Disney to Cut Jobs

At least 7,000 people will be losing their jobs at Disney over the coming months. On Monday, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that his company will begin laying off staff starting this week, the first of three rounds of expected cuts following his announcement in February that the company would axe 7,000 jobs.

The cuts to Disney’s global workforce are part of a multibillion-dollar costcutting initiative aimed at streamlining the company’s operations in a period of media industry turmoil.

The first round of layoffs will begin this week, and managers will soon start to notify affected employees. A second, larger round of layoffs will take place in April, Iger said, with several thousand staffers let go. A third round of layoffs will then occur “before the beginning of the summer” to reach the company’s planned goal of eliminating 7,000 jobs.

“The difficult reality of many colleagues and friends leaving Disney is not something we take lightly,” Iger acknowleged in the memo. “In tough moments, we must always do what is required to ensure Disney can continue delivering exceptional entertainment to audiences and guests around the world – now, and long into the future.”

Disney had about 220,000 workers as of October 1, of which approximately 166,000 were employed in the United States. A cut of 7,000 jobs represents about 3% of its global workforce.

Iger returned to lead Disney in November after the company’s board axed Bob Chapek as its leader.

Will CA Ban Red Dye in Candy?

Some chemicals linked to health issues have been banned in food products in the European Union. The United States, though, has lagged behind. A bill recently introduced in the California State Assembly could start to change that.

Assembly Bill 418, or AB 418, seeks to prohibit the manufacture, sale or distri- bution of food products in California containing red dye No. 3, titanium dioxide, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil or propylparaben, according to a news release from the Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel’s office, who introduced the bill with fellow Democratic lawmaker Buffy Wicks. If passed, the bill would go into effect January 1, 2025.

Titanium dioxide is a powder used as a white colorant or to give a smooth texture in candies and other processed foods. Po- tassium bromate is added to baked goods to help dough strengthen and rise higher. In some beverages, brominated vegetable oil keeps citrus flavoring from floating to the top. Propylparabens are used for antimicrobial food preservation

In the EU, these chemicals are banned “due to scientific studies that have demonstrated significant public health harms, including increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune sys- tem,” Gabriel’s news release says.

A search of the Environmental Working Group’s Eat Well Guide turns up nearly 3,000 products that use red dye No. 3 as an ingredient, including popular candies such as Skittles, Nerds candies and Trolli gummies; protein shakes; instant rice and potato products; and boxed cake mixes.

California’s bill has engendered pushback from those in the food industry.

The National Confectioners Associa- tion, a trade organization based in Washington, D.C., released a statement on March 23 in response to the bill’s introduction: “Chocolate and candy are safe to enjoy, as they have been for centuries. We strongly oppose AB 418 because there is no evidence to support banning the ingredients listed in the bill. The ingredients that would be banned under this proposal have all been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Food safety is the number one priority for U.S. confectionery companies, and we do not use any ingredients in our products that do not comply with the FDA’s strictest safety standards.”

7,000 employees in the U.S. today,” he said in his opening remarks.

“Still, we have heard important concerns about the potential for unwanted foreign access to U.S. data and potential manipulation of the TikTok U.S. ecosystem,” Chew said. “Our approach has never been to dismiss or trivialize any of these concerns. We have addressed them with real action.” the challenge in the video.

TikTok doesn’t operate in China. But since the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction, the theory goes that ByteDance, and thus indirectly, TikTok, could be forced to cooperate with a broad range of security activities, including possibly the transfer of TikTok data.

But Chew’s assurances didn’t seem to help any legislators feel any more comfortable with the app.

“To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you, manipulate what you see and exploit for future generations,” said Rep. McMorris Rodgers.

Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida also said there is a lack of adequate content moderation, which leaves room for kids to be exposed to content that promotes self-harm.

“Your technology is literally leading to death,” Bilirakis said to Chew.

Outside of Congress, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said TikTok should be “ended one way or another,” but noted “there are different ways of doing that.”

