Truth and Hammer

Author: Truth & Hammer

The $38 Billion Divorce: Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos Are About to Officially Split

With the flick of a judge’s pen, a $38 billion stake in Amazon.com Inc. will pass to MacKenzie Bezos as part of her separation from company founder Jeff Bezos.

“This is the Godzilla of all divorces,” said Peter Walzer, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and founding partner of Walzer Melcher. “Nothing comes close to it because of the amount of wealth that’s being divided.”

A regulatory disclosure detailing the shift in ownership is expected in early July, according to an April filing. It will provide a rare glimpse inside the world’s richest divorce, a result of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules that require insiders to disclose changes in their holdings.

While divorce cases aren’t secret in Washington state, little else is expected to be revealed. “Even in states where it isn’t confidential parties can file for divorce but not attach their settlement agreement,” Walzer said. “There are ways around the public nature of divorce.”

Jeff Bezos, 55, remains the world’s richest person, with a 12% Amazon stake worth $112 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’ll retain other assets, including the Washington Post and space-exploration company Blue Origin, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, said in an April tweet.

The amounts involved are unprecedented. While Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison has been through multiple divorces, none has affected his stake in the software maker. Likewise, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s stake remained unchanged after he and Anne Wojcicki divorced without fanfare in 2015.

Oil industry magnate Harold Hamm’s separation from Sue Ann Arnall was far messier. The couple filed for divorce in 2012 after 26 years of marriage, and their trial two years later ended with Hamm, the chairman and CEO of Continental Resources Inc., being ordered to pay her $972 million of his then-estimated $16.1 billion fortune. Arnall later sought to reopen the case but the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2015.

MacKenzie Bezos has said she intends to give away much of her wealth. She signed the Giving Pledge in May, promising to donate more than half of her fortune to philanthropy.

“I won’t wait,” she wrote in her pledge. “And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

The divorce petition identifies Bellevue, Washington-based Ted Billbe as her lawyer. Seattle’s Sherri Anderson is the attorney for Jeff Bezos. Neither responded to requests for comment. Even if other details stay under wraps, the case is set to remain a cornerstone of conversation among divorce lawyers.

“Everybody in my business is asking about it,” Walzer said.

–With assistance from Matt Day.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

June 29, 2019
Garden Grove Shoppers Frustrated By Homeless Population In Parking Lot – CBS Los Angeles

GARDEN GROVE (CBSLA) — Shoppers at a Garden Grove Walmart say they’re being harassed by a group of homeless people in the parking lot, but police say they cannot do anything about it.

Neighbors say a homeless camp has popped up in the parking lot leading to vandalism and harassment, and they say Walmart will not ask them to leave.

Security guards and crews to pick up trash have been hired for area parking lots to combat some issues, but shoppers still say they feel unsafe and frustrated.

“There’s just a lot of homeless, a lot, asking for money,” said one shopper who was there with a child. “I don’t come after it’s dark.”

And when area cops are called out to the scene, their hands are tied.

“Many times they sit there and say, ‘Can’t you just arrest them?” But it doesn’t work that way,” Brian Meers, a Garden Grove police officer assigned to the homelessness problem, said. “Most of the violations in the state are misdemeanor crimes now and they get out in six hours, and the reality of it is that they’re going to go right back to doing what they were doing before.”

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
China imports first Iranian oil since US ended sanction waivers — RT Business News

According to TankerTrackers, a medium-sized Suezmax vessel, named SALINA and owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), loaded around 1 million barrels of crude oil from Iran and departed on May 28. The tanker arrived on June 20 at Jinxi Refining and Chemical Complex in China in a first independent tanker-tracking confirmation that China is defying the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

The arrival of an Iranian crude cargo at the Jinxi complex, which is ultimately owned and operated by state giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), suggests that China is resuming Iranian crude oil imports as part of a government policy, according to Bourse & Bazaar.

Last month, TankerTrackers said on May 16 that it had sighted what was the first confirmed export of crude oil out of Iran since the end of all US waivers on May 2.

Iran’s oil exports will greatly depend on how China will proceed with its crude oil imports from the Islamic Republic, if at all, after the US removed the sanction waivers, IHS Markit said in an analysis earlier this month.

Despite the US push to drive Iranian oil exports to zero, China is not expected to totally cut off its crude imports from Iran, according to Fotios Katsoulas, Liquid Bulk Principal Analyst, Maritime & Trade at IHS Markit.

