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Miami gallery exhibits early works of street artist Basquiat

Enspirers | Editorial Board
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Miami gallery exhibits early works of street artist Basquiat
basquiat auction lawsuit 97398 c0 339 4404

A Miami gallery next week will exhibit early works and auction digital files inspired by rare photographs of New York City street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose social commentary paintings on racism and power structures have risen astronomically in value since he died of a heroin overdose at age 27.

The “Our Friend Jean” exhibit of 21 early pieces by the artist, who died in 1988, begins Nov. 29 at the BLK Miami Studio and concludes with a Dec. 3 live auction of five rare minted images that hopes to fetch unspecified large sums from collectors.

Alexis Adler, a former girlfriend who took many of the photographs of the painter in their 12th Street apartment, said the exhibit is part of an ongoing tour that aims to “share the legacy and artworks of Jean-Michel Basquiat with communities of color and communities that reflect Jean’s cultural heritage.”

“Realizing that most museums did not recognize Jean’s brilliance … I feel that it is my responsibility to share the early artwork along with my photographs,” Ms. Adler told The Washington Times in an email.

Many of the photographs have already been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and the Contemporary Art Museum of St Louis, among other galleries.

Ms. Adler said she could not predict which digitally minted photos would fetch the most money, but she said she’s “hoping that it’s one of the works that incorporates our performance art that we did together” in the apartment.

“Those images particularly show a different side of his artistic ability and genius with performances art that I had the honor of documenting myself,” she said.

In a statement emailed to The Times, The Bishop Gallery predicted that the image “of Jean viewing world events on his television” inside the refrigerator of the apartment as well as a “striking headshot of him wearing a barrette on his birthday in 1977” will likely excite collectors the most.

“We have curated a collection of photos that give a look at Jean before he became the legend Basquiat,” the gallery’s statement reads in part.

Authentic Basquiat art has become one of the hottest items in the high-dollar auction world and original photographs of the painter, often digitally enhanced, sell for hundreds of dollars to collectors of more modest means.

Rising to fame as a graffiti artist, Basquiat went on to produce around 1,500 drawings and around 600 paintings together with sculptures and mixed media works.

At Sotheby’s in May 2017, an “Untitled” 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets sold for $110.5 million, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased at auction.

In May of this year, a painting of a skull by the artist sold for $93.1 million at Christie’s in New York, becoming the artist’s second-most expensive auction sale.

The Miami tour continues a posthumous rehabilitation for the painter, a close associate of Andy Warhol whom art critics initially panned at his gallery exhibits as “Warhol’s mascot.”

Michael Lewis, an art historian who covers Basquiat at Williams College, said the original photographs of him “as a handsome youth in his prime” are “very striking.”

“He’s an influential figure with a great following and he represents a sort of anti-institutional art of the 1980s,” Mr. Lewis told The Times.

“The irony is that this anti-institutional art is now coveted by the museums and galleries that hated him,” he added.

But Mr. Lewis also said he thinks Basquiat’s popularity is “a commercial phenomenon” sparked by the “limited supply of genuine Basquiat works.”

“When another generation passes, I think his career will be reassessed and not seem as monumental as it does today,” he said.

The professor noted that while abstract expressionism in 1930s paintings sought to keep politics out of art in an age of totalitarianism, “art with an agenda” came back with the Vietnam War and “has never left us since.”

“What attracts people to Basquiat is the myth of the talented artist who dies young. It’s impossible to discuss his art apart from his life,” Mr. Lewis said.

Art historian Michael Curtis, an artist in residence and research fellow at the classically-oriented National Civic Arts Society in Washington, D.C., said the popularity of Basquiat, a Black artist whose early work foreshadowed the emergence of hip-hop culture, may also stem in part from his political compatibility with the left-leaning billionaires who purchase high-dollar art.

A former museum curator and art professor, Mr. Curtis said art and photographs of Basquiat represent a “commodity” that will likely lose value as time passes and politics shift again.

“It’s just another game for the wealthy,” he said.

Correction: The article and photo caption have been updated to reflect the contents of the exhibit more accurately.

Inflation worries dominated the Federal Reserve’s last meeting.

Enspirers | Editorial Board
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Inflation worries dominated the Federal Reserve’s last meeting.
ImageThe Federal Reserve has been buying $120 billion in bonds each month and has kept interest rates near zero, helping to make borrowing cheap and keep money flowing through the economy.
Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

By Madeleine Ngo

Worries about inflation dominated the Federal Reserve’s November policy meeting, with some policymakers suggesting that the central bank should move more quickly to reduce its bond-buying program in order to give it flexibility to raise interest rates sooner if necessary, minutes from the Fed’s November meeting showed.

The Fed has been buying $120 billion in bonds each month and has kept interest rates near zero, policy moves that have helped make borrowing cheap and keep money flowing through the economy. Earlier this month, the Fed took the first step toward withdrawing support for the economy when it announced that it would begin scaling back its Treasury bond and mortgage-backed security purchases by $15 billion a month starting in November.

“Some participants suggested that reducing the pace of net asset purchases by more than $15 billion each month could be warranted so that the committee would be in a better position to make adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, particularly in light of inflation pressures,” the minutes showed, referring to the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates.

Those comments reflected uncertainty at the central bank over how long supply chain kinks and elevated prices might continue. Fed officials maintained their expectation that inflation would diminish “significantly during 2022,” but policymakers “indicated that their uncertainty regarding this assessment had increased.”

“Many participants pointed to considerations that might suggest that elevated inflation could prove more persistent,” officials said.

Inflation has picked up over the past year, posing a challenge for the Fed, which is responsible for maintaining stable prices and fostering maximum employment. Prices have continued to surge since the Fed’s last meeting, a trajectory that could push policymakers to reduce their economic support more quickly than previously expected.

Inflation has climbed as supply-chain snarls, soaring demand for goods and wage hikes have pushed prices higher; policymakers noted that increased rent and energy prices have also played a role. Inflation has become a persistent issue for the White House, depressing President Biden’s approval ratings and complicating the path to a full economic recovery from the pandemic.

Data released on Wednesday showed that prices were rising at the fastest pace in three decades as consumers face higher prices for gas and food. Prices climbed by 5 percent in the 12 months through October, according to the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation.

Richard H. Clarida, the Fed’s vice chair, hinted last week that it could be appropriate for policymakers to consider speeding up their process of slowing bond purchases at their next gathering, saying that he will be looking “closely at the data that we get between now and the December meeting.”

Mary Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told Yahoo Finance this week that she would be open to supporting a quicker end to the bond-buying program if economic trends did not improve.

“If things continue to do what they’ve been doing, then I would completely support an accelerated pace of tapering,” Ms. Daly said.

Officials have tried to separate their path for slower bond buying from their plans for interest rates. But investors increasingly expect rate increases to start midway through 2022.

The Fed has said that it wants to achieve full employment before raising borrowing costs to cool the economy. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, has said that he does not believe the labor market has met that test yet. More than four million jobs remain missing when compared with the number of people working before the pandemic.

