Biden Commutes Sentences for Almost All Federal Death Row Inmates Before Trump Can Resume Executions

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office.

The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.

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It means just three federal inmates are still facing execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

The Biden Administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden’s term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.

Read more: Martin Sheen: Why President Biden Should Commute Death Row

While running for president in 2020, Biden’s campaign website said he would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”

Similar language didn’t appear on Biden’s reelection website before he left the presidential race in July.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden’s statement said. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

He took a political jab at Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.” He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers and even praised China’s harsher treatment of drug peddlers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.

There were 13 federal executions during Trump’s first term, more than under any president in modern history, and some may have happened fast enough to have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at the federal death row facility in Indiana.

Those were the first federal executions since 2003. The final three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office the following January, the first time federal prisoners were put to death by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Biden faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The president’s announcement also comes less than two weeks after he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, and of 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The announcement also followed the post-election pardon that Biden granted his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would not issue one, sparking an uproar in Washington. The pardon also raised questions about whether he would issue sweeping preemptive pardons for administration officials and other allies who the White House worries could be unjustly targeted by Trump’s second administration.

Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the final foreign trip of his presidency next month. Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates in hopes their sentences will be commuted.

Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to change the death sentences, said in a statement issued by the White House that the president “has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness.”

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was converted, said the execution of “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”

“The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also issued by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”

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Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.

source https://time.com/7203785/biden-federal-death-row-commutations/

Blake Lively Accuses It Ends With Us Director Justin Baldoni of Harassment and Smear Campaign

Blake Lively has accused her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and a subsequent effort to “destroy” her reputation in a legal complaint.

The complaint obtained by The Associated Press, which The New York Times reported was filed Friday with the California Civil Rights Department, precedes a lawsuit. It names Baldoni, the studio behind the romantic drama It Ends With Us and Baldoni’s publicists among the defendants.

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In the complaint, Lively accuses Baldoni and the studio of embarking on a “multi-tiered plan” to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband Ryan Reynolds addressed “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.

The plan, the complaint said, included a proposal to plant theories on online message boards, engineer a social media campaign and place news stories critical of Lively.

Baldoni enlisted publicists and crisis managers in a “sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan” meant to “bury” and “destroy” Lively if she went public with her on-set concerns, the complaint alleges.

“To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth about Mr. Baldoni, the BaldoniWayfarer team created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility,” the complaint states. “They engaged in the same techniques to bolster Mr. Baldoni’s credibility and suppress any negative content about him.”

The complaint also says Baldoni “abruptly pivoted away from” the movie’s marketing plan and “used domestic violence ‘survivor content’ to protect his public image.”

Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, called the claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.”

He pushed back against Lively’s allegations of a coordinated campaign, saying the studio “proactively” hired a crisis manager “due to the multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production.”

Freedman also said Lively threatened to not appear on set and not promote the film “if her demands were not met.”

Those demands were not specified in the statement, but Lively’s complaint lists 30 demands that she said Baldoni and others agreed to after their tense sit-down over her hostile work environment concerns.

Among them: “no more showing of nude videos or images of women” to Lively and others on set and no more discussions about pornography, sexual experiences or genitalia.

Read more: Breaking Down All the It Ends With Us Drama

She also said Baldoni should not ask her trainer about her weight without her consent, should not press her about her religious beliefs and should make “no further mention of her dead father.”

An intimacy coordinator was also required to be on set whenever Lively shared a scene with Baldoni and he was barred from entering her trailer or the make-up trailer while she was undressed.

The demands also stipulated that there would be “no more improvising of kissing” scenes or adding of sex scenes to the film outside of the ones in the script Lively approved when she signed on.

“I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” Lively said in a statement to the Times. A representative for Lively referred the AP to the Times report, in which Lively denied planting or spreading negative information about Baldoni or the studio.

It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a $50 million debut. But the movie’s release was shrouded by speculation over discord between the lead pair. Baldoni took a backseat in promoting the film while Lively took centerstage along with Reynolds, who was on the press circuit for Deadpool & Wolverine at the same time.