In a separate statement on Thursday that did not address or name TikTok specifically, the U.S. Treasury Department — the agency that chairs the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) — warned that it “will not clear any transaction unless it determines there are no unresolved national security concerns.” into the leak, and executives handling the matter have surmised that whoever was responsible left the San Francisco-based company last year, two people briefed on the internal investigation said. Since Musk bought Twitter in October for $44 billion, about 75% of the company’s 7,500 employees have been laid off or resigned.

For more than two years, CFIUS and TikTok have been negotiating on a possible deal that might address U.S. security concerns and allow the app to continue operating in the United States.

Executives were only recently made aware of the source code leak, people briefed on the internal investigation said.

One concern is that the code includes security vulnerabilities that could give hackers or other motivated parties the means to extract user data or take down the site, they said.

The FDA requires manufacturers to list red dye No. 3 as an ingredient on food labels. Red dye No. 3 is listed as “FD&C Red #3.”

TikTok CEO Testifies

In an exchange with California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, Chew talked up TikTok’s ongoing efforts to protect U.S. user data and said he has “seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data; they have never asked us, we have not provided it.”

“I find that actually preposterous,” Eshoo fired back.

“I have looked in — and I have seen no evidence of this happening,” Chew responded. “Our commitment is to move their data into the United States, to be stored on American soil by an American company, overseen by American personnel. So the risk would be similar to any government going to an American company, asking for data.”

Twitter Source Code Leaked

For Twitter, the leak also comes on top of mounting structural and financial challenges. Musk has been trying to turn around the social network over the past few months by slashing costs, trying out new features and welcoming back previously banned users. But outages of the service have increased, while advertisers — the main source of revenue for the company — have been skittish about running ads on the site.

The turmoil has caused financial damage. On Friday, Musk told employees in an email that Twitter was worth roughly $20 billion, down more than 50% from what he paid for it. (© The New York Times)

Fatal Explosion at Candy Factory

On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Chew testified in front of Congress hoping to assuage concerns that lawmakers have about the popular app which boasts more than 150 million active users.

The hearing, which lasted for more than five hours, kicked off with calls from a lawmaker to ban the app in the United States and remained combative throughout. Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, opened Thursday’s hearing by telling Shou: “Your platform should be banned.”

Chew used his testimony to stress TikTok’s independence from China and play up its U.S. ties.

“TikTok itself is not available in mainland China, we’re headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we have

Chew also added that the data collected by TikTok is similar to what other companies collect about their users.

“I don’t believe what we collect is more than most players in the industry,” he said.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, ranking member of the committee, addressed people’s concern about the dangers of TikTok on teens and children. “Research has found that TikTok’s algorithms recommend videos to teens that create and exacerbate feelings of emotional distress, including videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders,” he said.

Similarly, Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican from Ohio, accused TikTok of promoting a video on the so-called “blackout challenge” or choking challenge to the feed of a 10-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, who later died after trying to mimic

Parts of Twitter’s source code, the underlying computer code on which the social network runs, were leaked online, according to a legal filing, a rare and major exposure of intellectual property as the company struggles to reduce technical issues and reverse its business fortunes under Elon Musk.

Twitter moved Friday to have the leaked code taken down by sending a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software developers where the code was posted, according to the filing. GitHub complied and took down the code that day. It was unclear how long the leaked code had been online, but it appeared to have been public for at least several months.

Twitter also asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to order GitHub to identify the person who shared the code and any other individuals who downloaded it, according to the filing.

Twitter launched an investigation

At least seven people lost their lives in an explosion at an eastern Pennsylvania candy factory on Friday evening which leveled the R.M. Palmer Co. facility in West Reading.

Search and rescue teams raced against time over the weekend as they looked for missing people, using drones and heat imaging devices before turning to heavy equipment to “methodically” remove rubble.

One woman was rescued alive among the rubble on Saturday morning.

At least eight people were hospitalized at the Reading Hospital following the blast.

R.M. Palmer said in a statement the explosion has had a “profound impact” on its company.

“We appreciate the outpouring of support as all of us continue to deal with the loss of our friends and co-workers. We offer our heartfelt condolences to those families who have lost loved ones and hope those injured will recover quickly,” said the statement posted on the company’s Facebook page.

