YCLOAK

A teachers strike in Oklahoma stretched into a fifth day on Friday, and a state union leader said he doesn’t think pending proposals to increase revenue are enough to stop the walkout from extending into next week.

The Senate considered separate proposals Friday to expand tribal gambling and tax certain internet sales that are expected to generate roughly $40 million annually.

But Oklahoma Education Association Executive Director David Duvall says he doesn’t think those are enough to keep teachers from walking out again next week.

“Our members know their needs, and they’re going to tell us when it’s enough,” Duvall said. “I anticipate that we’ll be back up here on Monday.”

Senate Floor Leader Greg Treat, a key negotiator on the budget, said he had not met with education union leaders and didn’t know what it would take to resolve the situation.

“I’m not the one who started the walkout, so I’m not the person to ask,” said Treat, a Republican from Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma is the second state where teachers have gone on strike this year. West Virginia teachers won a 5 percent pay increase after striking for nine days.

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Mary Fallin has faced the brunt of criticism from teachers, many of whom blame the term-limited governor for supporting tax cuts and generous state subsidies for businesses that have led to declines in state funding for schools and other state services. The governor further raised the ire of teachers after an interview this week in which she likened striking teachers to a “teenage kid that wants a better car.”

Dozens of protesters inside the packed Capitol responded Wednesday by jangling their keys in the Capitol rotunda and chanting “Where’s our car?”

And when Fallin took the state airplane to a business opening in McAlester, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City, several protesters were on hand at the airport to jeer her.

“It just seems like there’s a large lack of understanding on her part,” said Jennifer Smith, an elementary school teacher from Tulsa who held a sign comparing Fallin to Dolores Umbridge, the villainous schoolmarm from the popular Harry Potter series.

Fallin, a lame-duck governor in her final year, has had scant success in recent years pushing her agenda, despite overwhelming GOP majorities in both chambers. Her proposal last year to generate revenue for teacher raises by broadening the sales tax fell flat in the Legislature. She focused her final State of the State address this year on endorsing a tax-hike package dubbed “Step Up” that was supported by civic and industry leaders, but the measure never made it out of the House.

Ultimately, the governor signed legislation last week granting teachers pay raises of about $6,100, or 15 to 18 percent, as well as tens of millions of new dollars for public schools. But many educators said classrooms need more money, joining a movement of teachers that has ignited protests in other Republican-led states including West Virginia, Kentucky and Arizona.

Many teachers already are back at work, especially in rural communities where local boards didn’t vote to shut down. But the state’s two largest school districts, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, announced plans to close for a fifth day on Friday.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Technology that once promised freedom from the confines of an office has, for many workers, become a ball and chain, blurring the lines between work hours and, well, any other hours. A New York City Council member wants to put a stop to that.

The proposal would bar employers from requiring employees to respond to non-emergency emails, texts and other digital communications outside regular work hours. It would also outlaw retaliating against workers who choose to unplug.

The recently introduced legislation is only in the beginning stages, with initial committee hearings expected sometime in June, and doubters wonder how it could work, especially in always-buzzing New York City.

But bill sponsor Rafael Espinal, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn, said the legislation is needed because the city that never sleeps isn’t supposed to be the city that never stops working.

“Work has spilled into our personal lives,” he said. “We’re always connected to our phones or to a computer once we leave the office.”

It’s important, he said, for people to be “able to draw a clear line between the workplace and their personal lives, to give them time to connect with their family, friends, reduce their stress levels and be able to go back to work and perform at their optimal level.”

The legislation would cover private companies with more than 10 employees. There would be exemptions for certain types of jobs that require people to be on call. Barring emergencies, bosses wouldn’t be able to demand that workers check work emails or messages in off hours.

Companies that violated the rule would face fines of at least $250 per incident.

Espinal said he was inspired by a French law that took effect this year that gave employees the right to ignore off-hour communications.