Baldoni — who starred in the telenovela send-up Jane the Virgin, directed Five Feet Apart and wrote Man Enough, a book pushing back against traditional notions of masculinity — did respond to concerns that the film romanticized domestic violence, telling the AP at the time that critics were “absolutely entitled to that opinion.”

“If anybody has had that real-life experience, I can imagine how hard it would be to imagine their experience being in a romance novel,” he said. “To them, I would just offer that we were very intentional in the making of this movie.”

___

Philip Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/7203784/blake-lively-it-ends-with-us-justin-baldoni-smear-campaign/

How the Poinsettia Became a Symbol of Christmas

It’s Christmastime, and the symbols of the season are everywhere. Christmas plants include numerous conifer species, poinsettia, mistletoe, and holly. Species-wise, poinsettia is the most popular during the holidays with more than 70 million sold per year. This spectacular red-and-green seasonal wonder is, economically, America’s most important potted plant and the United States is the world’s most important producer.

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It wasn’t always this way. How did a gangly coastal plant from Mesoamerica find its way to Yuletide shopping malls? Poinsettia’s path starts in the wild and moves through domestication, repeated cultural appropriation, and eventually, to modern industrial production. This path demonstrates that the plant is more than simply a symbol of Christmas, but a product of both empire and consumption.

Wild poinsettias still grow along the windswept Pacific coastal cliffs of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. Inland wild poinsettias are rare; a few exist in the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. One Guerrero population is genetically close to the cultivated type, suggesting that the initial domestication of the plant probably occurred in that region.

Whether it was domesticated by the Aztecs or an earlier civilization is unknown. By the time that the 16th century Spanish conquered Mexico, the plant was domesticated and in use as an ornamental for various ceremonies. Also, its red bracts, the leaves around the tiny yellow flowers, were the source of a dye, and its milky sap was used for medicinal purposes. In the Aztec language Nahuatl, the plant is called “cuetlaxochitl” or “wilting flower,” reflecting the fragility of the early plants.

Read More: A Festive Guide to This Year’s Netflix Holiday Rom-Coms

The general policy of Spanish conquerors was to demonize and ban the use of native New World domesticated plants, like amaranth. But they ended up embracing a few indigenous plants such as the one we know today as corn—maize. In the case of poinsettia, Franciscan friars during the 17th century co-opted its use to decorate nativity scenes and altars, as well as to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity. They renamed it “flor de nochebuena” or “Christmas Eve flower” as it blooms during Christmas time.

An origin legend evolved under Spanish colonial rule to accompany the plant’s association with Christmas. According to the story, a poor girl named Pepita went to see a local nativity scene.  Embarrassed that she had no gift, she collected a bouquet of weeds along the way. Reluctant to enter the church with only weeds, she hesitated. Her cousin reminded her that a gift given in love is precious in God’s eyes. When the girl presented the gift of weeds to the child Jesus, they miraculously turned into a bouquet of flor de nochebuena.

The precise details of how poinsettia made its way to the United States remain murky. It is clear that diplomat and amateur botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett played some role in introducing the plant but how, why, or when is unclear. Poinsett was the United States’ first ambassador to the newly-born country of Mexico from 1825 to 1829, when he encountered and appreciated the plant during a visit near the city of Taxco, Guerrero. Under his influence, flor de nochebuena made its way to Philadelphia for its international debut at the 1829 Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s flower show. First called by various names in the United States, such as “Mexican flame flower” and “painted leaf,” “poinsettia”—the name associated with Minister Poinsett—eventually stuck.

As poinsettia became increasingly popular in the United States, Mexican growers sought to export it to the U.S. market. To block them, however, Poinsett warned the growers that he had obtained a patent on the plant, even though no documentation of any kind substantiated the claim to the plant. For such poor diplomacy, his name was appropriated in Mexico in the word “poinsettismo” meaning “arrogant and meddling.”  