Officials discussed why more workers were not returning to the labor force at the meeting, with several policymakers suggesting that “labor force participation would be structurally lower than in the past, and a few of these participants cited the high level of retirements recorded since the start of the pandemic.” Others continued to point to pandemic-related factors like child care constraints and concerns about the virus.

There have been some positive signs in recent weeks. Household spending in October rose 1.3 percent from September even as prices spiked, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday also found that initial jobless claims dropped to their lowest point since 1969, falling to 199,000 last week. But some economists cautioned that the weekly data was potentially overstated by seasonal factors, and claims could still increase in the coming weeks.

Credit…Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

By Madeleine Ngo and Ana Swanson

A key measure of inflation showed consumer prices rising at the fastest pace in three decades, as energy prices and demand for goods and services soared, posing a challenge to both the White House and the Federal Reserve.

Prices climbed by 5 percent in the 12 months through October, according to Personal Consumption Expenditures price index data released Wednesday. That was the fastest pace of increase since 1990.

The gauge was lifted by a 30.2 percent annual increase in the price of energy and a 4.8 percent increase in the price of food. Prices rose 0.6 percent from September to October, as supply chain disruptions continued to clamp down on the availability of certain products and components.

The increases were in line with what analysts had expected, but the rise in the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge will only add pressure on the central bank to take quicker action to maintain stable prices.

Price increases have shown few signs of fading, as some officials in the Biden administration and at the Fed argued they would earlier this year. The central bank is facing growing calls to hasten plans to end their stimulative bond-buying program and to begin to raise interest rates, a process that could risk slowing job gains and economic growth.

While inflation has soured consumer sentiment and weighed on Mr. Biden’s approval ratings, those price increases have been spurred in part by a strong economic recovery. Separate data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday found that initial jobless claims dropped to their lowest point since 1969, falling by 71,000 to 199,000 last week.

Mr. Biden hailed the drop in unemployment claims on Wednesday but conceded that the country was still far from a full recovery and that it had to address rising inflation.

“We have more work to do before our economy is back to normal, including addressing prices increases that hurt Americans’ pocketbooks and undermine gains in wages and disposable income,” Mr. Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.

In an attempt to drive down gas prices, the United States and five other world powers announced a coordinated effort on Tuesday to tap into their national oil stockpiles. Mr. Biden has ordered the Energy Department to release 50 million barrels of crude in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, lower than what traders had expected from the emergency stockpile, which is the biggest in the world with 620 million barrels.

Consumers have grown increasingly concerned about the spike in prices. A survey from the University of Michigan released on Wednesday found that consumers expressed less optimism in November than at any other time in the past decade about prospects for their finances and the overall growth of the economy. The decline in consumer sentiment was a result of the rapid increase in inflation and the lack of federal policies that would address the damage to household budgets, according to the report.

By Nelson D. Schwartz

Initial U.S. jobless claims

Initial unemployment claims tumbled last week to their lowest point since 1969, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

New filings for state benefits totaled 199,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, a decline of 71,000 from the previous week.

The drop marks a milestone in the economy’s recovery from the pandemic. Weekly claims peaked at more than six million in April 2020 as the coronavirus forced businesses and consumers alike to shut down. As recently as early January, amid a winter resurgence of the coronavirus, new state claims exceeded 900,000 in one week.

Filing for unemployment benefits has come down sharply since then, but remained well above prepandemic levels until very recently.

Unemployment insurance was a key source of relief after the pandemic threw more than 20 million people out of work. To buttress state payments, emergency benefits were funded through federal pandemic relief bills, although those payments ceased in September, cutting off aid to 7.5 million people.

Despite a summer lull, the economy has been showing signs of life lately. Employers added 531,000 jobs in October, and most economists expect growth to pick up in the final quarter of the year, boosted by healthy consumer spending.

“Today’s data reinforce the historic economic progress we are making and the importance of building on that progress in the weeks ahead,” President Biden said in a statement about the unemployment claims report.

As one measure of progress, Mr. Biden pointed to the most recent tally of unemployment benefits of all sorts, from early November, which showed the number of people with continuing claims — those filing for benefits who have already filed an initial claim — at 2.4 million. The figure right before Thanksgiving last year was more than 20 million.

The biggest economic worry lately hasn’t been joblessness but inflation, which has been surging amid labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and higher energy prices.

In a separate report Wednesday, the Commerce Department said that household spending rose 1.3 percent in October, while personal income jumped 0.5 percent, before adjusting for inflation. It also showed that prices climbed by 5 percent in the 12 months through October.

The data for unemployment claims, although certainly welcome news, may not be quite as good as it seems. On an unadjusted basis, state claims rose last week. And employment remains 4.2 million below its level in February 2020, before the pandemic.

“While the labor market is recovering, we think the latest drop in claims may be overstated,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “We suspect the decline last week may have been exaggerated by quirky seasonal adjustment factors and think we might see a bounce-back in the weeks ahead.”

By Coral Murphy Marcos

Stocks on Wall Street struggled to find direction in midday trading Wednesday amid a rise in interest rates.

The drop came even as the government said weekly claims for state unemployment benefits tumbled to their lowest even in decades. Initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 71,000 to 199,000 last week, the Labor Department said.

The drop marks a milestone in the economy’s recovery from the pandemic, which saw weekly claims peak at more than six million in April 2020 as the coronavirus forced businesses and consumers alike to shut down. It also comes at a time when many employers have reported that they have been having trouble filling openings even as pandemic restrictions have been lifted.

But the weekly data was also potentially overstated by seasonal factors and could rise in the weeks ahead, said Gregory Daco, the chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

“Whether it’s the end of the school year or the start of the new year, there are a number of factors that influence how companies hire and fire,” he said.

The weekly unemployment data comes after a string of positive reports on the state of the economy, showing that hiring is robust and consumers are spending even as prices rise at the fastest pace in decades. Prices climbed by 5 percent in the 12 months through October, according to one measure of inflation released Wednesday.

The weekly unemployment data comes after a string of positive reports on the state of the economy, showing that hiring is robust and consumers are spending even as prices rise at the fastest pace in decades. Household spending in October rose 1.3 percent from September, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Stock investors, however, are reacting mostly to a rise in government bond yields this week. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes has climbed to 1.65 percent, a gain that partly reflects the positive economic news. But rising bond yields discourage investment in riskier assets like stocks, and technology stocks have been particularly hard hit.

Stocks have swung between gains and losses this week, and the S&P 500 is poised to end the week with a loss — dampening gains posted in recent weeks from robust corporate earnings reports.

Investors are also reacting to the latest earnings reports from retailers, who are contending with staffing shortages and supply chain snarls.

Gap plunged about 23 percent Wednesday after the retailer said the day before that supply chain constraints hampered the company’s sales in the three months ending October. Gap’s reported that quarterly sales were down 1 percent compared with the same period last year.