Employers who wanted to return a communication could do so.

“If you love your job and you love what you’re doing, I highly doubt that you will stop working,” Espinal said.

The bill would be intended to make life better for people like Arlene Pitterson, a marketing and event planning consultant in Brooklyn, who recalled one boss routinely pestering her with late-night emails, then getting upset when she didn’t reply.

It was among the conditions that led her to working for herself, in which she now sets her own boundaries about when she’ll respond to people.

“The fact that we have to get to a point where we have a law about it is unfortunate, but it’s necessary,” said Pitterson, 40.

“Technology has allowed us to work from anywhere at any time,” she said. “It’s now about being able to control the instruments so that we can still have a life.”

The reality, though, is that the world has become a 24/7 place, and adhering to a policy like the one Espinal is proposing would be detrimental to a company’s competitiveness, said labor lawyer Louis DiLorenzo of Bond, Schoeneck & King, who has spent years representing management and employers.

“The problems are going to be tremendous,” DiLorenzo said. “I just don’t think you can legislate against progress.”

He also questioned how it would be enforced, and how an emergency would be defined.

“I can’t think of a business that we represent that there aren’t times where a lot of people wouldn’t think of them as emergencies, but the client does,” he said.

David Weinman, president of Fabco Shoes, a chain of more than 40 stores in New York City and New Jersey that employs 190 people, sees the proposal it as government overreach.

“I think the city needs to get out of everyone’s hair,” said Weinman, 61. “Regulations are great when they don’t make everything you do more complicated.”

He said he sends emails to employees on their off days or outside of work hours, but usually to make sure he doesn’t forget to send it at a later time, and he’s not looking for responses when they’re not working.

“I don’t know anyone who retaliates against employees because they don’t answer emails,” he said.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday the unemployment rate in March remained at a 17-year-low of 4.1-percent for the sixth straight month.

U.S. employers added 103,000 jobs in March, less than the 175,000 analysts expected, following several months of larger increases. The modest job creation was partly caused by the loss of 15,000 construction jobs and 4,400 retail positions. There were job gains in manufacturing, health care, mining and other sectors, but the rate of those increases slowed.

Average hourly wages climbed in March and were 2.7 percent higher than they were a year ago.

Although fewer jobs than expected were added in March, the U.S. economy appears to be healthy. The recovery from the Great Recession that ended in 2009 is now the second-longest expansion since the mid-19th century.
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Venezuela said on Thursday it was halting commercial relations with Panamanian officials and companies, including regional airline Copa, for alleged involvement in money laundering, prompting Panama to recall its ambassador.

The resolution names Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and nearly two dozen Cabinet ministers and top-ranking officials, adding that Panama’s financial system had been used by Venezuelan nationals involved in acts of corruption.

Venezuela said the individuals named in the resolution “present an imminent risk to the [Venezuelan] financial system, the stability of commerce in the country, and the sovereignty and economic independence of the Venezuelan people.”

The statement came a week after Panama declared President Nicolas Maduro and about 50 Venezuelan nationals as “high risk” for laundering money and financing terrorism.

Caracas did not detail whether the move would halt the operations of Copa in Venezuela, which is one of the crisis-stricken country’s few providers of international flights following a sharp reduction in airline services.

Copa’s website showed its planned Panama City-Caracas flight later Thursday was canceled. Copa flights Friday between the two cities were listed as scheduled.

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Panama’s Varela, in brief comments to reporters Thursday, described the Venezuelan announcement as nonsensical.

“We have not heard anything about breaking relations but rather about a set of supposed sanctions, it’s gibberish,” Varela said.

The South American country has been hit with sanctions by Canada, the United States and a number of other countries over issues ranging from human rights violations to corruption and drug trafficking.

Maduro says the country is victim of an “economic war” led by his adversaries with the help of Washington, and says the sanctions are part of foreign countries’ efforts to undermine his government.