In the days following Friday’s explosion, West Reading has seen “the absolute best that our tight-knit community has to offer,” Borough Council President Ryan Lineaweaver said on Sunday.

“We’ve heard stories of neighbors running out of their homes to help before the first responders even arrived on the scene,” he said. “We’ve seen our neighbors, businesses, community partners, provide food, water – anything that’s needed – to first responders.”

R.M. Palmer has long been a fixture in the local community. The company has operated in the West Reading facility since 1959.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro visited the explosion site on Saturday and was briefed by local leaders.

“Our hearts break for the families of those who didn’t come home,” Shapiro said.

Passport Delays

“We’ve hired staff to increase the adjudicative capacity to make sure that … we’ve got the customer service, phone lines manned, we have more people in the pipeline and that’s also reflected in the budget. It’s hugely important,” he said.

The top U.S. diplomat said he has “a task force established at headquarters to marshal all of these efforts so that we’re really digging in on this.”

The United States is hoping to finetune an online renewal platform so Americans can renew their passports online. Once that is working, approximately 65% of renewal customers will be able to update their passports online.

There have also been delays in obtaining visas. Blinken said that priority is given for categories “for students, for temporary workers, for business travelers, maritime crews,” he said, noting, “we’ve tried to make sure that they are served and we are at pre-pandemic levels or better in those categories.”

He added, “For visitor visas, the median global interview appointment wait time is two months, half of what it was a year ago,” he said, but added that the wait times are lower “in most places.”

“The immigrant visas are a whole other issue. We’re doing a lot of work on that,” Blinken said.

SBF Charged with Bribery

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that the State Department is facing an “unprecedented demand” for passports and said that it has increased staffing and resources to deal with it.

For now, the current wait time for a regular passport is “about ten to thirteen weeks, and for an expedited passport about seven to nine weeks.”

The State Department is “getting 500,000 applications a week for passports,” which is 30 to 40% more applicants this year than last year, Blinken told a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing.

“Historically, the demand’s been cyclical, the busy season is kind of March to late summer. Basically it’s full time now,” he said.

Federal prosecutors added a foreign bribery charge to the growing list of crimes already pending against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, according to a new indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors said that in 2021, Bankman-Fried instructed those working for him to pay a bribe of $40 million to one or more Chinese officials to help unfreeze trading accounts maintained by Alameda Research, FTX’s sister company, that held about $1 billion in cryptocurrencies.

The bribe money was paid to the Chinese officials in cryptocurrency, the document said. The indictment said the effort to pay off the unnamed Chinese officials was successful in getting the trading accounts unfrozen.

The bribery charge was brought under the Foreign Corrupt Business Practices Act, a federal law used by authorities to go after big corporations for paying bribes to operate in other countries.

Federal prosecutors have now charged Bankman-Fried with 13 criminal counts, including securities fraud, money laundering and violating campaign finance laws. The mounting charges against Bankman-Fried, 31, not only add years to the potential prison time he faces if convicted but also could put more pressure on him to take a guilty plea.

Bankman-Fried was freed after posting bail but is confined to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed the first set of criminal charges against Bankman-Fried in December, a month after the big cryptocurrency exchange collapsed into bankruptcy. The top charge facing Bankman-Fried is that he misappropriated billions of dollars in customer deposits for his own personal use and to make up for hefty losses incurred by Alameda.

The indictment filed by prosecutors said the bribe money was paid to unfreeze trading accounts maintained by Alameda.

Authorities said that in early 2021, Chinese officials froze the money in those accounts, which were held in two of China’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The accounts had been frozen in connection with an investigation into one of Alameda’s trading partners.

Bankman-Fried came up with the plan to pay bribes, prosecutors said, after other efforts to unfreeze the money were unsuccessful, including hiring lawyers to lobby Chinese officials and creating fraudulent accounts in an attempt to deceive Chinese authorities. (© The New York Times)

Old But Good

They thought it was just an old, dusty painting taking up space in their attic. This week, they are going to discover that this piece of art is worth way more than a piece of junk.

A family had asked Malo de Lussac of a prestigious auctioneer company to estimate the value of their house a few years ago. While walking through the home, he spotted a masterpiece.