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Posted: 11 Aug 2016 02:32 PM PDT
Strong gains by energy companies and retailers helped nudge each of the major U.S. stocks indexes to a record high close Thursday, erasing mild losses from the day before. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq composite had previously hit new highs last Friday. The Nasdaq also notched a record close on Tuesday. Investors welcomed some better-than-expected quarterly results from Macy’s and Kohl’s, which spurred gains for several other big retail chains. Energy stocks led the rally, getting a boost from a surge in oil prices. An industry report released Thursday projected a more even balance in the supply and demand for oil this year. “It’s been such an oversupplied market for a long period of time, to get that supply-demand closer to being in balance, or to be in balance, is a huge driver,” said David Chalupnik, head of equities for Nuveen Asset Management. “That should at least support the commodity price.” The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 117.86 points, or 0.6 percent, to 18,613.52. The average is now up about 0.1 percent from its last record set July 20. The S&P 500 index added 10.30 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,185.79. That’s a gain of 0.13 percent from its previous high last Friday. The Nasdaq composite index gained 23.81 points, or 0.5 percent, to 5,228.40. It edged up 0.1 percent from its previous high. The latest market milestones reflect investors’ improved confidence in the U.S. economy of late. Strong job growth, more stable oil prices and a crop of better-than-expected company earnings have helped lift stocks in recent weeks. Still, overall earnings for companies in the S&P 500 are expected to be down 2.2 percent for the second quarter, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. “We’re still looking at negative earnings growth, albeit improved, and negative revenue growth,” said Tim Dreiling, regional investment director for U.S. Bank’s Private Client Reserve. “In order for stocks to continue to make new highs and continue to grind higher, we’re going to need to see some improvement in revenues and see some improvement in earnings in the second half of 2016.” The major stock indexes got off to a strong start early Thursday, bouncing back from slight losses a day earlier. Traders bid up oil prices in response to the International Energy Agency’s latest forecast. The agency said it expects that supply and demand for oil will be more in balance the rest of this year. It also projected that global oil demand won’t grow as much as it previously expected next year, citing a weaker global economy. Benchmark U.S. crude rose $1.78, or 4.3 percent, to close at $43.49 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained $1.99, or 4.3 percent, to close at $46.04 in London. Several oil and gas companies got a boost from the rise in crude prices. Devon Energy added $1.74, or 4.4 percent, to $41.31, while Chesapeake Energy rose 23 cents, or 4.8 percent, to $5.03. Retailers also posted strong gains after Macy’s and Kohl’s reported quarterly results that beat Wall Street’s expectations despite continued competition from online outlets like Amazon.com. Macy’s also said it plans to close about 100 stores next year as it tries to become more nimble in a competitive market. Macy’s rose $5.81, or 17.1 percent, to $39.81, while Kohl’s jumped $6.15, or 16.2 percent, to $44.19. Investors also bought up shares in several other retail chains. Nordtsrom gained $3.33, or 7.5 percent, to $47.56, while J.C. Penney rose 79 cents, or 8.6 percent, to $9.94. The chain is scheduled to release earnings early Friday. The retailers’ earnings fueled optimism for the government’s latest monthly tally of retail sales Friday. Not all companies had favorable quarterly results. Hamburger chain Shake Shack slumped 6.2 percent after it said sales at older locations slowed down in the latest quarter. The stock shed $2.53 to $38.34. The major stock indexes in Europe closed higher. Germany’s DAX gained 0.9 percent, while France’s CAC 40 added 1.2 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.7 percent. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 0.4 percent higher, while China’s Shanghai Composite slipped 0.5 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI edged up 0.2 percent. Japan’s stock exchange was closed for a holiday. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline added 6 cents to $1.36 a gallon, while heating oil rose 6 cents to $1.38 a gallon. Natural gas fell a penny to $2.55 per 1,000 cubic feet. In metals trading, the price of gold slipped $1.80, or 0.1 percent, to $1,342.50 an ounce. Silver lost 15 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $20.02 an ounce. Copper gained 2 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $2.19 a pound. Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.56 percent from 1.50 late Wednesday. In currency markets, the dollar strengthened to 101.93 yen from 101.29 on Wednesday. The euro weakened to $1.1141 from $1.1175. |
Friday, August 12, 2016
All Three U.S. Stock Indexes Close At Record Highs - TIME Business
How ‘Pokémon Go’ Took Over the World - TIME Business
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Posted: 11 Jul 2016 07:55 AM PDT