Nordstrom stock also fell, sliding 29 percent, after the company released a disappointing financial report for its latest quarter. The retailer reported a $64 million profit for the three months ending October, a 1 percent decrease compared with the same period in 2019.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting are also set to be released later Wednesday. The Fed has said it would begin to slow its bond-buying program, winding down the $120 billion in monthly Treasury bond and mortgage-backed security purchases, but the minutes could show if there are any disagreements among Fed officials about the outlook for the program and the threat of inflation.

Credit…Ricky Rhodes for The New York Times

By Ryan Mac and Cecilia Kang

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has agreed for the first time to testify before Congress, as bipartisan anger mounts over harms to young people from the app.

Mr. Mosseri is expected to appear before a Senate panel during the week of Dec. 6 as part of a series of hearings on protecting children online, said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who will lead the hearing.

Mr. Mosseri’s appearance follows hearings this year with Antigone Davis, the global head of safety for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and with Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistle-blower. Ms. Haugen’s revelations about the social networking company, particularly those about Facebook and Instagram’s research into its effects on some teenagers and young girls, have spurred criticism, inquiries from politicians and investigations from regulators.

In September, Ms. Davis told Congress that the company disputed the premise that Instagram was harmful for teenagers and noted that the leaked research did not have causal data. But after Ms. Haugen’s testimony last month, Mr. Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, suggesting that his company had “provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.”

Mr. Blumenthal asked that Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Mosseri testify in front of the consumer protection subcommittee of the Senate’s Commerce Committee to set the record straight.

“He’s the top guy at Instagram, and the whole nation is asking about why Instagram and other tech platforms have created so much danger and damage by driving toxic content to children with these immensely powerful algorithms,” said Mr. Blumenthal, who chairs the subcommittee. “The hearing will be critically significant in guiding us to develop laws that can have an impact on making platforms safer.”

Dani Lever, a Meta spokeswoman, said in a statement: “We continue to work with the committee to find a date for Adam to testify on the important steps Instagram is taking.”

Mr. Blumenthal said he would question Mr. Mosseri about how Instagram’s algorithms can send children into dangerous rabbit holes. Since Mr. Blumenthal’s subcommittee began its series of hearings, lawmakers have heard from hundreds of parents and children who have shared personal anecdotes, including stories of how posts on fitness devolved into recommendations for content related to extreme dieting, eating disorders and self-harm.

Mr. Blumenthal said he would seek a commitment from Mr. Mosseri to make Instagram’s ranking and recommendation decisions transparent to the public and to experts who can study how the app amplifies harmful content. Mr. Blumenthal said that executives at Snap, TikTok and YouTube, who all testified in a previous hearing, have committed to algorithmic transparency.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has become accustomed to being hauled in front of U.S. lawmakers, this will be the first time Mr. Mosseri will testify to them under oath. A trusted lieutenant to Mr. Zuckerberg who was chosen to lead Instagram in 2018, Mr. Mosseri has become the photo-sharing app’s public face, hosting regular video announcements about new features and appearing on morning television shows.

In September, before Ms. Davis’s Senate hearing, Mr. Mosseri appeared on NBC’s Today Show to announce that Instagram would pause the development of a version of the app designed for children following public backlash and renewed lawmaker interest sparked by Ms. Haugen’s leaks. BuzzFeed News first reported in March that the company was working on a version of Instagram for children under 13.

Mr. Mosseri’s scheduled appearance is the latest fallout from Ms. Haugen’s leaked files, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Those documents, called The Facebook Papers, have formed the basis for multiple complaints to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Meta misled investors about its efforts to protect users.

Last week, a bipartisan group of 11 state attorneys general announced that it had opened an investigation into whether Meta had failed to protect the mental well-being of young people on its platforms including Instagram.

Credit…Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Stephen Gandel

In a coordinated effort with five other world powers, the United States on Wednesday tapped its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a 620-million-barrel stockpile meant to be used in times of crisis. Dipping into this reserve for economic reasons has become more common, but a globally coordinated reserve release is rare.

The move was meant to reduce oil prices, which had drifted lower in anticipation of a reserve release, but oil prices rose on the news, gaining 2 percent, and have held most of that gain in trading on Wednesday. The steady rise in crude prices has pushed the price of gasoline higher — the U.S. average is $3.40 a gallon, up from $2.11 a year ago — presenting a political problem for President Biden.

Here’s why the effort to stop the rise in energy prices may not have the intended effect:

  • The reserve release was less than anticipated: Analysts expected 100 million barrels, but just over 65 million barrels are predicted to be released, with China and other countries contributing lower volumes than expected.

  • Much of the oil will have to be returned: More than half of the U.S. contribution is a loan, and that may restrict supply in the next year or so, when the United States buys those barrels back.

  • OPEC Plus could retaliate: The oil cartel and its allies have favored a slow increase in supply during the pandemic, and they may respond to the reserve release by restricting their production. “There are good odds that OPEC Plus will offset this, and they have a bigger fire hose than we do,” said Robert McNally of Rapidan Energy Group.

Where are oil prices headed next? Many economists think it will be hard to keep prices down for long. “Using strategic stocks to defend an oil price level set in a global market is pure folly,” Mr. McNally said.

Helima Croft of RBC Capital Markets told clients in a note that the Biden administration wanted to keep oil prices below $80 a barrel, so more releases could be coming. The president has also tried to tame prices in other ways, like asking trustbusters at the F.T.C. to investigate the conduct by large oil companies in the gasoline market.

Credit…Brian Snyder/Reuters

By Lauren Hirsch

JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, expressed remorse on Wednesday for saying the bank would outlast China’s Communist Party.

“I regret and should not have made that comment,” Mr. Dimon said in a statement. “I was trying to emphasize the strength and longevity of our company.”

At a Boston College event on Tuesday, Mr. Dimon relayed a recent joke he had made comparing the longevity of the multibillion-dollar bank and China’s ruling party. “I made a joke the other day that the Communist Party is celebrating its 100th year,” he said at the event. “So is JPMorgan. I’d make a bet that we last longer.”

He added: “I can’t say that in China. They are probably listening anyway.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Dimon provided an additional comment through a statement from his spokesman.

“I regret my recent comment because it’s never right to joke about or denigrate any group of people, whether it’s a country, its leadership, or any part of a society and culture,” Mr. Dimon said. “Speaking in that way can take away from constructive and thoughtful dialogue in society, which is needed now more than ever.”

The spokesman for the bank said that Mr. Dimon, who was in Hong Kong last week, “acknowledges he should not speak lightly or disrespectfully about another country or its leadership.”

Chinese companies that trade their shares in the United States are an important source of revenue for banks. And Chinese authorities are loosening rules to allow U.S. banks to expand their businesses in China.

In August, JPMorgan got permission from the Chinese government to take full ownership of its investment banking and trading business in the country — a century after it first opened up shop there.

But banks have to consider the fraught relationship between the United States and China, the world’s largest economies. China was America’s largest trading partner for goods last year and the third-largest market for exported U.S. goods.

