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Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #264 on: July 19, 2022, 05:24:25 AM »
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The great toilet paper panic of 2020 started in Arizona: study



The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 brought anxiety not only about how the virus was being transmitted but panic about going out in public and stocking up on products to survive lockdowns.

The first US city that faced a reported diagnosis of COVID was Seattle, where toilet paper quickly disappeared. Panic buying then commenced across the US, beginning in Arizona, according to a study flagged by the Phoenix News Times.

"Cherry Digital, a public relations and content marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon, and London, conducted an analysis of Google search data for the phrase “toilet paper” through March 2020," said the report. "The findings at the height of the panic buying period were compared to data that was compiled beginning in March 2019."

There was a 11,115 percent increase in online searches for toilet paper during the pandemic, the company explained.

“Societies generally function because there is confidence and trust in the system,” content marketing director Jamie Gibbs explained in a press release. “The pandemic marked an anxious time for many people, and therefore that very trust began to erode at an alarming speed, which explains why panic buying took place. Despite appearing to be an irrational thing to do, hoarding everyday items was actually a predictable human action.”

The epicenter was Phoenix, the report explained, and nine of the top 10 cities listed in Arizona for the panic buying were in that metro area – except Tuscon, which ranked fifth.

Panic buying isn't unheard of, a 1989 research paper from Rider University explained.

"In a crisis situation, there is a breakdown in the intellectual abilities of the individual in terms of processing information, assessing the environment, and analyzing alternatives," they explained. "The greater the perceived time pressure, the smaller the number of alternatives considered, the greater the likelihood that decisions will be made before necessary, and the greater the likelihood of incorrect choice of alternatives."

People are also more likely to purchase things that show their greatest vulnerability, like toilet paper. It can also make matters worse as people are shopping and they see empty shelves for items, leading to more panic buying in the stores.

“During COVID, Arizona had more vacant shelves than other states,” Phoenix economist Jim Rounds the site. “More empty shelves means more panic buying.”

Supply chain issues with inflation made panic buying in 2020 even worse. Then people were staying at home more, which meant that people needed more toilet paper at home.

Read the full report at the Phoenix New Times:

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/study-says-arizonans-most-guilty-of-panic-buying-toilet-paper-during-coronavirus-pandemic-14035854

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #264 on: July 19, 2022, 05:24:25 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #265 on: July 20, 2022, 05:38:05 AM »
Sweltering NYC Stretch in the 90s Kicks Off Tuesday — and This Kind of Heat Can Kill
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/weather/the-heat-is-on-expect-temps-over-90-for-the-next-week-and-itll-only-get-muggier/3780011/

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #266 on: July 20, 2022, 06:01:46 AM »
U.S. gas prices just hit a 2-month low—the national average is now under $4.50 a gallon

U.S. gasoline prices have soared in 2022 amid the reopening of the global economy postpandemic, the ongoing European energy crisis, and the war in Ukraine.

On June 14, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas rose to a record $5.01, according to the American Automobile Association. Since then, however, a new trend has emerged that should help Americans struggling with the rising cost of living caused by four-decade high inflation.

Gas prices have experienced a 35-day skid, and are now down more than 10% from June’s record high to a two-month low of $4.495. Some industry analysts predict that prices will continue to decline.



Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said on Twitter this week that he expects gas prices will continue falling over the coming months, eventually reaching a national average of $3.99 per gallon by August.

The recent dip in gas prices follows oil’s decline over the past month. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is down roughly 15% since its June 8 highs of over $123 per barrel to just $105 per barrel on Tuesday.

Oil prices briefly slipped below $100 per barrel last week as well, giving up all of the gains the critical commodity made since Russia invaded Ukraine in late March, but this past week has seen a slight rebound in prices.

The Biden administration has released 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter rising gas prices, questioned oil and gas company CEOs over their firms’ record profit margins, called on gas stations to reduce prices at the pump, and even floated the idea of a federal gas tax holiday.

Some of the drop in gasoline use likely is a response to price. But it also reflects shifting labor practices after the pandemic.

"Up until the pandemic, work from home was kind of considered an outlier," said Bill O'Grady, chief market strategist of Confluence Investment Management.

Under today's more flexible arrangements, "when the gasoline price goes up, instead of coming in five days a week, you may only come in three or two," O'Grady said.

Will prices keep falling?

A White House memo predicted gasoline prices would continue to fall through the "near term," highlighting Biden's actions such as a historically large release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- which analysts think had its primary impact as soon as it was announced in late March.

The White House memo also noted that the decline in gasoline prices has gotten a fraction of the media coverage that the run-up in prices earlier in the spring received.

"Despite the data, you wouldn't know gas prices are coming down from watching the evening news or reading the paper," the memo said.

Kilduff also expects gasoline prices to fall further, noting a long-running seasonal trend that typically sees gasoline prices retreat after July 4.