Nonetheless, Poinsett played a role in shifting how we see the plant today as a consumable Christmas item. By the late 1800s, poinsettia production had spread to U.S. states and even Europe. The current popularity in poinsettia production can be traced back to the efforts of the German migrant Ecke family. Without the role of the family, the plant wouldn’t be as ubiquitous as it currently is today.

Albert Ecke and his family stopped in California in 1900 on their way to establish a vegetarian sanitarium in Fiji. They appreciated the California climate and settled in the Los Angeles area growing several species for the cut flower industry. By 1909, they narrowed their focus to poinsettias. After Albert Ecke passed away, his son Paul moved the business to Encinitas near San Diego.

During the first half of the 20th century, the poinsettia was popular but true to its Nahuatl name, an easily withering plant. A customer could expect its scarlet bracts to persist no more than 10 days. As Fritz Bahr, one floriculturist of the time observed, “Perhaps no other plant or flower we handle during the Christmas week is shorter lived, wilts quicker, or is more disappointing to those who receive it; yet when the next Christmas comes around, there comes again the same demands for Poinsettias and the disappointments of a year ago are all forgotten.”

The Ecke family embraced innovations in poinsettia production. One example is that they shaded their plants to fine tune flowering. Poinsettias are known as short day plants; that is, they require several weeks of long nights to stimulate flowering. The Ecke family covered their greenhouses with adjustable black cloth to create the perfect timing to induce flowering so that plants had the Goldilocks amount of available flowering when they hit the stores.

Read More: How the Christmas Stories Call the Church to a Different Vision

Another example is the proliferation of new cultivars by the Ecke family and other growers.  Compared to the original cultivars, the newer cultivars offered a variety of advantages, including sturdiness, longer flowering, earlier flowering, dwarfism, bigger bracts, darker green foliage, and beyond. New colors have evolved. Poinsettias now come with bracts of white, orange, yellow, pink, purple, blue, and various shades of red. Some cultivars feature mottled or otherwise bicolored bracts; Ecke’s “Ice Punch” variety has rosy bracts with a white splash in the middle of each.

Paul Ecke, Jr. took over the company in 1963 and aggressively expanded it. In 1992, Paul Ecke III took the reins of what had become known as “Ecke Ranch.” He moved the propagation part of the company to Guatemala (full circle back to the cuetlaxochitl homeland) due to higher competition. The plants could be established there and then “finished” in California for precise timing in delivery to U.S. and international markets. At its height, Ecke Ranch was supplying 70% of the U.S. market and about half of the worldwide poinsettia consumption.

The trend for the agricultural industry over the past several decades has been a series of acquisitions and mergers. For example, the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto was eaten by Bayer Crop Science. The Ecke Ranch faced the same fate. The family sold the company in 2013 to the Dutch Agribio Group, which in turn, merged with the German-based Dümmen, a company that had experience with the European poinsettia market. Nonetheless, the four generations of Eckes have left their legacy.

The poinsettia is not simply a plant associated with Christmas. It is one with roots in the Americas, culturally appropriated over the centuries, and now mass produced for consumption across the world. The next time you pick up a poinsettia from the store, consider the long path it has taken to where it is now.

Dr. Norman Ellstrand is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of California at Riverside and a regular contributor to the Raincross Gazette, Riverside’s online newspaper.

Nathan Ellstrand is a postdoctoral Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) Research Partner Fellow at San Diego State University and a historian of 20th century transnational politics and religion between the United States and Latin America. Nathan Ellstrand is not an employee of DPAA; he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its Components.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

source https://time.com/7202847/poinsettia-history/

22 Great TV Shows You Might Have Missed in 2024

It’s a strange fact of the streaming era that, even in relatively scant years like this one, there will always be great TV shows that most people never hear about, much less watch. Among 2024’s underseen standouts are a slew of (non-crime) documentaries, British imports, and foreign-language series—few of which got the promotion they deserved on stateside platforms.

Dazzling docuseries

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Omnivore (Apple TV+)

For the Chef’s Table crowd, internationally renowned Noma chef René Redzepi travels the globe in this visually stunning series that explores one ingredient—from salt to tuna to bananas—in each episode. Watch it from beginning to end or skip around according to your interests.