China has cracked down on tech companies including the ride-hailing giant Didi, the internet powerhouse Tencent and the e-commerce giant Alibaba. Recently, questions have been raised about its response to the star tennis player Peng Shuai’s accusations of sexual assault by a powerful former vice premier.

[Read more: Wall Street is finally getting access to China. But for how long?]

In JPMorgan Chase’s recent annual letter in May, Mr. Dimon made note of the country’s rising influence in the global economy. “China’s leaders believe that America is in decline,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, recently, there is a lot of truth to this.”

Lananh Nguyen contributed to this report.

Credit…Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press

By Coral Murphy Marcos

Many retail giants have opted to close on Thanksgiving Day during the coronavirus pandemic, citing safety concerns and gratitude for their employees.

Retailers also have expanded their online offerings, as well as their pickup and delivery services, to meet customer demand amid lockdowns and pandemic restrictions.

For the second year in a row, Walmart and Target will close on Thanksgiving, repeating the move as retailers across the country scramble to hire or retain employees, with millions fewer Americans working than before the pandemic and more people quitting their jobs than ever before.

Here are some retailers’ plans for Thursday and Friday hours:

Closed

Walmart

Walmart will spread out its Black Friday discounts to three events throughout November.

Target

Target stores will close for Thanksgiving every year from now on. Most will reopen at 7 a.m. local time on Friday.

Nordstrom

On Friday, hours may vary by store, and Nordstrom encouraged customers to search for holiday hours in its store locator online.

Costco

Most Costco stores will reopen as early as 9 a.m. on Friday.

Apple

On Friday, store hours vary, with some stores opening earlier than usual. Customers can view their local store’s hours on Apple’s website.

Best Buy

Friday hours may vary from normal operation, with some stores opening as early as 5 a.m. Customers can view their local store’s hours with Best Buy’s store locator.

TJX Companies

T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra and HomeSense stores will be closed on Thanksgiving. Most stores are scheduled to reopen at 7 a.m. on Friday.

Kohl’s

Stores will reopen at 5 a.m. on Friday and close at midnight.

Lowe’s

Stores will operate regular business hours on Friday and throughout the weekend.

Home Depot

On Friday, stores will open earlier than usual. Most are set to open at 6 a.m.; Home Depot recommends using its store locator to verify hours.

Macy’s

Stores will reopen at 6 a.m. on Friday and stay open till midnight.

Pandora

Pandora will close its stores on Thanksgiving Day for the second year in a row.

Open

Kroger

Most locations will close by 5 p.m. On Friday, most will open an hour later than usual.

Starbucks

Hours may vary by location, with some closing as early as 5 p.m.

Walgreens

Most stores will have adjusted hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; 24-hour locations and 24-hour pharmacies will remain open.

CVS

Most locations, including 24-hour locations, will have regular hours on Thanksgiving and Friday. The company recommends calling ahead or visiting cvs.com to confirm local hours, as some locations will reduce hours or close for the holiday.

Dollar General

Stores will open an hour earlier than usual, at 7 a.m., and close an hour later, at 10 p.m. Regular hours resume on Friday.

Credit…Eli Durst for The New York Times

By David McCabe

Samsung will build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Taylor, Texas, it said on Tuesday, giving a big boost to a bipartisan effort in Washington to persuade chip makers to build more of the components in the United States.

The company’s decision came after months of deliberation over possible locations in the United States and South Korea. The company, one of the world’s largest makers of computer chips, considered a site in Austin, which is about forty minutes from Taylor, as well as locations in Arizona and New York.

As Washington has urged chip makers to build more in the United States, cities have raced to get a piece of the potential boom. Taylor went to great lengths to lure the Samsung plant. The city, its independent school district and the surrounding county promised the company hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks. Semiconductor plants require abundant water and reliable power, so they reached a deal to transport water from the adjacent county for the facility.

Samsung’s decision comes during a major shortage of semiconductors, which are critical to products as diverse as Ford F-150s, medical devices and iPhones.

Lawmakers and the Biden administration have grown concerned that not enough of the vital components are made in America. China has invested heavily in incentivizing production of computer chips inside its borders, and Taiwan and South Korea both produce a major share of the semiconductors. Policymakers worry that leaves the United States at an economic and national security disadvantage.

The plant in Taylor will be the latest to be built in America in recent years. Intel broke ground this year on two new factories on an existing campus in Arizona. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is also building a new plant in the state.

Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times

  • Taking the stand in her own defense for a third day, Elizabeth Holmes delivered her most substantial arguments to rebut the 11 counts of fraud that prosecutors have charged her with. She made eye contact with jurors and tilted her head to the side while making the case that she could not have intentionally deceived anyone about Theranos’s technology.

    Ms. Holmes, 37, alternated between giving authoritative descriptions of Theranos’s scientific research and presenting herself as a naïve and ambitious founder who believed her company’s technology worked. She tried to reframe past incidents as misunderstandings about her intentions. She implied that her board should have given her better counsel. She suggested that she had been too trusting of the doctors, scientists and engineers who worked at Theranos.

    And she painted herself as an entrepreneur who cared deeply — maybe too much — about protecting her company’s brand and financial future, to the point that she made decisions that were later skewered by the prosecution as fraudulent. READ THE ARTICLE →

  • Apple sued the NSO Group, the Israeli surveillance company, in federal court on Tuesday, another setback for the beleaguered firm and the unregulated spyware industry.

    The lawsuit is the second of its kind — Facebook sued NSO in 2019 for targeting its WhatsApp users — and another consequential move by a private company to curb invasive spyware by governments and the companies that provide their spy tools.

    Apple, for the first time, seeks to hold NSO accountable for what it says was the surveillance and targeting of Apple users. Apple also wants to permanently prevent NSO from using any Apple software, services or devices, a move that could render the company’s Pegasus spyware product worthless, given that its core business is to give government clients full access to a target’s iPhone or Android smartphone. READ THE ARTICLE →

Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

By Ana Swanson

The Commerce Department on Wednesday announced new restrictions on exports of American technology to 27 foreign entities and individuals in China, Japan, Pakistan and Singapore, saying that they were engaged in activities contrary to the interests of the United States.

Gina M. Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, said the actions would help prevent the diversion of American technology to the military advancement of China and Russia, as well as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in Pakistan.

“Global trade and commerce should support peace, prosperity and good-paying jobs, not national security risks,” she said.

The Commerce Department said it was adding eight organizations based in China to its “entity list” to prevent American technology from being used for quantum computing efforts that support military applications. The companies and institutes include Hangzhou Zhongke Microelectronics Company, Hunan Goke Microelectronics, New H3C Semiconductor Technologies Company, Xi’an Aerospace Huaxun Technology and QuantumCTek Company.

Sixteen entities and individuals in China and Pakistan were added to the list for contributing to Pakistan’s “unsafeguarded nuclear activities or ballistic missile program,” the agency said, including Poly Asia Pacific, Peaktek Company, Broad Engineering and Al-Qertas.