I was getting ready for the week ahead Sunday night when I got a text from my mom: “How do I play the new Pokémon game?” As true a sign as there is of a phenomenon. Pokémon Go is a smartphone game that blends the real and digital worlds, tasking players with exploring their neighborhoods to find creatures and treasure for in-game use. Just days after being released in the U.S., Go is seemingly everywhere. Walking around New York this weekend felt like being in an episode of Black Mirror. People were wandering around with their heads in their phones—more than usual—and every once in a while, they would stop and exclaim, “There’s a Geodude nearby!” or some such. The hunt is on. Go‘s popularity extends well beyond this city. A rapidly increasing number of YouTube videos show players worldwide going for drives around their neighborhoods (they will brake for Pokémon). As of Monday morning, Go is the top free app in Apple’s iTunes Store. Its international rollout has been paused as its developer struggles to deal with the intense server demand. While the game was developed by Google spinoff Niantic, Nintendo investors are celebrating the company’s involvement regardless, sending its stock up over 20% as they cheer a rare success in smartphone gaming. (Nintendo is a part owner of both Niantic and Pokémon’s license owner.) What explains Pokémon Go‘s seemingly inexplicable popularity? Go offers an interesting twist over most games in that players must set off and move around their physical world. (Blog Gizmodo’s recent headline nailed it: ‘Sore Legs Become Pandemic As Pokémon Go Players Accidentally Get Exercise.’) But beyond that, Go is almost boringly simple: Once you encounter a Pokémon in the wild, Go switches into “capture mode,” where users flick Pokeballs at the creature until they nab it. It gets more interesting a few hours in when players are able to lay claims to Pokegyms, digital representations of real-life landmarks where creatures can battle one another for supremacy. The Pokémon skin is going a long way towards fueling this fire. Millennials around my age—27—feel considerable nostalgia for Pokémon, which had its heyday while we were middle schoolers. Younger kids, meanwhile, are still discovering (and loving, it seems) the franchise for the first time. It remains the second-best selling game series ever, behind Mario’s many iterations and Tetris. Had this been anything other than a Pokémon game, there’s little chance it would’ve caught fire the way it has. (Indeed, Niantic’s previous and similar game, Ingress, has a dedicated but relatively small player community of amateur cartographers.) It’s also possible that because Go forces players outside, they’re more visible than people enjoying the latest Call of Duty or Madden title. By plan or by coincidence, Go‘s release was well-timed. The summer months offer the best weather for getting out of the house and exploring on foot. School, meanwhile, is out, giving younger kids plenty of free time. The game also happened to launch at the end of a particularly brutal week in the U.S., offering a palliative diversion. (Go, it should be said, is also generating some unfortunate news stories, ranging from near-miss car accidents and alleged robberies fueled by in-game items used to lure victims.) Long story short, 2016 is shaping up to be the Summer of Pokémon. |
Why Trump and Clinton Need to Join the Conversation on Retirement Security - TIME
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Posted: 09 Aug 2016 10:48 AM PDT
This presidential election cycle, perhaps the closest watched in history, has lacked any meaningful discussion of the pressing issues related to longevity and retirement. That’s a shame because issues that candidates choose to talk about can move the needle on public awareness, which is a step toward action. Look no further than Donald Trump’s rants on immigration and the threat of terrorism. He has commanded a lot of attention being outspoken on these issues, now widely seen as among the nation’s most urgent concerns. Almost half of Americans name the threat of terrorism as our biggest problem and nearly a quarter cite immigration, according to a Personal Capital survey. Imagine if the candidates harped on the savings and retirement crisis. Even though 20% of Americans have no retirement savings, only 8% list retirement security as a top concern, the survey found. The Government Accountability Office has found that about half of all households near retirement age have zero retirement savings and no pension other than Social Security. So where is this conversation among our would-be leaders? The public is more than ready. Some 68% of American workers complained last fall that presidential hopefuls were not talking enough about retirement issues, according to a poll from the Financial Services Roundtable. In a major speech on the economy this week, Republican nominee Trump didn’t utter a single word about retirement, longevity or aging. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming speech on the economy isn’t likely to raise the issue either. Her website talks about retirement almost exclusively in terms of Social Security, which she vows to expand by raising taxes on the wealthy. This at least acknowledges the savings crisis. But it also suggests a woeful misunderstanding of how to fix it. Read next: How Would Social Security Fare Under Trump or Clinton? As a nation, we need a broad discussion of long-term solutions that includes financial education in schools and the workplace, more effective savings programs like those working so well in Australia and New Zealand, and how individuals might seamlessly and inexpensively convert 401(k) and IRA savings into guaranteed lifetime income. We also need to be discussing what it means to grow old in this age of longer lives, and recognize that many of today’s 65-year-olds still have a long runway. We can be engaged and productive longer, not a drain on the nation’s resources. “Now is exactly the time for all of us committed to shaping a healthy, secure and purposeful future for older adults to speak out and elevate aging and longevity to a central position in the cultural and political landscape,” says Ken Dychtwald, CEO of Age Wave, which studies the issues of baby boomers. McKinsey calls aging one of four global megatrends reshaping society. That calls for a bigger response than merely tweaking Social Security. Our next president should be leading this conversation. |
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Why It Matters That Facebook Is Taking on Ad Blockers - TIME
Posted: 09 Aug 2016 08:32 AM PDT
Facebook has a message for the roughly 200 million people who use ad-blocking software around the world: Your plugin’s no good here.