This story was written by Reuters.
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Johnson & Johnson and Imerys SA must pay at least $37 million in a lawsuit claiming a man developed cancer because of his exposure to asbestos in

talc-based products including Johnson’s Baby Powder, a New Jersey state court jury said Thursday.

The verdict by jurors in New Brunswick, New Jersey, came in the second trial nationally to center on claims that J&J’s talc products contained asbestos as the company separately fights thousands of cases claiming they can also cause ovarian cancer.

The verdict came in a lawsuit by Stephen Lanzo, who alleged that he developed mesothelioma after inhaling dust that was generated through his regular use of J&J talc powder products since his birth in 1972.

Mesothelioma is a deadly form of cancer closely associated with exposure to asbestos. It affects the delicate tissue that lines body cavities, most often around the lungs, but also in the abdomen and elsewhere.

The jury awarded Lanzo $30 million and his wife $7 million. It found J&J was responsible for 70 percent of the damages and Imerys, its talc supplier, responsible for 30 percent.

The jury will return Tuesday for further proceedings to determine whether it should award punitive damages, according to an online broadcast of the trial by Courtroom View Network.

J&J denied the allegations and says that Johnson’s Baby Powder, which has been on the market since 1894, does not contain asbestos or cause mesothelioma or ovarian cancer.

“While we are disappointed with this decision, the jury has further deliberations to conduct in this trial and we will reserve additional comment until the case is fully completed,” Johnson & Johnson said in a statement.

Imerys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story was written by Reuters.
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U.S. President Donald Trump ratcheted up the trade war rhetoric with Beijing on Thursday, saying he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The move came a day after China issued a list of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft, worth $50 billion for possible tariff hikes. Beijing’s response came after the U.S. proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this week.

U.S. stock futures dropped on Trump’s latest trade directive. Dow futures fell and were down about 400 points in after-hours trading.

Financial markets have swung wildly over the past few days in response to fears of escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers,” Trump said.

Since the start of this week, the United States and China have been engaging in a tit-for-tat trade spat. On Monday, in response to earlier tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed by the Trump administration, China started tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, including fruits, nuts, pork, wine, steel and aluminum.

Later on the same day, the USTR proposed to increase tariffs on 1,300 imported goods from China, mostly aerospace, medical and information technology products.

Less than 12 hours later, China said it would impose retaliatory duties of 25 percent on 106 politically sensitive American goods, including soybeans, automobiles and aircraft.

The proposed U.S. list is now entering a “public notice and comment process, including a hearing,” the USTR said. After this process is completed, the USTR will issue a final determination on the products subject to the additional duties.

China’s commerce ministry said the question of when the measures would go into effect would depend on when the U.S. tariffs became active.

China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, told reporters on Wednesday, “Negotiation would still be our preference, but it takes two to tango. We will see what the U.S. will do.”

A senior U.S. official told Reuters late Thursday that the United States was willing to negotiate with China on trade, but only if talks were serious, as previous attempts produced little progress.

No formal negotiating sessions have been set, but there have been “ongoing communications with the Chinese on trade,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Trump administration’s trade strategy.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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President Donald Trump will make the case that the United States – and not China – should be the trade “partner of choice” for Latin America when he speaks at a regional summit next week, a senior administration official said on Thursday.

Trump is due to make his first visit to the region late next week to attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru. The trip comes as his government is waging a trade battle with China and pushing to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“President Trump has been very clear … in terms of his economic policies that the Chinese economic aggression in the region has not been productive for the hemisphere and that the United States should remain the partner of choice for them,” the official told reporters on a conference call.

Substantive discussions on NAFTA are not expected at the summit, the official said.

Trump will deliver an address to the summit where he will talk about “shared values” in the hemisphere and the need to reduce drug trafficking, the official said.

It was unclear how much emphasis Trump would place on stopping illegal immigration from the region into the United States – one of his main promises in his presidential run for office.