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth (Nat Geo)

You probably know that the Stanford Prison Experiment, which set up a mock prison on the university campus and divided college-student subjects into prisoners and guards, was wildly unethical. But what you may not realize, over half a century after it was aborted as conditions in faux-lockup took a turn for the miserable, is how extensively its findings have been debunked. Juliette Eisner’s shrewdly structured three-part doc explores the many conflicting perspectives on the study—and why we shouldn’t take the received wisdom around it at face value.

Social Studies (FX) and Citizen Nation (PBS)

Shot, chaser: Social Studies, a bracing yet empathetic investigation into the effects of growing up with social media, finds the sociologically insightful Queen of Versailles filmmaker Lauren Greenfield following Los Angeles high schoolers and (with their permission) tracking their online lives. The results are illuminating, if also unnerving. Anyone prone to losing sleep over the fate of Gen Z would do well to seek comfort in Citizen Nation, which profiles impressive, idealistic young people from around the country as they compete in a nationwide civics competition. 

Stax: Soulsville USA (HBO) and Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (PBS)

Each of these brief, lively series turns a sociopolitical lens on a musical movement driven by Black artists and saturated with the spirit of liberation. Start in late-’50s Memphis with Stax, which chronicles the triumphs and tribulations of the label that pioneered Southern soul. Then party on into the ’70s, as Disco explores how race, gender, sexuality, and industry greed collided amid a new form of dance music that had glitter-dusted urbanites queuing behind velvet ropes.

Subtitled standouts

Billionaire Island (Netflix)

Love Island. Temptation Island. FBoy Island. Billionaire Island? Don’t worry, this isn’t some kind of dating show for the .001%. It’s a pithy Norwegian dramedy about rival families who each control a major salmon-farming business—and who happen to live in the same exclusive island community. You can probably imagine why it’s been called “Succession with salmon.”  

Like Water for Chocolate (HBO)

This sumptuous adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s internationally renowned novel of love, longing, and culinary enchantment during the Mexican Revolution feels grander and more emotional—but also more thoughtfully engaged with the politics of its era—than the great 1992 film version. And the news that HBO has just renewed it for a second season means you can watch the first six episodes without fear of an incomplete story. 

La Maison (Apple TV+)

From The New Look to Halston to Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, TV has brought us plenty of disappointing dramatizations of real designers’ biographies in recent years. But if you’re looking for a fashion show that’s actually good, try this French-language series about a (fictional) family-owned Paris couture house that’s plunged into crisis after its patriarch’s racist tirade goes viral. As with Billionaire Island, comparisons to Succession abound, though the tone is more soapy than darkly funny.

Pyramid Game (Paramount+)

Is this ice-cold teen drama about app-enabled bullying at a girls’ high school the best show to come out of South Korea this year? Probably not. But the Heathers-meets-Squid Game saga’s slick stylization, Machiavellian protagonist (Kim Ji-yeon), and some dementedly committed performances from the young cast do make for devilishly enjoyable viewing. 

Where’s Wanda? (Apple TV+)

OK, yes, it’s another missing-teen-girl show. This surprisingly fun German series isn’t trying to be The Killing or Top of the Lake or Under the Bridge, though. A black comedy informed by our global obsession with such stories, it follows a pair of desperate parents who take the investigation of their daughter’s disappearance into their own supremely incompetent hands.

Wonderfully weird

Extraordinary (Hulu)

TV’s best superhero show—and it’s not close—made last year’s version of this list, and it’s back for Season 2 because I still don’t hear enough people talking it up. For those who remain unfamiliar, Extraordinary is set in an alternate-universe London where every person spontaneously develops a superpower at around the age of 18. Sadly, our heroine Jen (Máiréad Tyers, hilarious) remains tragically unenhanced in her mid-20s. While the first season of this raunchy, surreal comedy focused on her struggle to come to terms with her de facto disability, the second homes in on her fledgling relationship with a guy who can shapeshift into a cat.