The social network will now show advertising to desktop users who have installed software meant to block those ads, it announced Tuesday. The Menlo Park, Calif. firm is also rolling out new ways for users to control the kinds of ads they see. “Some ad blocking companies accept money in exchange for showing ads that they previously blocked, a practice that is at best confusing to people and that reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web,” reads a blog post from Facebook FB Andrew Bosworth. “Facebook is one of those free services, and ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected.”
With Tuesday’s move, Facebook is wading into a heated debate over how Internet companies make money. On one side are services and publishers who rely on advertising revenue to fund their operations, Facebook (and TIME) included. On the other are users who fundamentally dislike advertising, or want to cloak themselves from software served up alongside ads that can track users’ movements across the web. Further complicating matters are the ad-blocking firms themselves, some of which seek to extract payments from publishers to allow their ads to bypass the blockers, a business model some critics view as extortion.
Facebook coming down against ad blockers puts it firmly in league with online publishers, with whom it has a tricky relationship. The social network relies on content from publishers to give users something to see when they visit the site. (It has recently started paying publishers and celebrities to produce content, including TIME parent Time Inc.). In turn, publishers have come to rely on a steady stream of traffic from Facebook to meet their goals. But that traffic is unpredictable—indeed, recent changes in the way Facebook prioritizes content have adversely affected some publishers while benefitting others.
Tuesday’s move could reasonably be seen as a way for Facebook to say to publishers, “we’re on your side here.” (Another way to look at it: This is Facebook telling publishers that it alone has the power to fight the rising use of ad-blockers, so working with Facebook is in their best interest.)
On a practical level, Facebook’s changes could have a muted effect. They will only impact people who visit the social network on a desktop computer, an increasingly rare group—over half of the company’s 1.71 billion monthly users now visit the site exclusively on mobile devices. Still, that the $362 billion firm is publicly taking a side one way or the other stands to have a big impact on the online ad debate moving forward.
US Nazi leader says Trump presidency is " real opportunity " - Independent
The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of white voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party.
But Rocky Suhayda thinks there is one political figure who presents a “real opportunity” to lessen the load.
Who is it? Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president.
“Now, if Trump does win, okay, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that, and to go and start — you know how you have the black political caucus and what not in Congress and everything — to start building on something like that,” Mr Suhayda declared on his radio program last month.
“It doesn’t have to be anti-, like the movement’s been for decades, so much as it has to be pro-white,” he added. “You know what I’m saying? It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots if we don’t go around and act like a bigot. That’s what the movement should contemplate. All right.”
Audio from the radio program was posted by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, who noted that Suhayda has in the past avoided making statements about Mr Trump out of concern that he might harm the businessman’s candidacy. Yet, Mr Kaczynski reported, in an American Nazi Party report from September, the chairman argued that Mr Trump’s rhetoric revealed the secret popularity of the party’s messages.
“We have a wonderful OPPORTUNITY here folks, that may never come again, at the RIGHT time,” Mr Suhayda wrote, according to BuzzFeed. “Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that ‘our views’ are NOT so ‘unpopular’ as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!”
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Apple’s Laptops Are Getting Big Upgrades - Fortune
Posted: 08 Aug 2016 10:33 AM PDT
It’s been awhile since Apple’s MacBook Pros had sizable makeovers, but that could change this year.
Apple will soon offer all-new MacBook Pros that will come both with a Touch ID sensor for fingerprint security support, as well as an organic light-emitted diode (OLED) “touchbar” that will sit above the device’s keyboard, Apple-tracking site 9to5Mac is reporting, citing a source who claims to have knowledge of the company’s plans. The OLED touch bar would be a display strip above the keyboard, which would provide users quick access to a wide variety of functions and notifications, depending on user preference.
The source didn’t say where the Touch ID would be located, but 9to5Mac suggests it could find a suitable home on the device’s power button.
Rumors have been swirling for months that Apple is planning to revamp its MacBook Pro, its top-of-the-line notebook family. While the company itself has remained silent on its plans, earlier this year, two separate reports cited sources claiming an OLED-based touch bar would indeed be coming to the new MacBook Pro. One of those reports came from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo,who has been spot-on with Apple rumors in the past.