Still, Chinese oil imports from Iran will likely be very low for a long period of time going forward, Katsoulas said.

China has criticized the US decision to end the sanction waivers and some Chinese refiners may continue to buy Iranian oil amid the US-China trade war and Beijing could simply brush off the US sanctions on Iranian oil.

China’s total crude oil imports dropped in May from a monthly record in April, as Chinese refiners drastically reduced Iranian oil imports after the end of the US waivers and as some state refineries were offline for planned maintenance.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Medicare For All Could Shutter Hospitals

Amid an ever-more-left-leaning field, Democratic contender Rep. John Delaney (Md.) issued a dire warning Wednesday night about his opponents’ plan to socialize medicine through Medicare for All.

“If you go to any hospital in this country and ask them one question: how would it have been for you last year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate, every single hospital administrator said they would close,” Delaney said during the first Democratic debate. “To some extent we are basically supporting a bill that would have every hospital close.”

Delaney is in the minority among 2020 contenders. Of the 23 candidates that the Washington Post has tracked, 13 support some version of Medicare for All, while Delaney and most of the remaining 10 support a public option. But would putting every American on Medicare actually run hospitals out of business?

“No one can say but the data are absolutely consistent with that concern,” Charles Blauhous, an economic policy expert at the Mercatus Center, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Under current Medicare payment rates, medical providers are compensated 87 to 89 cents on the dollar on average, compared to roughly $1.45 from private insurers. This means that if all Americans were to switch from market insurance to Medicare, taking patients would become a losing financial proposition for hospitals.

Research from the office of the Medicare Actuary bears this out. Using current payment rates, they estimate that four in five hospitals will have negative margins on Medicare payments by 2027. If everyone becomes a Medicare patient, therefore, it is reasonable to predict that something like 80 percent of hospitals would begin losing money.

It is of course possible that things play out differently, especially as a hypothetical future Democratic administration comes face-to-face with the declining supply problem. A PolitiFact fact-check of Delaney’s claim noted that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I., Vt.) Medicare for All bill does not actually require that hospitals be paid at Medicare rates.

On the other hand, higher Medicare payment rates would likely offset the potential benefits of Medicare for All. Blahous published a paper in July of last year estimating that such proposals would cost roughly $32.6 trillion over ten years of implementation. But, as many on the left were quick to note, he also found that national health expenditures — the total amount of money spent by the government and private actors on healthcare — would fall by about $2 trillion in the same period.

Yet Blahous’s final estimate turns on the assumption that hospitals would be paid Medicare reimbursement rates. In a different paper, he estimates that higher rates would increase national health expenditures by roughly 7 percent over the status quo. Raising rates to preserve the existence of providers would lead to not only more government spending, but a net increase to total healthcare spending in the economy — already the highest per capita in the developed world.

When it comes to Medicare for All, there is one thing everyone can agree on: It would disrupt the healthcare economy. As Blauhous put it, “no one can really say how facilities would adapt or react,” especially as universal first-dollar coverage drives an increase in demand for medical services across the population. Still, many of Delaney’s opponents remain unwilling to address the potential negative effects of this disruption.

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Manitoba man brings measles home from Philippines; fellow travellers in Winnipeg, Vancouver at risk | Globalnews.ca

A man from Winnipeg contracted the measles while he was travelling in the Philippines and brought it home with him, potentially affecting hundreds of people.

Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer confirmed Friday that the travel-related case of measles is in Winnipeg.

The man, in his 30s, is recovering in hospital, however, people who travelled on the same flights or were in the same airports have a risk – albeit low – of contracting the virus.

“Pregnant women, people who have severely compromised immune systems and infants under 12 months of age are at higher risk of complications,” the province said in a release. “Treatment to prevent measles may be recommended for these individuals if given within six days of exposure.”

People or parents of infants in these categories who believe they may have been exposed should contact Health Links–Info Santé at 204-788-8200 or 1-888-315-9257.

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This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Church of England appoints its first black female bishop | World news | The Guardian

The Church of England has appointed its first black female bishop.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, was announced by Downing Street as the new bishop of Dover.

Hudson-Wilkin, who was born in Jamaica, was introduced on Thursday by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, at St George’s C of E school in Broadstairs, Kent.