Leading up to the summit, Trump announced this week he wants to post National Guard troops along the southern border with Mexico, and has also ramped up tough rhetoric against illegal immigrants from Honduras and other parts of Central America.

“I think the president is a very straight speaker. He speaks what’s on his mind,” the official said.

Trump also plans to address the crisis in Venezuela with regional leaders, the official said. But the U.S. government is still examining its next steps for sanctions on Venezuela with new announcements not expected for several months, the official said.

 
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A new report shows large employers spent $2.6 billion to treat opioid addiction and overdoses in 2016, an eightfold increase since 2004. More than half went to treat employees’ children.

The analysis released Thursday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation finds such spending cost companies and workers about $26 per enrollee in 2016.

Employers have been limiting insurance coverage of opioids because of concerns about addiction. The report finds spending on opioid prescriptions falling 27 percent from a peak in 2009.

Researchers analyzed insurance claims from employers with more than 1,000 workers. Most are self-insured, meaning they assume the financial risk.

Workers share the costs. Steve Wojcik of the National Business Group on Health says for every $5 increase, employers typically cover $4 and pass $1 to workers.
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President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States is not in a trade war with China, after Beijing announced plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to a similar package announced by the United States.

In a Twitter post Wednesday, Trump contended, “We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.” He added, “Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!”

On the same day, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Bloomberg News, “None of the tariffs have been put in place yet, and these are all proposals.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC, “Even shooting wars end with negotiations. … So it wouldn’t be surprising at all if the net outcome of all this is some sort of negotiation.”

Tit-for-tat trade spat

Since the start of this week, the United States and China have been engaging in a tit-for-tat trade spat. On Monday, in response to earlier tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed by the Trump administration, China started tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, including fruits, nuts, pork, wine, steel and aluminum.

Later the same day, the U.S. Trade Representatives (USTR) proposed to increase tariffs on 1,300 imported goods from China, mostly aerospace, medical and information technology products.

Less than 12 hours later, China announced it plans to impose retaliatory duties of 25 percent on 106 politically sensitive American goods, including soybeans, automobiles and aircraft.

The proposed list is now entering a “public notice and comment process, including a hearing,” the USTR said. After this process is completed, the USTR will issue a final determination on the products subject to the additional duties.

China’s commerce ministry said the question of when the measures will go into effect will depend on when the U.S. tariffs become active.

China’s Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai told reporters on Wednesday, “Negotiation would still be our preference, but it takes two to tango. We will see what the U.S. will do.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reiterated at Wednesday’s press briefing that this measure is now going through the review process, and “it will be a couple of months before tariffs on either side would go into effect and be implemented.”

“We’re hopeful China will do the right thing. Look, China created the problem, not President Trump. We’re finally having a president who’s willing to stand up and say enough is enough, we’re going to stop the unfair trade practices,” Sanders said.

She also warned if China doesn’t stop the unfair trade practices, the administration will move forward to the next step.

Already in a trade war

Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he believes that the U.S. and China are already in a trade war.

“It started several weeks ago when the United States instituted penalties on Chinese steel and aluminum, and then the Chinese responded with penalties that also went into effect, so we haven’t just put our guns on the table, we’ve actually pulled the trigger. In the last few days, we’ve announced additional tariffs that will come into effect in the coming weeks. If this isn’t a trade war, I don’t know what one is,” Kennedy told VOA.

​Farming first to be hit

At the frontline of this war is America’s farming industry.

China, which buys nearly $20 billion in U.S. agricultural products annually, has become one of the most important export markets for U.S. farmers, but many agricultural products, including soybeans, cotton, frozen beef and sorghum, will be subject to tariffs if it goes into effect.

American Farm Bureau Federation Policy Communications Director Will Rodger told VOA, “Right now, we export about 20 percent of what we produce. We are very, very dependent on exports. We are looking at 25 percent being placed on soybeans into China.

