Новости за 11.06.2021

Though former President Donald Trump’s term ended in January, his administration’s penchant for scandal lives on. In recent weeks, the Justice Department told reporters and news outlets that it had tried to obtain their email and phone records during a Trump-era effort to crack down on damaging leaks that continued into the Biden administration’s first few months. President Joe Biden responded by publicly avowing that his administration wouldn’t try to surveil journalists in the future.

For months, a tantalizing number has driven America’s Covid-19 response. First, it was 60 to 70 percent; then, as the virus blanketed the globe and evolved to become more contagious, it rose to 75 or even 85 percent.

How do you like the Great American Labor Shortage so far? Wages are rising faster than they have in nearly 40 years, reports Business Insider, excluding a freakish momentary spike last year when Covid lockdowns began. The number of job openings (9.3 million), and the number of people quitting their jobs (4 million, or 2.7 percent) are higher than we’ve seen in 20 years. Prices, meanwhile, are up 5 percent over May 2020, the fastest rise in the Consumer Price Index in 13 years. When you exclude volatile food and energy prices... Читать дальше...

After roughly half a year on the job so far, Attorney General Merrick Garland is acting like a relatively normal attorney general. He hasn’t yet made moves that suggest he’s a fervent partisan ideologue or a staunch loyalist for whoever happens to be the current president, a sharp change from his immediate predecessors. For some progressives and supporters of President Joe Biden, however, “relatively normal” isn’t good enough.   

If you listen to the sophistry emanating from corporate leaders and their stenographers in the business press, prices for goods and services are surging, and one of the causes is quite simple: Workers want more money. Following the shareholder’s logic, modest increases in worker pay—their demand for a living wage—must be “passed on” to the consumer. And so, as a spate of headlines this week now remind us, a Chipotle burrito now costs 4 percent more than it did last week.