Adding Touch ID wouldn’t be a major step forward for the MacBook Pro. Indeed, it would be a catch-up feature. Several Windows PC makers, including Lenovo and others, have long offered biometric security in their devices, allowing users to swipe their fingers over a biometric fingerprint reader rather than input a passcode. The feature has been a conspicuous omission from Apple’s notebooks for years, and Touch ID, a technology it currently uses in its iPhone and iPads, could address that issue.
However, Touch ID could be used for far more than unlocking a MacBook Pro. The feature could also be used to make purchases in the Mac App Store or verify a desktop-based purchase from online stores. Indeed, the Touch ID experience on the Mac could be strikingly similar to the one iPhone and iPad customers have.
The addition of a touch bar and Touch ID on a MacBook Pro would be one of the more notable improvements Apple has made to its high-end notebook line in years. The company’s MacBook Pro has largely featured the same, aluminum design with a black keyboard and small bezel around its display. In recent years, Apple has simply improved its internal components to add more power and help it keep pace with competitors.
Exactly when the new and improved MacBook Pro might launch is unknown. Earlier this year, Kuo said that the device would likely be available in the fourth quarter. The 9to5Mac report says the computer will launch this fall, though it didn’t say exactly when. It’s unknown whether the new features will also mean a price premium.
Given Apple’s notoriously secretive ways, it’s unlikely we’ll know for sure what it has planned until the Mac maker officially announces the computer.
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
How will Trump's wall affect Mexicans ? - CNN
Francisco Villa, Michoacan (CNN)The call of a rooster is drowned out by the sounds of construction crews paid for by American dollars, reminding Martha and Artemio Mendoza of just how much their lives in Mexico depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.
They don't speak English but they understand two words: Donald Trump.
"Life would be very tough," says Martha about a possible Trump presidency. "We would be poorer than we are now."
Martha and Artemio are both 63 years old, they have no pension, and live off of $150 to $200 a month sent by their son Juan, who is an undocumented immigrant living in Chicago. They are terrified of Trump's campaign promise to stop money transfers sent south of the border by undocumented immigrants, unless Mexico pays $5 to $10 billion to build a border wall.
"It's not right," Martha tells CNN, as she cooks breakfast corn tortillas from scratch in her outside kitchen.
She stretches every dollar, cooking in a simple open-air kitchen. It has no complete walls. A bird song carries through the open corrugated metal roof that rests on an exposed brick fence and a pair of two-by-fours. In the center sits a weathered blue table she uses to prepare food and a metal barrel converted into a firewood stove.
"If I cook on a gas stove I spend too much money," Martha says as she flips tortillas on the makeshift griddle atop the firewood stove.
It would cost an extra 30 cents a day to use gas to cook a local staple of tortillas and beans. While that may be pocket change to many, it isn't for Martha and nearly 90 percent of her 2,300 neighbors in Francisco Villa. They pay for the basics, like food, water and electricity, with the slow trickle of American cash they receive from their migrant relatives living and working in the U.S., according to village leaders.
Last year alone, nearly $25 billion were sent from the U.S. to Mexico, on average in amounts of $300, according to the Mexican Central Bank.
If the current trend continues, transfers could exceed $25 billion in 2016. This year, 40 percent of that money is going to families in the Mexican states of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Mexico state and Puebla through electronic money transfers, according to Mexican Central Bank records.
Juan says his heart and soul wept when he asked his mother for a goodbye blessing. He was 19-years-old when he left with his wife and 9-month-old daughter on the perilous journey to enter the U.S. illegally. He fought back tears, he says. The pain of leaving his family paralyzed him; he could barely speak. But Juan promised his parents they would never go hungry. He vowed to send them American dollars.
It is a promise Juan has kept for 21 years, even in the 1990s when he only earned $250 a week. But if Donald Trump prevails in November and delivers on his promise to cut off money transfers from the U.S. to Mexico, Juan fears he might be forced to break his commitment at a time when his elderly mother suffers from hypertension and asthma, he says. And Juan says his father's spinal cord injury and diabetes impede him from working outside the home.
"Not only would they suffer a lot they would die earlier than they should," Juan tells CNN.
The raw emotion takes over Juan, as he explains he feels trapped between two borders. He is the breadwinner for his parents, and while he yearns to reunite with them to deliver the money in person, he knows the risk of re-entering the U.S. illegally.
Juan asked CNN to change his name because he fears losing his job and all he has worked for since arriving in Chicago. He has a lot to lose. Illinois is one of a dozen states that offer driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. After going to a driver's education course Juan obtained one, allowing him to open a bank account and get a mortgage. Juan is haunted by the fear of deportation, even though he's as close to reaching the American dream as anyone else he knows.
"I suffer a lot," Juan says. "It's been so many years now, it's like carrying a heavy rock on me."