“The actual economic impact will not be good, it will certainly be bad, the question is how large it’s going to be, we don’t know exactly,” Rodger said.

He said farm income is already at a 16-year low, resulting in many farmers in economic distress.

“While we haven’t reached the crisis point, we have one or two more years of declining income, we will be there pretty quickly,” he noted.

Rodger said the current trade dispute is obviously not a good thing. 

“We need it to stop, we need China and the United States to sit down and come up with a reasonable agreement in a reasonable fashion,” he added.

Losses in the short term

If the tariffs go into effect, China trade expert Kennedy pointed out, there will be potential job losses by the reduced export opportunities, but the most important impact in the short term will be on the financial markets.

Kennedy said the trade dispute between the U.S. and China is not about how fast this is resolved, but the way it is resolved.

“The issues the Trump administration has raised are issues American presidents have raised with China for almost two decades now, and not made the progress that they want. We shouldn’t be looking for a quick deal and put this behind us, we should be ready for a sustained level of tension until China relents,” he said.

Kennedy said China won’t do that easily. 

“China has an economic governance system which is distinctive and critical to the way the Communist Party runs the country, so it’s going to take a lot for them to move fundamentally,” he said.

“The two sides may make some type of short term deal to address superficially the challenges, but this is not something that will go away in the next few weeks,” Kennedy added.

State Department correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.

 
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Wall Street’s three major indexes staged a comeback to close around 1 percent higher Wednesday as investors turned their focus to earnings and away from a trade conflict between the United States and China that

wreaked havoc in earlier trading.

After investors fled equities in the morning because of proposed retaliatory tariffs from China, their concerns about a potential trade war eased by the afternoon after President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the administration was in a “negotiation” with China rather than a trade war.

Investors said they were comforted by the fact that any tariffs would not take effect immediately, if at all.

Strategists also cited the Standard & Poor’s bounce above a key technical

support level and said they expected equities to rise further around the first-quarter earnings season, due to start in mid-April.

“We’re starting to feel that while markets hate uncertainty, Trump’s bark is worse than his bite when it comes to trade,” said Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas. 

“It’s earnings that’s going to lift us off this bottom. It wouldn’t shock me if we chopped around sideways for a little bit before earnings season. … The trade stuff is really a sideshow. We’re waiting for real economic data, like the jobs report Friday, and for earnings. For now, it’s going to be all about the technicals,” he said.

A rebound

The S&P opened below its 200-day moving average, a key technical level, but inched above it as the session progressed, and by afternoon was in positive territory.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 230.94 points, or 0.96 percent, to close at 24,264.30; the S&P 500 gained 30.24 points, or 1.16 percent, to 2,644.69; and the Nasdaq Composite added 100.83 points, or 1.45 percent, to 7,042.11.

The turnaround marked the first time the S&P had showed gains for two consecutive days since early March.

Despite big swings in stocks, trading activity in U.S. equity options was muted as expectations for strong corporate earnings quelled the urge to load up on contracts that benefit from a surge in market volatility.

The CBOE Volatility Index, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility for the S&P 500, closed down 1.04 points at 20.06.

The technology sector rose 1.4 percent with only two of its stocks ending the day in negative territory, including Facebook Inc., which was pummeled after news its chief executive would testify in Congress over a data privacy scandal.

It too closed well off its session low with a 0.6 percent drop to $155.10.

Boeing was the biggest drag on the Dow because of its exposure to China, and ended the day well off its session lows with a 1 percent decline to $327.44 after falling as low as $311.88.

Farm machinery company Deere & Co ended down 2.9 percent at $148.57 as it could be hurt by China tariffs if its customers’ exports are curbed.

After being a laggard for much of the session, the S&P 500’s industrials sector turned positive late in the day to close 0.4 percent higher.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.95-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and eight new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 40 new highs and 94 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.04 billion shares, compared with the 7.3 billion average for the last 20 trading days.
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