Fantasmas (HBO)

Critics loved SNL alum, Los Espookys creator, and Problemista filmmaker Julio Torres’ dreamy sketch comedy that casts the creative polymath as, well, a creative polymath hustling to get by in a dreamy, dystopian New York. (Not for nothing did it crack the top half of my own 2024 top 10 list.) But whenever I recommend Fantasmas to someone, they tell me they didn’t even know Torres had a new show on HBO. Now that you know, you can come for the insane list of guest stars and stay for the timely commentary on art in the age of surveillance capitalism. 

The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (Amazon)

The year’s best new entry in the increasingly shoddy “adult animation” category got so little attention, even I almost forgot it existed. Which is a shame, because it’s a real delight. Keke Palmer and Stephanie Hsu give voice to space-alien surgeons and best buds who work at the titular intergalactic facility, operating on all manner of bizarre life forms. The colorful animation and a voice cast that includes everyone from Kieran Culkin and Greta Lee to executive producers Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph make for a perversely fun viewing experience.

The Vince Staples Show (Netflix)

The good news: Netflix has renewed this semi-autobiographical comedy from one of our most consistently fascinating rappers, which plunges down the rabbit hole into an uncanny version of Vince Staples’ Long Beach, Calif. hometown, for a second season. The bad news: The Vince Staples Show has yet to break out the way comparable, hip-hop-adjacent shows like Atlanta and Dave did. (Netflix’s midyear data dump ranked its popularity between an old season of House and an old season of The Rookie.) The best news: You can catch up quickly, seeing as the five-episode first season clocks in at well below the runtime of the average superhero movie.

Singular female leads

Diarra From Detroit (BET+)

People get ghosted every day. Few react to that indignity by scouring the streets in a quest to confront the unfortunate soul who left them hanging. One outlier is Diarra (played by creator Diarra Kilpatrick), the heroine of this comic noir, whose inability to let things go results in a hunt for a date who stood her up that evolves into an investigation of a decades-old crime. From Kilpatrick’s endearing intensity to a supporting cast that includes Phylicia Rashad and Morris Chestnut, Diarra From Detroit is well worth the price of yet another streaming subscription.

Queenie (Hulu)

Candice Carty-Williams’ acclaimed 2019 novel got a richly deserved TV adaptation in this witty and poignant UK dramedy. Rising star Dionne Brown is magnetic as Queenie, a 20-something Jamaican British aspiring writer in London who’s navigating concurrent professional, romantic, and familial crises.

We Are Lady Parts (Peacock)

An excruciating three years after its perfectly punchy first season, Nida Manzoor’s British comedy about an all-female, all-Muslim band returned with six more episodes of intersectional feminism and punk-rock fury. This time, the women of Lady Parts have to face the hazards of increased visibility—including a particularly rude copycat act—while trying to record a debut album for a label that pressures them to write “funny Muslim songs” and stay away from politics.

It’s on what streaming service?

Big Mood (Tubi)

It’s been quite a year for Nicola Coughlan, the Derry Girls alum and Bridgerton breakout who finally took center stage in the latter Regency romance series’ third season. Less widely celebrated—though even easier to access, thanks to the invaluable but oft-derided free streaming service Tubi—was her excellent performance, in this dramedy that originally aired on the UK’s Channel 4, in the challenging role of a bipolar, 30-something playwright who’s convinced she needs to choose between medicated stability and creative inspiration. 

Boarders (Tubi)

Another shrewd British import from Tubi, Boarders follows five talented Black scholarship students recruited to diversify an old-money boarding school in the wake of a scandal. Class- and race-conscious teen dramas aren’t in short supply these days, but this one distinguishes itself by infusing social commentary and coming-of-age tropes with humor and warmth.

The Change (BritBox)

BritBox: It’s not just for cozy mysteries anymore. Also from Channel 4, The Change casts creator Bridget Christie as a menopausal mother who’s so fed up with all the invisible work she does for her family that she revs up her old motorcycle and leaves them in the dust. The sense of freedom this gentle, character-packed comedy conjures is contagious.