In an answer to a pupil’s question, she said she saw herself as “pretty ordinary – not necessarily ‘the black priest’ – but a priest with the good fortune to be black”.

Responding to her appointment, Hudson-Wilkin said: “I am looking forward to journeying with the people of Kent, celebrating the good work that is already happening there and working together with its religious and secular leaders to ensure that the good news of hope, love and justice remains at the heart of our changed lives together.”

Welby said: “Rose Hudson-Wilkin has, over the past nine years, been one of the most influential and effective ministers in the public square through her long service as chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. I have constantly been told that she has been an effective pastor in one crisis or another, especially in the past few years.

“Before that, she was a parish minister of great impact. She has been described as prophet, pastor and evangelist. She has challenged the Church of England over its engagement with UK minority ethnic groups, and has spoken forcefully and effectively at many evangelistic meetings.”

John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, said: “Rose is one of the warmest, kindest and most loving people I have ever met, so she will be sorely missed by members across the house, the staff and, especially, by me.

“She has an unfailing sense of duty and an ability – more than she would herself ever know – to bring comfort in times of tragedy. Furthermore, her steely resolve when confronted with loss and evil, following the death of our dear colleague Jo Cox, and in the wake of the Westminster Bridge attack, was plain for all to see. Both in the celebration of happiness and in condolence and prayer, she has the most reassuring, fortifying presence anyone could want.”

Hudson-Wilkin will succeed the Rt Rev Trevor Willmott, who retired from the role in May. She will be consecrated in November.

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Facebook COO Donates $1 Million To Planned Parenthood | Daily Wire

In an interview with leftist media outlet HuffPost, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg bragged about a whopping $1 million donation she recently made to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, an advocacy group owned by the eponymous abortion giant.

Sandberg told HuffPost that she is doing it to help Planned Parenthood fight what she calls the “draconian laws” recently passed by Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri to protect unborn children.

“I think this is a very urgent moment where the rights and the choices and the basic health of the most vulnerable women, the women who have been marginalized, often women of color, are at stake,” she said. “Planned Parenthood is going to fight back in the courts, in Congress, in the state houses, in the streets, for women’s health and rights.”

“If you are a wealthy woman, you can just fly to New York,” Sandberg continued. “I want to make sure that the women with the fewest resources still have access to these services, and I think that is slipping away every day in our country.”

“We all have to do everything we can to protect women,” she opined, noting that the massive donation came from her, personally — and not from Facebook.

The social media executive bragged that the gesture was “a very strong political statement.” However, Sandberg hedged on whether she supports the Hollywood-led boycotts of the pro-life states. She said that she neither supports nor condemn the boycotts.

“I certainly think people should do what they can,” Sandberg said.

Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen bragged about the support in a statement.

“Now, more than ever, Sheryl’s generous support is necessary to help Planned Parenthood fight back against unprecedented attacks on people’s health and rights,” Wen said, thanking Sandberg “for her longstanding commitment to Planned Parenthood and her leadership as a role model for women and girls everywhere.”

Wen added: “As anti-women’s health politicians try to pass extreme abortion bans across the country, our freedom and rights hang in the balance.”

This is not the first time Sandberg has given a large donation to the abortion lobby. According to Yahoo! News, she gave a similarly large donation to Planned Parenthood in 2017 to protest President Donald Trump’s order that international abortion lobbying organizations would be banned from receiving federal taxpayer funding.

Actress and left-wing activist Alyssa Milano has led a boycott against the state of Georgia after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a “heartbeat bill” that protects unborn children there after a heartbeat is detected.

“I will do everything in my power to get as many productions as possible, including ‘Insatiable,’” she said at the time. “To move out of this state which continues to put forth oppressive, hurtful policy that contradicts everything the entertainment industry stands for.”

As noted by The Daily Wire’s James Barrett, actor and director Clint Eastwood is set to shoot his new film “The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” in Georgia, thus ignoring the calls for a boycott. The movie is directed by Eastwood and stars Paul Walter Hauser, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, and Ian Gomez.

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Kazakhstan to forgive debts of the poor, end bank bailouts — RT Business News

As part of the debt forgiveness program he aims to end costly state rescues of private banks. The 66-year-old was elected president on June 9 after longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down as head of state in March.