While Donald Trump has publicly threatened to stop money transfers from undocumented immigrants from the U.S. to Mexico to force them to pay for the border wall, his website goes more in depth, offering a step-by-step plan.
On day one, Trump will use the Patriot Act to require legal identification for money transfer transactions, according to his website. After a few days, Mexico will protest against these measures and Trump will roll out trade tariffs, visa cancellations and visa fee increases, Trump proclaims on his site.
Francisco Villa, Michoacan (CNN)The call of a rooster is drowned out by the sounds of construction crews paid for by American dollars, reminding Martha and Artemio Mendoza of just how much their lives in Mexico depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.
She stretches every dollar, cooking in a simple open-air kitchen. It has no complete walls. A bird song carries through the open corrugated metal roof that rests on an exposed brick fence and a pair of two-by-fours. In the center sits a weathered blue table she uses to prepare food and a metal barrel converted into a firewood stove.
"If I cook on a gas stove I spend too much money," Martha says as she flips tortillas on the makeshift griddle atop the firewood stove.
It would cost an extra 30 cents a day to use gas to cook a local staple of tortillas and beans. While that may be pocket change to many, it isn't for Martha and nearly 90 percent of her 2,300 neighbors in Francisco Villa. They pay for the basics, like food, water and electricity, with the slow trickle of American cash they receive from their migrant relatives living and working in the U.S., according to village leaders.
Last year alone, nearly $25 billion were sent from the U.S. to Mexico, on average in amounts of $300, according to the Mexican Central Bank.
If the current trend continues, transfers could exceed $25 billion in 2016. This year, 40 percent of that money is going to families in the Mexican states of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Mexico state and Puebla through electronic money transfers, according to Mexican Central Bank records.
Juan says his heart and soul wept when he asked his mother for a goodbye blessing. He was 19-years-old when he left with his wife and 9-month-old daughter on the perilous journey to enter the U.S. illegally. He fought back tears, he says. The pain of leaving his family paralyzed him; he could barely speak. But Juan promised his parents they would never go hungry. He vowed to send them American dollars.
It is a promise Juan has kept for 21 years, even in the 1990s when he only earned $250 a week. But if Donald Trump prevails in November and delivers on his promise to cut off money transfers from the U.S. to Mexico, Juan fears he might be forced to break his commitment at a time when his elderly mother suffers from hypertension and asthma, he says. And Juan says his father's spinal cord injury and diabetes impede him from working outside the home.
"Not only would they suffer a lot they would die earlier than they should," Juan tells CNN.
The raw emotion takes over Juan, as he explains he feels trapped between two borders. He is the breadwinner for his parents, and while he yearns to reunite with them to deliver the money in person, he knows the risk of re-entering the U.S. illegally.
Juan asked CNN to change his name because he fears losing his job and all he has worked for since arriving in Chicago. He has a lot to lose. Illinois is one of a dozen states that offer driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. After going to a driver's education course Juan obtained one, allowing him to open a bank account and get a mortgage. Juan is haunted by the fear of deportation, even though he's as close to reaching the American dream as anyone else he knows.
"I suffer a lot," Juan says. "It's been so many years now, it's like carrying a heavy rock on me."
While Donald Trump has publicly threatened to stop money transfers from undocumented immigrants from the U.S. to Mexico to force them to pay for the border wall, his website goes more in depth, offering a step-by-step plan.
On day one, Trump will use the Patriot Act to require legal identification for money transfer transactions, according to his website. After a few days, Mexico will protest against these measures and Trump will roll out trade tariffs, visa cancellations and visa fee increases, Trump proclaims on his site.
"Even a small increase in visa fees would pay for the wall. This includes fees on border crossing cards, of which more than 1 million are issued a year," Trump says on the website.
CNN legal analyst Paul Callan says Trump's plan could face multiple legal battles.
"The Mexican immigrants Trump seeks to target are clearly not the 'Radical Islamic Terrorists' that the Patriot Act was designed to fight," says Callan. "The courts are likely to view Mr. Trump's use of the always controversial Patriot Act as improper and illegal use. The proposal may also fail to place pressure on the Mexican government as money can be smuggled back to Mexico in many other creative ways if wire transfers are cut."
Trump's threats have Francisco Villa town leader, Jaime Leon, worried about the future of his small village.
"Francisco Villa, without money transfers [from the US], will drown" he says. "It will downward spiral."
American dollars are reflected on just about every corner of this small town. Leon takes CNN on a tour, pointing at every public and private project touched by dollars earned by migrants working in the U.S.
He starts with the paved roads we are driving on, the corrugated metal roofs at the elementary school, the park, the community college, the church and the public water system.
Then the pavement ends. That is where the migrant money has gone dry. The road paving project is still ongoing.