The Fortress (Viaplay)

If you can stomach a show built on anxieties about pandemics, isolationism, and the refugee crisis, don’t miss this smart political thriller that comes to the U.S. via Nordic streaming service Viaplay. The series is set in a near-future Norway where, years after closing its borders, scientists discover a lethal bacterium infecting the country’s staple protein, salmon. And yes, thanks for noticing, it is the second Norwegian title on this list that hinges on the fate of the salmon industry.

source https://time.com/7201930/best-tv-shows-2024-overlooked/

In the Philippines, Typhoons Are Making the Christmas Season Less Merry

The Philippines is known for its monthslong Christmas celebrations starting in September. The heavily Catholic country of nearly 120 million people is serious about the festive season. However, this time of year has recently taken a much more somber tone for many Filipino families.

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Estrella Pagarigan had decorated her home with recycled bamboo and plastic bottle parols for the holidays, but in early November, the house where she, her husband, and three children have lived for years was flattened overnight. Typhoon Yinxing, locally known as Marce, had brushed through the northern part of the Southeast Asian country and wreaked havoc in Pagarigan’s province of Cagayan. Their home—which had withstood previous natural disasters—was one of more than a thousand that was razed in the administrative region.

“It was exceptional,” Pagarigan tells TIME of the Category 4-equivalent storm. Christmas certainly won’t be as merry, she said.

Such so-called super typhoons are becoming more and more common for the Philippines, exacerbated by climate change. The country faces an average of 20 tropical cyclones per year, according to the national weather bureau. It is part of the Pacific Typhoon Belt, and has an active typhoon season that normally runs from July to October, when 70% of the year’s typhoons form. But increasingly, the holiday season—which is usually associated with dryer temperatures—is seeing strong typhoons too, like in 2021, when Super Typhoon Rai (a Category-5 equivalent) came in early December and caused nearly $1 billion in damages.

2024 has been relentless: in less than a month between October and November, six tropical cyclones—including Marce—entered the country, affecting millions across the archipelago and causing over $350 million in damages to infrastructure and agriculture. In the wake of the onslaught, the Office of the President urged government workers to avoid lavish holiday gatherings, “adopt austerity in their celebrations,” and encouraged donations to victims. “This call is in solidarity with the millions of our countrymen who continue to grieve over lives, homes, and livelihoods lost during the six typhoons that pummeled us in a span of less than a month,” Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said in a statement. The Department of Education similarly called on schools to scale down Christmas parties.

Climate experts in the country have sounded the alarm about an increase of what some are calling “Christmas typhoons.” According to a 2021 study by Joseph Basconcillo and Il-Ju Moon, the frequency of typhoons in the Philippines during the usually less active season—December to February—increased by 210%, between 2012 and 2020. Basconcillo tells TIME that with the analysis extended to 2022, that figure would rise to 240%. “There’s a false sense of security associated with the less active season,” he says. “Because there’s less frequent tropical cyclones, and, of course, the spirit of celebration.”

The recent increase in Christmas typhoons is not conclusively caused by man-made climate change. Instead, Basconcillo and Moon’s paper links it to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—which, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is “a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability,” like a see-saw of warm and cool phases that alternates approximately every 20 to 30 years.

Gerry Bagtasa, an atmospheric physicist and professor at the University of the Philippines, who has also studied the phenomenon, says that Christmas typhoons in the country will likely become more frequent, but not permanently. “There is an upward trend starting from around 15-20 years [ago], but this may not go on in the next decades,” Bagtasa emailed TIME. Basconcillo says the biggest takeaway should be that better preparedness is needed in the Philippines for typhoons regardless of when they may occur. 

For 31-year-old Paolo Mari—who lives near the Marikina River, an area in the national capital region that is flood-prone every time inclement weather strikes and where evacuations are common—a more cautious mentality has clearly somewhat dampened the local holiday enthusiasm: “We just prepare food. But making decorations and Christmas trees—we don’t put up anything anymore,” he says. “It’s kind of rare in houses here. … It’s impractical to the area, due to flooding and stuff.”