Organizations and individuals on the entity list are restricted from purchasing certain sensitive American products, unless an exporter obtains a special license to sell them the goods.

The Commerce Department also added three affiliates of Corad Technology, a Chinese entity that was added to the list in 2019, and placed the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology on a separate list of “military end users” that also face restricted exports.

Video

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CreditCredit…By Irene Suosalo

Today in the On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide talks to a Biden administration official about what can be done to make government tech less awful.

‘Grind it out’: Washington’s newfound success comes with rise in time of possession

Enspirers | Editorial Board
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‘Grind it out’: Washington’s newfound success comes with rise in time of possession
Washington Panthers Football 51026.jpg 9b57a c0 360 8640

ASHBURN — During Washington’s game-clinching drive against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers earlier this month, guard Brandon Scherff stopped to look at the clock when a timeout was called. There were still more than three minutes left in the contest. 

But then it dawned on Scherff and the rest of the group that they started the series with just under 11 minutes remaining. 

“We said, ‘Holy shhh,’’ said Scherff, censoring himself, “We already took (more than) six minutes off that clock.’”

As Washington rides a two-game winning streak ahead of Monday’s matchup with the Seattle Seahawks, the Burgundy and Gold’s newfound success can be attributed partly to drives like the one used to finish off the Buccaneers. Over the last few weeks, Washington has controlled time of possession — including in the team’s most recent win over the Carolina Panthers. 

That wasn’t the case to begin the season when Washington’s offense was registering as few as 49 plays. Lately, however, the team has been able to sustain drives and kill time off the clock. Against Carolina, Washington held the ball for 35:53 compared to the Panthers’ 24:03. The difference was even more severe the week prior when Washington held the ball more than 18 minutes longer than the Buccaneers. 

Washington’s 39:08 time of possession against Tampa Bay was the sixth-longest of the season in games that didn’t go to overtime, according to Pro Football Reference. 

The reasons for the change can be boiled down to a few areas. For one, Washington is running the ball more — a natural clock killer. The team is also converting on third down, helping keep the punt team off the field. 

“When you can grind it out and have long drives or stuff like that, two things happen,” Washington coach Ron Rivera said. “You’re wearing your opponent down on defense, and secondly, you’re keeping your defense fresh. That’s a big thing. Earlier in the year, we were playing 80-something plays on defense regularly. That takes a toll.” 

The team’s shift in approach started four weeks ago, Rivera said. The team had a season-low 19 rushing attempts against the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 17, and since then, offensive coordinator Scott Turner has dialed up more running plays. Over the last four games, Washington has averaged 31.8 rushing attempts per contest — whereas the team averaged 25.7 rushing attempts over the first six weeks. Washington had a season-high 40 carries for 190 yards in Carolina.

In the same span of the last four games, Washington held the ball for more than 30 minutes in each. Before then, the team did that just once in its first six games.

Lately, Washington has been able to stick with the run because it hasn’t dramatically fallen behind. Earlier in the year, when the team regularly faced double-digit deficits, Turner almost had no choice but to call pass plays for the offense to try and keep pace. 

Even when Washington decides to throw, the team has been efficient. Starting quarterback Taylor Heinicke has only 12 incompletions the last two weeks and in those games, Washington has gone 17 of 32 on third down. 

Of the team’s 17 third-down conversions, 11 came through the air. 

“We had four or five drives that went for (at least) 60 yards this past game, which is huge,” Heinicke said.  “A lot of things are starting to come in place.” 

Rivera’s willingness to go for it on fourth down has helped extend drives, too. Washington has a league-high 12 fourth-down conversions this year — six of them have come in the last four weeks. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Washington’s defense has played better as a result of the extended rest. Despite losing to the Green Bay Packers and Denver Broncos, the defense is allowing 286.8 yards per game in this four-game stretch, down from 349.7 yards per contest before then. 

More so, Washington’s defense has played just 200 snaps since Oct. 24 — 50 per game. Before then: The unit was averaging almost 59 per game. 

Defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis said he feels the difference.

“We’ve definitely been fresher,” Ioannidis said. “You can see it on tape. We have some spells on the bench where we’re kind of looking at the clock, like, ‘OK, we haven’t been out there in a while. Our offense has been doing a really good job controlling the clock.” 

Lindell comes up short on election claims before the Supreme Court

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Lindell comes up short on election claims before the Supreme Court
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My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell came up short in delivering on his promise to file evidence before the Supreme Court that China hacked the 2020 presidential election.

After falling short of making the case at his highly touted three-day “Cyber Symposium” in August, the ally of former President Donald Trump claimed he was coordinating with multiple states’ attorneys-general to present his evidence to the high court before Thanksgiving.

But in the latest setback in his quest to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Lindell blamed Republican National Committee pressure and competing priorities in dealing with vaccine mandates for failing to gain state officials’ sign-on to the case.

“It’s going to get signed, but we just don’t know when, if it’s today or tomorrow,” Mr. Lindell told The Washington Times.

Mr. Lindell spent Tuesday scrambling in a last-minute push to get state attorneys to sign on to the case, which he said had been months in the making. He cited state officials’ preoccupation with cases appealing vaccine mandates as driving the delay.

“They had to stop that, and that was due today,” Mr. Lindell said. “Some of them asked for more time, and so I’m not going to call them out right now.”

Other officials, he said, were adamant that they would not sign on to the case.

Mr. Lindell would not disclose which specific states have signaled their support for the case.

Appearing on live streams from his plane throughout the day, Mr. Lindell also alluded to RNC pressure on state officials to avoid the case, citing RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel’s statements from earlier in the week confirming President Biden’s victory as legitimate.

By Tuesday evening, Mr. Lindell conceded that he would not file the case with the Supreme Court by his self-imposed deadline, but released a copy of the complaint on his website and encouraged visitors to contact their state attorneys-general and encourage them to sign on.

“I’m having people send their attorneys-general emails saying ‘Hey, It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, we need to fix 2020,’” he said. “We need to fix this.”

To date, Mr. Lindell has still failed to show any evidence to back up his explosive claims despite spending millions of dollars on the effort.
The more than 80-page complaint released Tuesday focuses primarily on changes made to voting laws to allow for mail-in ballots and fails to provide detailed evidence of a widespread hack of the election backed specifically by China.

Mr. Lindell previously predicted that the Supreme Court would overturn the election based on 37 terabytes of “irrefutable” evidence he claims to have in his possession.

The evidence, he says, proves that China-backed hackers broke into election systems and switched votes to President Biden. The proof, he says, is visible in intercepted network data or “packet captures.”

Over the summer, Mr. Lindell invited hundreds of state and local politicians, cybersecurity experts, and members of the media to a three-day event in South Dakota, during which attendees were promised an in-depth review of the proof.

He offered $5 million to any person in attendance who could prove that the data he had on hand was not from the 2020 election.

The event quickly unraveled and Mr. Lindell’s team eventually conceded that they would not be able to provide proof of a China hack, saying the data had been infected with a “poison pill.”