The final stop is a few minutes' drive past the populated village, where a dirt road ends with giant white greenhouses. Leon says migrants in the U.S. have allocated money specifically for the greenhouse project, which employs 14 people who grow and pick tomatoes.
More than $70,000 invested," Leon says.The Mexican government also encourages migrants to invest money in Francisco Villa, by matching every dollar on public projects three-to-one.
Another 35 jobs are generated in town by migrants who sent money back to relatives to build new homes and then maintain them, Leon says. New construction is sprinkled throughout town.
When Juan left Francisco Villa 21 years ago, the homes were made of basic materials like adobe, exposed cinderblock, with outside laundry rooms and kitchens. Today, those homes are shadowed by the modern two-story structures that many families have been saving for years, if not decades, to afford.
One of those homes is owned by Alfredo Gamez. He is living in the U.S. legally and sends between $1,000 and $1,500 monthly to his aging parents, his college-aged son and a guard he employs to look over his second home in his native Francisco Villa. Gamez says he entered the U.S. illegally in the 1980s and started off making $100 dollars a week.
"I had to use those $100 to pay rent and to buy food. It was so difficult that in some cases we had to eat as little as possible," Gamez told CNN.
His desperate situation was brief. After working several jobs he obtained legal status through an amnesty program and eventually started his own lawn care business. Gamez has seen, as well as lived and breathed the cycle of immigration. That's why he believes Trump's plan to freeze money transfers will backfire.
"It would lead to illegal immigration," Gamez tells CNN.
The estimated 50 jobs created through money transfers in Francisco Villa will end, he says, if Trump takes the White House. And the people holding those jobs will head towards the U.S. to meet their basic needs, Gamez says.
"Many people will go desperate or hungry and will want to help feed their families. They will head [to the US]," Gamez told CNN. "Trump talks about building a border wall; but nothing will stop people when they are hungry and when they are in need."
Juan's father Artemio fears hopelessness will lead to lawlessness in Francisco Villa.
"Crime would go up because everyone here receives money from across the border," Artemio tells CNN. "What are they going to do? Well, they are going to start robbing."
ndustry stakeholders and money transmitters told the GAO that even a limit imposed on wire transfers "would likely drive transactions underground" and "resort to alternative methods of laundering proceeds."
CNN reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on this piece, specifically the potential impact of ending money transfers and the effect on illegal immigration. His campaign did not address the money transfers, but maintained its position that building a wall was the right solution.
"Building a border wall, ending illegal immigration and enforcing U.S. laws will reduce poverty, defund the cartels and increase wages, prosperity and safety on both sides of the U.S. border," Trump senior policy advisor Stephen Miller told CNN. "Hillary Clinton's policy will empower cartels and endanger workers in Mexico and the United States."
As the sun sets over Francisco Villa, the rolling hills surrounding the small village begin to disappear into the darkness.
Juan has only seen pictures of the current landscape, including the two-story house his parents built for him with the extra money he has sent for more than two decades. He's only seen pictures of all of the paved roads, the new benches in the town square that bear his name, the tomato greenhouses and so many other projects he has chipped in to build.
"They are here in the different community projects we have done. A piece of their heart is here," Leon, the town leader says about Juan and others like him who are in the U.S. illegally. "We yearn their return because they are a very important part of the transformation of Francisco Villa."
With Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, Juan says his road ahead is forked. While he has worked, cried and fought to make something of himself in the U.S., if Trump becomes president, he says he might leave it all behind. He contemplates whether he would leave his job, sell his Chicago home and head to Canada or Mexico to reunite with his parents in Francisco Villa, the only place, he says, he would be welcomed.
"It's so tough; but I pray to God that he can return one day," says Juan's mother Martha as she wipes tears from her face.
His father Artemio also breaks down crying, saying he fears dying alone from diabetes while his son is in Chicago, without a way to visit his grave.
"It brings me so much pain, mostly because of my sickness," Artemio says. "I can die at any moment. If my sugar levels rise too quickly, that's it."
"Even a small increase in visa fees would pay for the wall. This includes fees on border crossing cards, of which more than 1 million are issued a year," Trump says on the website.
CNN legal analyst Paul Callan says Trump's plan could face multiple legal battles.
"The Mexican immigrants Trump seeks to target are clearly not the 'Radical Islamic Terrorists' that the Patriot Act was designed to fight," says Callan. "The courts are likely to view Mr. Trump's use of the always controversial Patriot Act as improper and illegal use. The proposal may also fail to place pressure on the Mexican government as money can be smuggled back to Mexico in many other creative ways if wire transfers are cut."
Trump's threats have Francisco Villa town leader, Jaime Leon, worried about the future of his small village.
"Francisco Villa, without money transfers [from the US], will drown" he says. "It will downward spiral."