Others, however, see the Christmas spirit persist in the resilience of communities impacted by typhoons. In the province of Albay some 185 mi. southeast of capital Manila, local disaster risk reduction and management officer Ian James Secillano tells TIME that in the recently severely-affected community of Libon (pop. 84,000) many have chosen to carry on with holiday cheer despite the calamity. They’ve simply shifted the focus from fancy parties and ornate displays to relief and outreach operations. “The spirit is still the same,” he says, “but there will just be changes on how resources are coursed through.”

source https://time.com/7203501/philippines-christmas-typhoons-holiday-spirit-seasonal-climate/

I deliver more than 160 packages a day for Amazon. Now I’m on strike

My husband and I work full-time for one of the wealthiest companies in the world. So why can’t we afford to start a family?

For four years, my husband, Andrew, and I have driven delivery vehicles for Amazon throughout Southern California. My job means a lot to me. Rain or shine, I make over 160 stops a day delivering packages in my community, and I’m proud knowing that what I do makes a difference in people’s lives. But for too long, Amazon has taken advantage of me and my co-workers.

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You might think a corporation worth more than $2 trillion would treat its employees better. At Amazon’s facility in the City of Industry, known as DAX5, we earn $22 per hour and I am not paid for my lunch break. I work four days per week, for 10 hours per day, and do not make enough to cover the cost of living in California. 

The vans we drive are dirty and often unsafe. On top of that, we are constantly monitored by cameras inside our vans searching for the smallest infractions—even during our breaks.

But perhaps worst of all, Amazon has attempted to block my co-workers and I from exercising our rights. They do this at my facility and others like it by hiring drivers through supposedly independent companies, referred to as Delivery Service Partners (DSPs), that deliver packages exclusively for Amazon. By doing that, they claim we are not really their employees and that they do not need to bargain with us if we form a union.

And it doesn’t stop there. If you want to be hired by a DSP, you apply for the job through the Amazon website. The routes we drive are determined by Amazon’s algorithms. And Amazon sets our schedules and has the ability to discipline and fire us.

Even though my entire job revolves around Amazon—whether it’s wearing an Amazon uniform or driving and delivering Amazon products—they argue that I’m not really an Amazon worker. 

At DAX5, all of this has made us feel powerless. For Andrew and me, the uncertainty and bad conditions we face at work have forced us to put off starting a family. We simply can’t afford it.

Why Amazon workers are unionizing 

With how much we are up against, it seemed like there was nothing we could do to get ahead in life. But then I heard about other Amazon workers who have been leading a movement to demand their rights by joining the Teamsters Union, and I became inspired to get involved.

After researching the topic more, I learned about the contracts the Teamsters Union has gotten for workers across the country—including at companies like UPS. UPS is worth about 20 times less than Amazon, but the drivers who do the same work as me are paid significantly higher wages on average. Many of their facilities have carwashes and mechanics on site. And because they are Teamsters, they have more job security. Meanwhile, our management can fire us if we look at them funny. Hearing about the Teamsters made me realize that I needed to do something to secure a better future—not just for me and Andrew but also for the family we want to start someday.

Off the clock, we started talking to other DAX5 drivers about what the Teamsters have done for workers at other companies and found out our co-workers share a lot of the same views. In November, after months of having long, hard conversations, a majority of drivers in our facility were in favor of becoming Teamsters, so we launched our union.

Since then, Amazon has refused to recognize us and negotiate a contract. We believe what they are doing is unfair and illegal. Now, workers have had enough. Thousands of Amazon Teamsters across America are taking to the picket line to demand a fair labor agreement. Workers from Amazon facilities in New York, Georgia, Illinois, and California are on strike. And overall, workers are picketing at hundreds of Amazon facilities.

We don’t want to fight with Amazon. All we want is to come to work, do our jobs, and earn enough to live on. But Amazon has left us no other choice. If we don’t act now, Amazon’s corporate greed will spread like a sickness to other companies and make them think they can get away with treating their workers just as poorly. 