Still, Mr. Lindell told The Washington Times last month that he remained undeterred and was confident he has the proof.

He said he had it revalidated since the symposium by two independent analysts, including a “cyber expert” who represented a state official. Mr. Lindell refused to disclose their identities.

He said in an interview with the Times late Tuesday after releasing the complaint to the Supreme Court without proving a China hack, that he still intends to do so in a separate filing that is “being turned in under the Cybersecurity Act of 2015.”

Mr. Lindell is also gearing up for a 96-hour “Thanks-A-Thon” Livestream beginning at midnight Wednesday where he says he will provide an update on the Supreme Court filing and unpack the evidence supporting the claim that China hacked the election.

But the Trump ally continues to face an extremely steep uphill battle in his attempts to overturn the election.

Countless state audits and court cases have yet to produce evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. The Supreme Court has already rejected several cases related to the 2020 election.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lindell’s personal legal battles continue.

In February, the voting machine company Dominion sued Mr. Lindell and MyPillow for $1.3 billion in damages, claiming defamation based on his allegations that the election was rigged.

In June, Mr. Lindell filed a $1.6 billion countersuit citing the First Amendment and claiming that Dominion had infringed on his right to free speech.

He is also backing a class-action lawsuit against Dominion alleging it violated the First Amendment rights of “ordinary Americans” by waging “lawsuit warfare” against those who speak out.

Still, he said he won’t back down until the election is overturned.

“People say to me, ‘Mike, are you ever going to stop trying to get out there? You’ve been attacked. You’ve lost everything,’” he told the Times last month.

“I lose everything if I don’t, no matter what anyway. If this doesn’t change by 2022, we lose everything,” he said. “The whole world is watching.”

A third of clinicians would not want their kids to get COVID vaccine: Survey

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A third of clinicians would not want their kids to get COVID vaccine: Survey
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A new poll exposes hesitancy among clinicians over their 5- to 11-year-olds getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

A Medscape survey found that 30% of physician respondents with children between 5 and 11 would not want them to be vaccinated and 9% were unsure, the news agency reported Tuesday.

More than 45% of nurses said they did not want their children to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and 13% were unsure.

Meanwhile, 31% of pharmacists said they would not get them vaccinated, and 9% were unsure.

The Medscape poll was conducted Nov. 3-11. It included responses from 325 physicians, 793 nurses and 151 pharmacists.

Clinicians were more likely to want vaccinations for their young children than the 510 consumers polled by WebMD around the same time, Medscape reported.

Nearly half, 49%, of the consumers polled who had 5- to 11-year-olds did not want them to get a COVID vaccine.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this month endorsed an advisory committee’s recommendation that 5- to 11-year-olds should be vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine.

Her endorsement expanded vaccine recommendations to about 28 million U.S. children in this age group.

The CDC said the Pfizer vaccine proved nearly 91% effective at protecting children ages 5 to 11 from COVID-19. The agency also noted vaccine side effects were “mild, self-limiting, and similar to those seen in adults and with other vaccines recommended for children” in clinical trials.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.

Health, The New York Today

Biden says guilty verdicts in Ahmaud Arbery murder prove justice system is ‘doing its job’

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Biden says guilty verdicts in Ahmaud Arbery murder prove justice system is ‘doing its job’
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President Biden, who was widely criticized for disagreeing with the acquittal of shooting defendant Kyle Rittenhouse, said Wednesday the convictions in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery show the justice system is “doing its job.”

“Ahmaud Arbery’s killing – witnessed by the world on video – is a devastating reminder of how far we have to go in the fight for racial justice in this country,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “While the guilty verdicts reflect our justice system doing its job, that alone is not enough. Instead, we must recommit ourselves to building a future of unity and shared strength, where no one fears violence because of the color of their skin.”

A jury in Georgia convicted three White men — Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William Bryan — of murder in the shooting of Mr. Arbery, who was Black, as he ran through their neighborhood in February 2020.

“Mr. Arbery should be here today, celebrating the holidays with his mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, and his father, Marcus Arbery,” the president said. “Nothing can bring Mr. Arbery back to his family and to his community, but the verdict ensures that those who committed this horrible crime will be punished.”

He said his administration “will continue to do the hard work to ensure that equal justice under law is not just a phrase emblazoned in stone above the Supreme Court, but a reality for all Americans.”

When a jury last week acquitted Mr. Rittenhouse, 18, in the shooting deaths of two men during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, Mr. Biden said he was “angry and concerned.” But he said the jury system works.

He had characterized the teenager in a campaign video last year as a white supremacist. After the trial, Mr. Rittenhouse said the president defamed him.

The White House suggested this week that Mr. Biden has no intention of apologizing to Mr. Rittenhouse.

Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s Head, Agrees to Testify Before Congress

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Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s Head, Agrees to Testify Before Congress
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Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has agreed for the first time to testify before Congress, as bipartisan anger mounts over harms to young people from the app.

Mr. Mosseri is expected to appear before a Senate panel during the week of Dec. 6 as part of a series of hearings on protecting children online, said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who will lead the hearing.

Mr. Mosseri’s appearance follows hearings this year with Antigone Davis, the global head of safety for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and with Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistle-blower. Ms. Haugen’s revelations about the social networking company, particularly those about Facebook and Instagram’s research into its effects on some teenagers and young girls, have spurred criticism, inquiries from politicians and investigations from regulators.

In September, Ms. Davis told Congress that the company disputed the premise that Instagram was harmful for teenagers and noted that the leaked research did not have causal data. But after Ms. Haugen’s testimony last month, Mr. Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, suggesting that his company had “provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.”

Mr. Blumenthal asked that Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Mosseri testify in front of the consumer protection subcommittee of the Senate’s Commerce Committee to set the record straight.

“He’s the top guy at Instagram, and the whole nation is asking about why Instagram and other tech platforms have created so much danger and damage by driving toxic content to children with these immensely powerful algorithms,” said Mr. Blumenthal, who chairs the subcommittee. “The hearing will be critically significant in guiding us to develop laws that can have an impact on making platforms safer.”

Dani Lever, a Meta spokeswoman, said in a statement: “We continue to work with the committee to find a date for Adam to testify on the important steps Instagram is taking.”

Mr. Blumenthal said he would question Mr. Mosseri about how Instagram’s algorithms can send children into dangerous rabbit holes. Since Mr. Blumenthal’s subcommittee began its series of hearings, lawmakers have heard from hundreds of parents and children who have shared personal anecdotes, including stories of how posts on fitness devolved into recommendations for content related to extreme dieting, eating disorders and self-harm.

Mr. Blumenthal said he would seek a commitment from Mr. Mosseri to make Instagram’s ranking and recommendation decisions transparent to the public and to experts who can study how the app amplifies harmful content. Mr. Blumenthal said that executives at Snap, TikTok and YouTube, who all testified in a previous hearing, have committed to algorithmic transparency.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has become accustomed to being hauled in front of U.S. lawmakers, this will be the first time Mr. Mosseri will testify to them under oath. A trusted lieutenant to Mr. Zuckerberg who was chosen to lead Instagram in 2018, Mr. Mosseri has become the photo-sharing app’s public face, hosting regular video announcements about new features and appearing on morning television shows.