The Central Asian country has been struggling with a decade-long crisis which forced the government to pump at least $18 billion into lenders as the banking sector was collapsing under the weight of bad debts. Kazakhstan’s central bank is conducting a review of asset quality which prompted speculation that a new round of bailouts could be in the works.

“My attitude is that there should be no governmental bailouts” for lenders, Tokayev told Bloomberg in an interview. “My assessment of this issue as a president is that the government should not get involved any more, any longer, with its loans as far as private banks are concerned.”

He noted that while the debt-relief initiative could help lenders, the total cost was likely to come in at “a bit less than $1 billion.”

According to the Kazakh president, more than three million people in the country of 18 million will get help to get rid of debts. It is aimed at “people who find themselves in very difficult living circumstances,” said Tokayev.

The presidential administration estimated that about 500,000 people are not able to manage their debt. In 86 percent of cases, the loans are less than 1 million tenge ($2,650), while the average debt is about 300,000 ($788) tenge.

Talking about past bailouts Tokayev dismissed any political connections, saying “the lesson has been accepted by us.”

“We will take lessons from the past, from what has happened in the banking system, and I think that in a couple of years you’ll have absolutely new questions,” he added.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Special EU channel to allow trade with Iran, circumvent US sanctions is now operational – statement — RT World News

The EU called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) a “key element of global nuclear non-proliferation.” The deal was in limbo after Washington left it a year ago and started piling up sanctions on Tehran, hampering its trade with other countries.

Now French, British and German officials say the trade mechanism, dubbed Instex, is operational. The mechanism would facilitate transactions between European and Iranian companies, bypassing the need for financial institutions like SWIFT to carry out exchanges. A payment balancing system will allow companies in Europe to buy Iranian goods, and vice-versa, without money-transfers between European and Iranian banks.

The statement comes after the remaining signatures of JCPOA gathered in Vienna for a meeting that Iranian ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi called “the last chance for the remaining parties…to gather and see how they can meet their commitments towards Iran.”

Tehran has been skeptical about EU’s commitment to the deal and threatened to exceed the maximum amount of enriched uranium allowed it by the deal after US had imposed a series of sanctions on the country.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

This content was originally published here.

June 28, 2019
Fast radio burst: Weird signal originated in distant galaxy

It came from outer space: Weird radio signal came from distant galaxy

Doyle Rice USA TODAY

Published 5:04 PM EDT Jun 27, 2019

It came from outer space.

For the first time, the origin of a single radio pulse has been pinpointed to a distant galaxy several billion light years away, a new study said.

The cause of the bursts remains unknown but the ability to determine their exact location is a big leap towards solving this mystery, the study said.

The “fast radio burst” – a very short-lived pulse of radio waves that comes from across the universe – has been identified as originating from a Milky-Way-sized galaxy some 3.6 billion light-years away.

“This is the big breakthrough that the field has been waiting for since astronomers discovered fast radio bursts in 2007,” said study lead author Keith Bannister of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

“If we were to stand on the moon and look down at the Earth with this precision, we would be able to tell not only which city the burst came from, but which postcode and even which city block,” he said.

Fast radio bursts last less than a millisecond, making it difficult to accurately determine where they have come from.

A view from the Australian radio telescope that discovered the new fast radio burst. The Southern Cross is at the left and the moon is at the right.

CSIRO/Alex Cherney

Since 2007, just 85 cosmic radio wave bursts have been detected, according to the Independent. Most are “one-offs” but a small amount are “repeaters” which recur in the same place. In this case, the fast radio burst, known officially as FRB 180924, was a single burst, unlike others that can flash multiple times over an extended period.

Upon reaching Earth, these pulses are mere electromagnetic whispers that require sensitive radio telescopes to detect. The discovery was made with a new radio telescope in Western Australia and later confirmed using other telescopes in Chile and Hawaii.

“These bursts are altered by the matter they encounter in space,” said Jean-Pierre Macquart, study co-author from Curtin University in Australia. “Now we can pinpoint where they come from, we can use them to measure the amount of matter in intergalactic space,” he said.

As for what the bursts are, ideas range from a rotating neutron star to, yes, a high-powered signal from an advanced civilization.

“We cannot rule out completely the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the fast radio bursts in general,” Vishal Gajjar, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California-Berkeley, said last year.

Thursday’s study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Published 5:04 PM EDT Jun 27, 2019

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June 28, 2019