American dollars are reflected on just about every corner of this small town. Leon takes CNN on a tour, pointing at every public and private project touched by dollars earned by migrants working in the U.S.
He starts with the paved roads we are driving on, the corrugated metal roofs at the elementary school, the park, the community college, the church and the public water system.
Then the pavement ends. That is where the migrant money has gone dry. The road paving project is still ongoing.
The final stop is a few minutes' drive past the populated village, where a dirt road ends with giant white greenhouses. Leon says migrants in the U.S. have allocated money specifically for the greenhouse project, which employs 14 people who grow and pick tomatoes.
More than $70,000 invested," Leon says.The Mexican government also encourages migrants to invest money in Francisco Villa, by matching every dollar on public projects three-to-one.
Another 35 jobs are generated in town by migrants who sent money back to relatives to build new homes and then maintain them, Leon says. New construction is sprinkled throughout town.
When Juan left Francisco Villa 21 years ago, the homes were made of basic materials like adobe, exposed cinderblock, with outside laundry rooms and kitchens. Today, those homes are shadowed by the modern two-story structures that many families have been saving for years, if not decades, to afford.
One of those homes is owned by Alfredo Gamez. He is living in the U.S. legally and sends between $1,000 and $1,500 monthly to his aging parents, his college-aged son and a guard he employs to look over his second home in his native Francisco Villa. Gamez says he entered the U.S. illegally in the 1980s and started off making $100 dollars a week.
"I had to use those $100 to pay rent and to buy food. It was so difficult that in some cases we had to eat as little as possible," Gamez told CNN.
His desperate situation was brief. After working several jobs he obtained legal status through an amnesty program and eventually started his own lawn care business. Gamez has seen, as well as lived and breathed the cycle of immigration. That's why he believes Trump's plan to freeze money transfers will backfire.
"It would lead to illegal immigration," Gamez tells CNN.
The estimated 50 jobs created through money transfers in Francisco Villa will end, he says, if Trump takes the White House. And the people holding those jobs will head towards the U.S. to meet their basic needs, Gamez says.
"Many people will go desperate or hungry and will want to help feed their families. They will head [to the US]," Gamez told CNN. "Trump talks about building a border wall; but nothing will stop people when they are hungry and when they are in need."
Juan's father Artemio fears hopelessness will lead to lawlessness in Francisco Villa.
"Crime would go up because everyone here receives money from across the border," Artemio tells CNN. "What are they going to do? Well, they are going to start robbing."
ndustry stakeholders and money transmitters told the GAO that even a limit imposed on wire transfers "would likely drive transactions underground" and "resort to alternative methods of laundering proceeds."
CNN reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on this piece, specifically the potential impact of ending money transfers and the effect on illegal immigration. His campaign did not address the money transfers, but maintained its position that building a wall was the right solution.
"Building a border wall, ending illegal immigration and enforcing U.S. laws will reduce poverty, defund the cartels and increase wages, prosperity and safety on both sides of the U.S. border," Trump senior policy advisor Stephen Miller told CNN. "Hillary Clinton's policy will empower cartels and endanger workers in Mexico and the United States."
As the sun sets over Francisco Villa, the rolling hills surrounding the small village begin to disappear into the darkness.
Juan has only seen pictures of the current landscape, including the two-story house his parents built for him with the extra money he has sent for more than two decades. He's only seen pictures of all of the paved roads, the new benches in the town square that bear his name, the tomato greenhouses and so many other projects he has chipped in to build.
"They are here in the different community projects we have done. A piece of their heart is here," Leon, the town leader says about Juan and others like him who are in the U.S. illegally. "We yearn their return because they are a very important part of the transformation of Francisco Villa."
With Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, Juan says his road ahead is forked. While he has worked, cried and fought to make something of himself in the U.S., if Trump becomes president, he says he might leave it all behind. He contemplates whether he would leave his job, sell his Chicago home and head to Canada or Mexico to reunite with his parents in Francisco Villa, the only place, he says, he would be welcomed.
"It's so tough; but I pray to God that he can return one day," says Juan's mother Martha as she wipes tears from her face.
His father Artemio also breaks down crying, saying he fears dying alone from diabetes while his son is in Chicago, without a way to visit his grave.
"It brings me so much pain, mostly because of my sickness," Artemio says. "I can die at any moment. If my sugar levels rise too quickly, that's it."
Monday, August 8, 2016
JetBlue’s Cuba Flights Launch August 31, Starting at Just $99 - TIME Business
Posted: 29 Jul 2016 07:40 AM PDT
This week JetBlue announced that it will begin regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba on Wednesday, August 31, with fares starting at just $99 each way.