In September, before Ms. Davis’s Senate hearing, Mr. Mosseri appeared on NBC’s Today Show to announce that Instagram would pause the development of a version of the app designed for children following public backlash and renewed lawmaker interest sparked by Ms. Haugen’s leaks. BuzzFeed News first reported in March that the company was working on a version of Instagram for children under 13.

Mr. Mosseri’s scheduled appearance is the latest fallout from Ms. Haugen’s leaked files, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Those documents, called The Facebook Papers, have formed the basis for multiple complaints to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Meta misled investors about its efforts to protect users.

Last week, a bipartisan group of 11 state attorneys general announced that it had opened an investigation into whether Meta had failed to protect the mental well-being of young people on its platforms including Instagram.

‘Get Back’ series dispels, and confirms, some Beatle myths

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‘Get Back’ series dispels, and confirms, some Beatle myths
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NEW YORK (AP) — For 50 years, the fixed narrative had the Beatles’ “Let it Be” recording session as a miserable experience with a band where members were sick of each other, sick of their work and in the process of breaking up.

The nearly eight-hour, Peter Jackson-produced documentary culled from film and recording outtakes of those sessions instead reveal a self-aware band with a rare connection and work ethic that still knew how to have fun — yet was also in the process of breaking up.

The “Get Back” series unspools over three days starting Thanksgiving on Disney+.

Produced by a Beatlemaniac for fellow Beatlemaniacs, it can be an exhausting experience for those not in the club. But the club is pretty big. Beyond the treats it offers fans, “Get Back” is a fly-on-the-wall look at the creative process of a band still popular a half-century after it ceased existence.

Jackson, the Academy Award-winning maker of the “Lord of the Rings” series, was discussing another project with the Beatles when he inquired about what happened to all the outtakes of director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 “Let it Be” film.

Nearly 60 hours of film taken over three weeks existed, mostly unseen, and the band had been considering what to do with it. Jackson took that material, as well as 150 hours of audio recordings, and spent four years building a story.

He approached with the fear that it might be a depressing slog.

Lindsay-Hogg’s film is viewed as a chronicle of the band’s demise — unfairly, in Jackson’s view — because it was released shortly after the break-up was announced. Individual Beatles reinforced the notion with negative comments about the experience, where they had given themselves a tight deadline to write and record new material in preparation for a live show, with cameras following it all.

“I just waited for it to go bad,” Jackson said. “I waited for the arguments to begin. I waited for the conflict to begin. I waited for the sense that they hated each other. I waited for all the things I had read in the books, and it never showed up.”

Oh, there’s conflict. History overshadows the enjoyable moments revealed in the outtakes, like John Lennon singing “Two of Us” as a Bob Dylan impersonator, or he and Paul McCartney challenging each other to a run-through without moving their lips. Jackson restores the balance.

“The connection was incredible,” drummer Ringo Starr recalled in a recent Zoom interview. “I’m an only child (but) I had three brothers. And we looked out for each other. We looked after each other. We had a few rows with each other — that’s what people do. But musically, every time we would count in — one, two, three, four — we were into being the best we could be.”

Jackson follows the sessions day-by-day from their start in a cavernous film set that was eventually abandoned in favor of their familiar London recording studio, to the brief rooftop performance that was the last time the Beatles played in public.

The filmmaker is sensitive to the idea that he was brought in to “sanitize” the sessions, pointing out that “Get Back” depicts George Harrison briefly leaving the band, an event Lindsay-Hogg was not permitted to show.

That moment unfolded after a morning where Harrison watched, silently stewing, as Lennon and McCartney displayed their tight creative connection working on “Two of Us” as if the others weren’t there. When a lunch break came, Harrison had something more permanent in mind.

“I’m leaving the band now,” he says, almost matter-of-factly, before walking out.

After a few days, and a couple of band meetings, Harrison was coaxed to return. The morning he does, the film shows him and Lennon reading a false newspaper report that they had come to blows, and faced off in boxing stances to mock it.

Along the way, Jackson’s project dispels and reinforces pieces of conventional wisdom that have solidified through the years.

Myth No. 1: McCartney was a control freak.

Verdict: Partly true. The film shows Harrison visibly chafing at McCartney giving him and other band members instructions on how to play and cajoling them into a decision on a live concert. The band had been somewhat aimless since the 1967 death of manager Brian Epstein. McCartney had taken on the “daddy” role and isn’t entirely comfortable with it.

“I’m scared of me being the boss, and I have been for a couple of years,” he says. “I don’t get any support.”

Myth No. 2: Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles.

Verdict: Not true. She’s there at virtually every recording session, but mostly as a benign force sitting next to Lennon. The other Beatle spouses all show up in the studio, although not as often. At one point, McCartney even makes a prescient joke about her.

“It’s going to be such an incredible comical thing in 50 years’ time — they broke up because Yoko sat on an amp,” he says.

The afternoon after Harrison left, the remaining Beatles clearly take out their frustration with some aggressive, atonal music, and Ono takes over his microphone — a spellbinding moment.

Myth No. 3: The Beatles had essentially turned into four solo artists, with the others as sidemen to each other’s songs.

Verdict: Not true. They’re constantly collaborating, seeking and taking advice. At one point, Harrison confesses to Lennon that he’s been having trouble completing the line that became “attracts me like no other lover” in “Something.” Lennon suggests using a nonsense phrase — “attracts me like a cauliflower” — until something better emerges.

Through the film, viewers can see how the song “Get Back” emerged from McCartney working out a riff on the side, to he and Lennon trading lyrical selections and throwing out an idea to make it a song criticizing anti-immigrant sentiment, to the full band working out the arrangement. Pleased with the final result, it’s Harrison who suggests immediately releasing it as a single.

“A glimpse of them working together is an enormously important artifact, not just for Beatles fans but for anybody who is creative,” said Bob Spitz, author of “The Beatles: The Biography,” published in 2005.

Myth No. 4: Filming showed the Beatles breaking up.

Verdict: Essentially true. It becomes clear that Lennon and Harrison’s enthusiasm for being Beatles is waning. Lennon is clearly in love with Ono; McCartney tells Harrison and Starr that if it ever came down to a choice between her and the Beatles, Lennon would go with her.

Harrison, growing creatively, is becoming uncomfortable with his secondary role. He talks with Lennon about doing a solo album because he has enough songs written to fill his “quota” on Beatles albums for another decade. As if to prove his point, the Beatles rehearse Harrison’s majestic “All Things Must Pass,” but decline to record it.

In the film, Lennon and Starr also discuss a meeting with Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein about taking over the Beatles’ business, foreshadowing a bitter split with McCartney.

“The whole thing is full of mini-stories,” Jackson said.