The way I see it, we have to fight for our rights—they won’t be given to us for free. At Amazon, we are ready to do whatever it takes to finally get the respect we have earned.

source https://time.com/7203775/why-amazon-drivers-are-on-strike/

What 200 CEOs Told Me About Their Hopes for the Trump Administration

I’ve hosted Yale CEO Summits before– but few have taken place in such fraught circumstances as our most recent 150th Yale CEO Summit this week or with such remarkable results.

The day after Luigi Mangione was indicted for murder, 200 top American CEOs came together, under heavily armed protection, in a bold statement of defiance of the populist fringes, not frightened away or intimidated for standing up for leadership and American character. They gathered at the Ziegfield Ballroom in New York, 32 steps away from where UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was murdered in broad daylight by Mangione.

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Despite warnings from their boards and from their own security teams not to attend public CEO gatherings right now, they came. Not even far-left protesters chanting for their assassination outside our venue could keep these CEOs away, nor could the “wanted” posters or the “playing cards” with their faces on them circulating on social media. 

But even beyond the symbolism of CEOs coming together steps away from where Thompson was murdered, this CEO Summit took place against the backdrop of President-elect Trump’s return to office. Most CEOs of the nation’s largest companies did not support Trump’s candidacy, with only one Fortune 100 CEO having donated to Trump; nevertheless, CEOs rightly understand that the election is over—and that it is time to unify and come together, because it is in the interests of the American public as well as their own shareholders and stakeholders, to help President Trump be as successful as he can be.

Despite criticisms from the far left, CEOs, including those from positions across the ideological spectrum, view it as their patriotic duty to meet with Trump now, engage constructively, and help steer presidential policies in useful directions, especially given their own mixed reaction to some of Trump’s policy proposals. 

In particular, following a spirited discussion with including some who had just met Trump at Mar-a-Lago, 69% of these CEOs surveyed believe that Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to oversee Health & Human Services could pose a threat to public health and the pharmaceutical business, and expressed a desire to help inform the president-elect about how the pharma industry has improved public health and extended the average lifespan of American citizens to record levels. 

At the same time, 56% of CEOs surveyed believe that Trump’s proposed tax cut from 21% to 15% will encourage greater reshoring and domestic manufacturing activity, and 53% of CEOs surveyed expressed support for Trump’s use of tariffs as a bargaining chip. 

Paradoxically, though 53% of CEOs support Trump’s tariff threats, few CEOs are excited about the potential impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs on their own companies. Fifty-five percent of respondents answered that they are worried about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on their own company, compared to only 12% who answered that they are excited about the impact of tariffs on their company, and 34% who were indifferent. But at the same time, CEOs don’t seem to believe Trump will actually follow through on all his tariffs threats, as 64% of CEOs responded that they are not shifting supply chains yet in anticipation of any potential tariffs.

We were surprised by the number of issues which the group generally agreed on and the spirit of constructive candor and engagement embodied by the group and near-unanimous optimism for moving forward. Virtually all participants agreed on the continuing strength of the American economy, one of the best economies anyone has seen in their lifetimes—with 77% of CEOs answering that they believe America’s best days are ahead of us. They also agreed that the CEOs visiting Mar-a-Lago are being responsible in pursuing the best interests of not only their own shareholders and the nation at large.

CEOs largely did the same in 2016: though many did not support Trump in that campaign either, they were eager to help him, and the nation, as the incoming president. Many participants expressed the hope that Trump does not relapse into the divide-and-conquer bullying that drove business leaders away. The genuine leadership modeled by these CEOs, and the spirit of constructive, collaborative engagement across divisions captured at our recent Yale CEO Summit, reflects why American business leaders are still some of the most admired leaders across American society, no matter what extremist fringes may say. At a time when business leaders are increasingly under attack, CEOs, and American capitalism provide a compass of centrist, reasonable, genuine leadership, which ought to be a source of celebration and inspiration. 

source https://time.com/7203755/trump-administration-ceo-hopes/