"My forecast is for prices to continue to slide lower into the fall," Kilduff said, adding that prices will remain high by historical standards.

While O'Grady thinks prices will continue to fall, he added that there is always a risk in late summer that Gulf of Mexico hurricanes could impair key refineries.

"That can send gasoline prices up significantly," he said.

AFP

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #266 on: July 20, 2022, 06:01:46 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #267 on: July 21, 2022, 12:41:47 AM »
President Biden got Mexico to pay for border security to curb illegal immigration. An historic achievement.

Mexico agrees to invest $1.5B in 'smart' border technology

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador agreed to spend $1.5 billion over the next two years to improve "smart" border technology during meetings Tuesday with President Joe Biden — a move the White House says shows neighborly cooperation succeeding where Trump administration vows to wall off the border and have Mexico pay for it could not.

A series of agreements the two countries hammered out as their leaders spoke called for several other concrete moves, including expanding the number of work visas the U.S. issues, creating a bilateral working group on labor migration pathways and worker protections and welcoming more refugees. Both also pledged to continue joint patrols for Mexico and Guatemala to hunt human smugglers along their shared border.

But the Biden administration hailed securing border funding from Mexico after years of failed attempts by former President Donald Trump.

"Borders that are more resilient, more efficient, and safer, will enhance our shared commerce," Biden and López Obrador said in a joint official statement. "We are committed like never before to completing a multi-year joint U.S.-Mexico border infrastructure modernization effort for projects along the 2,000-mile border."

The agreements came after López Obrador began the discussions by talking for more than half an hour as reporters looked on. His far-ranging discourse touched on everything from American drivers heading south for cheaper prices at the pump at Mexican gas stations to the New Deal politics of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also chiding conservatives and said the U.S. and Mexico should reject the "status quo" on the border.

López Obrador said both countries "should close ranks to help each other" amid spiking inflation and border challenges brutally underscored by 53 migrants who died last month after being abandoned in a sweltering tractor-trailer on a remote back road in San Antonio.

"Increasing inflation impacts the well-being of families in both our countries, and requires strong, immediate, and concerted action," the joint statement said. "That is why we have committed to jointly combat inflation by accelerating the facilitation of bilateral trade and reducing trade costs."

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/mexico-agrees-to-invest-1-5b-in-smart-border-technology/

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #268 on: July 21, 2022, 02:46:55 AM »
'Hasta la vista, baby,' says UK's Boris Johnson as he exits parliament



LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson bowed out of his final showpiece parliamentary appearance with a round of applause from his party, jeers from opponents and an enigmatic exit line: "Mission largely accomplished ... hasta la vista, baby."

Johnson was forced to announce his resignation earlier this month after a mass rebellion against the latest in a string of scandals that his party decided had undermined his ability to lead the country any longer after three turbulent years in charge.

Speaking in his final "Prime Minister's Questions", the weekly fixture of the political calendar which pits the prime minister against his opponents in rowdy debate, Johnson sought to shape his legacy around the COVID-19 response and his support of Ukraine in its defence against Russia.

"We've helped, I've helped, get this country through a pandemic and help save another country from barbarism. And frankly, that's enough to be going on with. Mission largely accomplished," Johnson said.

"I want to thank everybody here and hasta la vista, baby."

The line, borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1991 movie "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and translated as "see you later", prompted a round of applause from most on his own side.

Only two weeks ago, some of those clapping had resigned from his government, criticised his leadership and demanded he quit. Reporters in the debating chamber said his predecessor, Theresa May, did not stand to clap.

Opponents did not join in the applause either, having earlier used the question-and-answer session to take him to task over a range of policies, from the as-yet unfinished Brexit to his response to soaring living costs.

With an eye on an election due in 2024, opposition leader Keir Starmer sought to highlight division in the ruling party, listing criticisms of government policy set out by the lawmakers from Johnson's own side who are vying to replace him

"He's decided to come down from his gold-wallpapered bunker for one last time to tell us that everything is fine. I am going to miss the delusion," Starmer said.

Johnson said the criticism was "completely satirical".

His parting speech gave advice to his as-yet-unnamed successor: Stay close to the United States, support Ukraine, cut taxes and deregulate, don't let the finance ministry constrain ambitious projects, and pay attention to the electorate.

"Remember, above all, it's not Twitter that counts, it's the people that sent us here," he said.

© Reuters

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #268 on: July 21, 2022, 02:46:55 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #269 on: July 22, 2022, 04:24:25 AM »
Prime-time Jan. 6 hearing to detail 'minute-by-minute' account of Trump's inaction during riot

The committee will present new witnesses and evidence Thursday about what Trump was doing during the attack on the Capitol. More hearings are expected this year.



One hundred and eighty-seven minutes.

It’s the more than three-hour period during which the Jan. 6 committee says then-President Donald Trump refused to call off a violent mob of his supporters who were attacking police, ransacking the Capitol and hunting down lawmakers and his own vice president.