Jackson, who had been expected to make a conventional documentary, said he was nervous taking his much longer final product back to McCartney, Starr and the families of Lennon and Harrison.

“But they came back and said, ‘great, don’t change a thing,’” he said.

Among the priceless moments that he unearthed is the joy on the Beatles’ faces as they played on the studio rooftop. The film shows the whole performance, the Beatles rising to the challenge and having a great time doing it.

When the police finally end it, the band and entourage retreat to the studio and listen to a recording of what they’ve done.

“This is a very good dry run for something else,” says producer George Martin.

That, alas, was not to be.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Wall Street Warms Up, Grudgingly, to Remote Work, Unthinkable Before Covid

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Wall Street Warms Up, Grudgingly, to Remote Work, Unthinkable Before Covid
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In private, many senior bank executives tasked with raising attendance among their direct reports expressed irritation. They said it was unfair for highly paid employees to keep working from home while others — like bank tellers or building workers — dutifully come in every day. Salaries at investment banks in the New York area averaged $438,450 in 2020, up 7.8 percent from the previous year, according to data from the office of the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Two senior executives, who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters, said they might push out subordinates who are not willing to come back to the office regularly. Another manager expressed frustration about a worker who refused to show up at the office, citing concern about the virus — even though the person had recently traveled on vacation.

Executives “have not felt that they could put on pressure to get people back in the office — and those who have put on pressure have gotten real pushback,” said Ms. Wylde, of the Partnership for New York City. “Financial services is one of those industries that are hugely competitive for talent, so nobody wants to be the bad guy.” She expects that big financial firms will eventually drive workers back into the office by dangling pay and promotions.

For now, banks are resorting to coaxing and coddling.

Food trucks, free meals and snacks are occasionally on offer, as are complimentary Uber and Lyft rides. Dress codes have been relaxed. Major firms have adopted safety protocols such as on-site testing and mask mandates in common areas. Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are requiring vaccinations for workers entering their offices, while Bank of America asked only inoculated staff to return after Labor Day. JPMorgan has not mandated vaccines for workers to return to the office.

At Citi, which asked employees to come back for at least two days a week starting in September, offices are about 70 percent full on the days with the highest traffic. Citi, whose chief executive, Jane Fraser, started her job in the middle of the pandemic, has hired shuttle buses so that employees coming into Midtown Manhattan from suburban homes can avoid taking the subway to the bank’s downtown offices. To allay concerns about rising crime in New York, at least one other firm has hired shuttle buses to ferry people a few blocks from Pennsylvania Station to offices in Midtown, Ms. Wylde said.

Remote working arrangements are also emerging as a key consideration for workers interviewing for new jobs, according to Alan Johnson, the managing director of Johnson Associates, a Wall Street compensation consultancy.

A Fix-It Job for Government Tech

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A Fix-It Job for Government Tech
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This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. Here is a collection of past columns.

U.S. government technology has a mostly deserved reputation for being expensive and awful.

Computer systems sometimes operate with Sputnik-era software. A Pentagon project to modernize military technology has little to show after five years. During the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans struggled to get government help like unemployment insurance, vaccine appointments and food stamps because of red tape, inflexible technology and other problems.

Whether you believe that the government should be more involved in Americans’ lives or less, taxpayers deserve good value for the technology we pay for. And we often don’t get it. It’s part of Robin Carnahan’s job to take on this problem.

A former secretary of state for Missouri and a government tech consultant, Carnahan had been one of my guides to how public sector technology could work better. Then in June, she was confirmed as the administrator of the General Services Administration, the agency that oversees government acquisitions, including of technology.

Carnahan said that she and other Biden administration officials wanted technology used for fighting wars or filing taxes to be as efficient as our favorite app.

“Bad technology sinks good policy,” Carnahan told me. “We’re on a mission to make government tech more user-friendly and be smarter about how we buy it and use it.”

Carnahan highlighted three areas she wanted to address: First, change the process for government agencies to buy technology to recognize that tech requires constant updates. Second, simplify the technology for people using government services. And third, make it more appealing for people with tech expertise to work for the government, even temporarily.

All of that is easier said than done, of course. People in government have promised similar changes before, and it’s not a quick fix. Technology dysfunction is also often a symptom of poor policies.

But in Carnahan’s view, one way to build faith in government is to prove that it can be competent. And technology is an essential area to show that.

Building that competence starts with something very dull — budgeting and procurement. Carnahan told me last year that governments tended to fund digital infrastructure the way they did bridges. They buy it once and try not to think about it much for the next few decades. That mentality is a mismatch with technology, which works best with constant improvements and upkeep.

Carnahan said that she was trying to spread the message in Congress and government agencies that a predictable amount of government funding doled out over time is a better approach to buying tech. Carnahan said the government should think of tech like Lego sets, with pieces that are regularly swapped out or rebuilt. (Hey, the metaphors work for me.)

She also hopes to use technology to help remove headaches that make it difficult for people to have access to public services.

As one example, Carnahan mentioned that she wanted to significantly expand the number of government services accessible through login.gov. There, people can create a single digital account to interact with multiple services, like those for applying to a government job or filing for disaster help for a small business.

And like many people in government, Carnahan is also making a pitch for people with technical expertise to work for the public sector. Her appeal is part pragmatism and part patriotism. “Government is the single best way to have an impact on people’s lives,” Carnahan said.

She said that remote work had also made government jobs more realistic for people who don’t want to move to Washington, and so have programs like the U.S. Digital Service and the new U.S. Digital Corps, which allow technologists to work short stints alongside civil servants.

Carnahan isn’t pretending that changing decades of relative dysfunction in government technology will be easy. But she believes doing so is crucial now that technology is often the primary way people interact with local, state and federal governments, whether it’s registering to vote or getting help with a Medicare claim.

“Making the damn websites work is the fundamental thing that people expect out of government these days,” she said.

  • How do we keep children safe online? U.S. law more or less bans internet services from having users who are younger than 13. My colleagues at New York Times Opinion talked to young kids who are online despite the restrictions, and made the case that the U.S. learn from new child-protection guidelines in Britain.

    (There’s a back story about those clever kids in the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here.)

  • A hammer falls on spyware: Apple sued NSO Group, an Israeli company whose software has been abused by governments to spy on the smartphones of human rights activists, journalists and dissidents. My colleague Nicole Perlroth writes that the lawsuit and the U.S. government’s recent blacklisting of NSO could be steps toward more oversight of the global market for spyware.

  • Thoughtful gift ideas! Brian X. Chen, the consumer technology columnist for The Times, has lovely ideas for tech-related holiday presents that are not gadgets. (I bet Brian’s wife is going to love her digital photography lesson. Don’t spoil the surprise.)

I’m obsessed with the NASA spacecraft that launched today on a mission to smack into an asteroid the size of a sports stadium to knock it off course. Yes, this is a little like the plot of the movie “Armageddon.”

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you’d like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. You can also read past On Tech columns.

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