after the meeting, the BOJ is likely to revise up its projections to forecast inflation hitting or exceeding its 2% target this year and next.

But the bank is seen projecting slower inflation in 2025, reflecting weaker growth and uncertainty over next year’s wage negotiations in Japan.

Japan remains a dovish outlier among global central banks that have mostly hiked rates aggressively in recent years to combat rampant inflation.

By allowing yields to rise more, the BOJ reduces the need to ramp up bond buying and load up its already big balance sheet.

But loosening its control on Japanese yields now could heighten already increasing expectations of a near-term exit, triggering market volatility.

Despite repeated assurances by BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda that ultra-low interest rates will stay, markets are already predicting a policy shift early next year.

Nearly two-thirds of economists polled by Reuters expect the BOJ to end negative rates next year.

Inflation has stayed above the BOJ’s 2% target for the 18th straight month in September. Surveys have shown heightening inflation expectations, which lower the real cost of borrowing.

Markets are focusing on Ueda’s post-meeting briefing for clues on how soon the BOJ could embark on a full-fledged exit.

(This story has been refiled to correct a typo in paragraph 2)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday he was confident the U.S. House of Representatives, in turmoil for weeks over the speaker’s job, would back a request for additional funds for Ukraine’s military.

“The main thing is the outcome – are there enough votes or not?” Kuleba told Ukrainian national television.

“And at the moment we have every reason to believe that there are votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for the bill providing Ukraine with additional support.”

Kuleba said he was aware of “considerable political resistance” to the bill’s provisions and that it would be a “sin” for U.S. lawmakers not to use the legislation to further their own interests.

The U.S. House of Representatives last week elected Republican Mike Johnson, a conservative with little leadership experience, as speaker, ending a turbulent three weeks that left the rudderless chamber unable to carry out any of its basic duties.

Johnson said last week that funding to support Ukraine and Israel should be handled separately, suggesting he would not back President Joe Biden’s $106 billion aid package for both countries.

Johnson told Fox News he had concerns about Ukraine funding in general, and believed any money for Israel would need to be funded by cuts elsewhere.

Biden wants Congress to provide $106 billion in supplemental funding, with the bulk of the money going to bolster Ukraine’s defences and the remainder split among Israel, the Indo-Pacific and border enforcement.

Johnson said he wanted to know “the end game” for Ukraine and that the White House had not provided that.

Kuleba said he anticipated declarations from U.S. politicians “that will cause irritation and induce panic,” but said that what mattered in the end was “the scoreboard.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video message on Monday that he had discussed continued U.S. support at a meeting in Kyiv with a delegation of U.S. members of Congress.

He said Ukraine had to prove that “freedom could overcome hatred and aggression … and for that we need unity – unity of all of Europe, unity in America, unity of the entire free world.”

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