The total cost of a round trip could be as low as $204, with all mandatory taxes and fees included. Availability at such a cheap fare is limited, but we did a search of the route this morning and indeed were able to find a flight departing on August 31 and returning one week later for a grand total of $204. It’s “the lowest Cuba fare announced so far by a commercial airline,” the Miami Herald reported.
JetBlue’s first route to Cuba will connect Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport (about an hour north of Miami) to Santa Clara–Abel Santamaría airport (about three hours east of Havana). The airline will fly this route every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as of August 31, and will launch daily service on October 1. Two other routes are planned for launch with daily service in November, to Camagüey – Ignacio Agramonte Airport and Holguín – Frank País Airport, both from Fort Lauderdale.
When JetBlue’s service between the U.S. and Cuba commences, it will be the first time in decades that regularly scheduled commercial flights connect the two nations. In early 2015, the U.S. government announced the loosening up of travel restrictions for Americans visiting Cuba, and U.S.-based airlines rushed to apply for routes when the option became available earlier this year.
Flying to Cuba, typically accomplished via special charters, has been extraordinarily expensive—easily $400 and more typically $700, for flights that lasts as little as an hour. The advent of commercial flights to Cuba has been expected to make the cost of flying to the island nation much, much cheaper. JetBlue’s $99 one-way fares are special promotional rates, and most flights will wind up costing more. But it looks like it should be much easier for travelers to pay far less to fly to Cuba compared to the past.
By introducing Cuba flights on August 31, JetBlue will sneak in just before its rivals reach the market. Silver Airways will launch flights from Fort Lauderdale to Santa Clara starting September 1, while American Airlines kicks off service from Miami to five destinations in Cuba during the first and second weeks of September.
Has Melania Trump got an immigration problem ? - CNN
(CNN)When the New York Post published several nude photos of Melania Trump this week, it wasn't just her body that was exposed -- the shots also revealed a potential discrepancy in her immigration history.
According to Melania Trump, the story of her American arrival is quite simple: "I came to the United States, to New York, in 1996," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper on February 29, 2016.
But Melania posed for those photos, which appeared in the French magazine Max, during a shoot in New York City in 1995 when she was 25 and known as "Melania K," according to Bojan Pozar, the author of the biography "Melania Trump: The Inside Story."
That year is possibly the key to whether or not Melania, now 46, broke immigration law by working in the US without the proper visa.
Melania, who is from Slovenia, has said she came to the United States "the right way," on a visa.
Melania Trump on February 29, 2016 01:49
"I flew to Slovenia every few months to stamp it. And came back, I applied for green card, and after a few years for citizenship," she told Anderson Cooper. "I obeyed the law. I did it the right way. I didn't just sneak in and stay here. So I think that's what people should do."
If this is accurate, Melania's visa would have been the type that had to be updated periodically, such as a tourist visa. However, this kind of visa doesn't allow for someone to work in the United States, according to New York immigration attorney David Gottfried.
The question is whether Melania was employed as a model before she was issued the H-1B visa, which allows people to work in the country for up to three years, with possible extensions up to six years. With this kind of visa, Melania wouldn't have had to return to Slovenia for updated stamps.
"I flew to Slovenia every few months to stamp it. And came back, I applied for green card, and after a few years for citizenship," she told Anderson Cooper. "I obeyed the law. I did it the right way. I didn't just sneak in and stay here. So I think that's what people should do."
If this is accurate, Melania's visa would have been the type that had to be updated periodically, such as a tourist visa. However, this kind of visa doesn't allow for someone to work in the United States, according to New York immigration attorney David Gottfried.
The question is whether Melania was employed as a model before she was issued the H-1B visa, which allows people to work in the country for up to three years, with possible extensions up to six years. With this kind of visa, Melania wouldn't have had to return to Slovenia for updated stamps.
The man who discovered Melania, Paolo Zampolli, told CNN that he sponsored her H-1B visa through his modeling agency in 1996 -- a year after that racy photo shoot.
But it still may not have been illegal because, according to the photographer, Melania likely wasn't paid for the shoot. Photographer Jarl Ale de Basseville said he and the models did the free work to get exposure in the well-known French magazine.
"You were making this kind of magazine to have exposure, and this exposure was bringing you to the next level to have a catalogue," de Basseville told CNN. "No one was paying. No one was getting paid."
Melania isn't clearing up the timing on her arrival either. Instead, she wrote on Twitter:
"Let me set the record straight: I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue. In July 2006, I proudly became a US citizen. Over the past 20 years, I have been fortunate to live, work and raise a family in this great nation and I share my husband's love for our country."
Regardless, Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney who works with the Miss Universe pageant and the Trump Organization, said Melania's upstanding character enabled her to become a citizen in 2006, and any visa problems in the mid-1990s would not have prevented her from gaining citizenship.
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