Committee members will be talking a lot about those 187 minutes during Thursday’s prime-time hearing — the finale in a series of eight televised public hearings but hardly the last of the year.

“The story we’re going to tell tomorrow is that in that time, President Trump refused to act to defend that Capitol as a violent mob stormed the Capitol with the aim of stopping the counting of the electoral votes and blocking the transfer of power,” a Jan. 6 committee aide said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters.

Trump was “directing a mob that he, the former president, knew was armed, pointing them toward the Capitol, telling them to ‘fight like hell’ and march to the Capitol and spurring them down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Committee aides said there will be new information presented at the 8 p.m. ET hearing, some of it recently obtained by the special House panel.

The roughly two-hour hearing will be led by Reps. Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. It will provide a “minute-by-minute” account of what was happening inside the West Wing and what Trump was doing during the 187 minutes, aides said. That’s the period from the end of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse at 1:10 p.m. to 4:17 p.m., when he tweeted a video telling rioters to “go home.”

Committee members on Thursday will build on details laid out in previous hearings. They will demonstrate, aides said, that Trump not only wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol after his speech Jan. 6, but he also continued expressing a desire to go there even after his security team told him it wasn’t safe and took him back to the White House.

The hearing will discuss Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, his family members, allies and GOP lawmakers.

The committee also will examine a 6:01 p.m. tweet by Trump that day that was deleted. He had suggested that the Capitol attack should be blamed on widespread election fraud.

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!” Trump wrote before deleting the tweet.


Rioters gather outside the Capitol's Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021

In another development, aides said Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., will lead the hearing “remotely” after testing positive earlier in the week for Covid. Committee members had said that they have the capability for Thompson to appear via video conference.

“He is feeling OK. He is vaccinated and boosted, but of course, we will observe Covid protocols,” an aide said.

The hearing will feature live testimony from a pair of former Trump White House aides, Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who have already testified behind closed doors.

Both Matthews and Pottinger resigned over Trump’s actions Jan. 6, with Pottinger saying in testimony already aired by the committee that he was driven by Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet that day. In it, Trump wrote that his vice president lacked courage as a mob in the Capitol searched for him and chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” 

“President Trump had the power to call off the mob. He was the sole person who could have called off the mob, and he chose not to,” an aide said.

The Jan. 6 panel plans to hold more hearings later this year.

Committee investigators had hoped to receive a tranche of text messages from the Secret Service this week that might have provided more details about Trump's actions Jan. 6. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson had told the committee that she was told Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential SUV and got into a physical altercation with his top security official after he was told he was not going to the Capitol.

The Secret Service turned over more than 10,000 pages of documents to the Jan. 6 panel Tuesday but only a single text message related to the riot itself, according to a letter from the Secret Service to the committee. That message was from then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to the Secret Service, asking for help.

The Secret Service told the committee that agents' text messages Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, were deleted as part of a preplanned system migration. Employees were told how to preserve relevant texts and other data, but the Secret Service said it has no messages being sought by the committee or an agency watchdog.

Committee members are furious over the Secret Service's explanation.

“We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data. The U.S. Secret Service system migration process went forward on January 27, 2021, just three weeks after the attack on the Capitol in which the Vice President of the United States while under the protection of the Secret Service, was steps from a violent mob hunting for him," Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote in a joint statement Wednesday.

The "procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act," they said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/primetime-jan-6-hearing-detail-minute-minute-account-trumps-inaction-r-rcna39196

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #270 on: July 23, 2022, 08:45:50 AM »
Testimony Depicts the Trump as Content to Let the Riot Rage

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol portrayed former President Donald Trump at its prime-time hearing Thursday as failing to call off the rioters, and on some occasions encouraging them, during the 187 minutes between his speech to his supporters that day at the Ellipse and the release of a video late in the afternoon calling them to go home.

“Our hearings have shown many ways in which President Trump tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the days leading up to January 6,” said Rep. Elaine Luria (D., Va.), who with Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) led questioning of witnesses at the hearing, the eighth and last such session this summer. “With each step of his plan, he betrayed his oath of office and was derelict in his duty.”

In more than two hours of recorded and live testimony, the committee portrayed a president sitting idly by, watching the events on television, while aides, family members and security officials grew increasingly fearful and pleaded for him to take action to quell the violence.

In a series of messages on his Truth Social service, Mr. Trump challenged the testimony. He said the committee presented "so many lies and misrepresentations" and questioned how the witnesses could say they knew he was watching TV during the attack on the Capitol.

Watch Video in Link

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jan-6-hearing-today-trump

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #270 on: July 23, 2022, 08:45:50 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Media Today
« Reply #271 on: July 23, 2022, 05:23:10 PM »
Watergate prosecutor: Fox News' efforts to hide the J6 hearings from their partisan viewers is a futile cause
https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-j6-hearings/