Month: November 2024

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Genetic-testing company 23andMe is laying off hundreds of workers as part of cost-reduction measures, a decision taken amid declining revenues.

“The company is reducing its overall headcount by over 200 employees, representing approximately 40 percent of the workforce,” 23andMe said in a Nov. 11 statement. “The business restructuring is expected to substantially reduce operating expenses and result in annualized cost savings of more than $35 million. The company expects to incur up to $12 million in costs and expenses primarily related to one-time severance, transition, and termination-related costs.”

23andMe is also “actively exploring” options to maximize the value of its therapeutics programs through asset sales, licensing agreements, and other transactions. While the corporation considers these measures, it intends to wind down ongoing clinical trials.

One of the company’s therapeutic programs uses an antibody to restore the immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells. Another program involves the use of an antibody that aims to restore anti-tumor immunity. The company is also involved in multiple other preclinical immunology and inflammation programs.

“We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships,” said Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and co-founder. “We are fully committed to supporting the employees impacted by this transition.”

The company will continue to “pursue strategic opportunities” with regard to its clinical and preclinical stage programs, she said.

23andMe is one of the largest companies in the world that offers direct-to-customer genetic testing services. Founded in 2006, the business gained huge traction as many people were attracted to the idea of knowing more about their ancestry, health, and other things. The company went public in 2021.

The company has struggled financially over the past years and has seen its shares collapse in value. In the 15 quarters since the fourth quarter of 2020, 23andMe has reported positive net income in only one quarter.

For fiscal year 2024, 23andMe saw revenues of $220 million, down from $299 million from the previous fiscal year, a decline of 27 percent. The business attributed the fall to lower revenues from research services and consumer services.

The company suffered a net loss of $667 million for fiscal year 2024, more than double the $312 million loss from the previous fiscal year.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, revenues dropped by 34 percent year over year. Net loss scaled down to $69 million from $105 million.

Shares of 23andMe have crashed this year, declining by more than 74 percent. Since late November 2020, shares have lost more than 97 percent of their value.

Share Acquisition Attempts

23andMe has also seen management-level issues in recent months over share acquisition efforts from its CEO. In April, it was revealed that Wojcicki intended to buy all outstanding shares of the company that she did not own.

At the time, Wojcicki owned more than 20 percent of the total outstanding shares, which gave her 49 percent voting power. 23andMe’s Special Committee said it would “carefully review” the offer when available.

Wojcicki submitted a preliminary, conditional, and nonbinding proposal in late July. In August, the Special Committee sent a letter to Wojcicki, dismissing the offer.

“We are disappointed with the proposal for multiple reasons, including because it provides no premium to the closing price per share on Wednesday, July 31, it lacks committed financing, and it is conditional in nature,” the committee said.

“Accordingly, we view your proposal as insufficient and not in the best interest of the non-affiliated shareholders. Therefore, we are not prepared to move forward under the terms provided.”

In mid-September, all seven independent directors of 23andMe’s board resigned from their posts. They pointed out that Wojcicki failed to submit “a fully financed, fully diligenced, actionable proposal” that would be beneficial to shareholders even after months of work.

Since there had been no “notable progress” on the matter, the directors concluded that no beneficial proposal would be forthcoming.

“It is also clear that we differ on the strategic direction for the company going forward. Because of that difference and because of your concentrated voting power, we believe that it is in the best interests of the company’s shareholders that we resign from the board rather than have a protracted and distracting difference of view with you as to the direction of the company,” they wrote.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• OPEC lowered its global oil demand growth forecast for 2024 and 2025 due to weaker demand revisions in China and other Asian markets.

• This marks the fourth consecutive month of downward revisions by OPEC, reflecting concerns about a slowdown in China’s economic growth.

• OPEC’s reduced demand forecast may impact its production cut decisions and lead to a weaker oil market outlook.

For a fourth consecutive month, OPEC slashed on Tuesday its estimate of global oil demand growth for both this year and next, citing downward revisions in China and other Asian markets after seeing actual consumption data year to date.

OPEC now expects global oil demand to grow by 1.82 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, down by 107,000 bpd from last month’s assessment, the cartel said in its closely-watched Monthly Oil Market Report.

Total world oil demand is anticipated to reach 104.0 million bpd in 2024, bolstered by strong transportation fuel demand and ongoing healthy economic growth, particularly in a number of non-OECD countries, said OPEC.

However, the organization made today its fourth downward adjustment of demand growth estimates for the world and China for the fourth consecutive month.

OPEC’s latest downward revision of demand forecasts follows its decision from earlier this month to delay the beginning of the reversal of the production cuts to January 2025 from December 2024.

The downward revision of global demand growth forecasts reflected yet another reduction in OPEC’s expectations of Chinese oil demand growth.

OPEC cut China’s demand growth forecast to 450,000 bpd this year, down from 580,000 bpd growth expected last month. The assessment of Chinese oil demand growth in 2025 was also cut by around 100,000 bpd and OPEC now sees Chinese demand growing by just 310,000 bpd in 2025, down from a previous projection of 410,000 bpd growth.

“The report maintains a cautiously optimistic outlook for 2024, supported by the strong fundamentals of the industrial and export sectors, as well as the central government’s ability to implement policy measures to tackle challenges in other areas, including the property sector and sluggish consumer demand,” OPEC said, referring to China’s near-term economic and oil demand prospects.

The cartel also lowered by 103,000 bpd its projection of global oil demand growth for 2025 and now expects it at 1.54 million bpd year-over-year, down from 1.64 million bpd growth projected in the October report.

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

The Norwegian government has agreed to buy from private companies the majority of the natural gas export network of Western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer, the Energy Ministry said on Tuesday.

The government laid out plans in 2023 to take full ownership of the gas export network, which it considers an asset of national interest and importance.

The government launched talks last year with the private companies that hold interests in the three joint ventures operating the export network, Gassled, Nyhamna, and Polarled. Norway has sought to take full state ownership over the network before many concessions expire in 2028.

The government has now reached purchase agreements with seven companies to buy their interests in key parts of the infrastructure, for a combined $1.64 billion (18.1 billion Norwegian crowns).

The purchase is considered to be value-neutral for the state of Norway, the energy ministry said.

The government has reached agreements with Equinor, Shell, CapeOmega, Hav Energy, Silex Gas Norway, Orlen, and ConocoPhillips to buy their stakes in the Gassled, Nyhamna, and Polarled joint ventures.

However, agreements have not been reached with all owners in the system. North Sea Gas Infrastructure AS and M Vest Energy AS did not accept the state’s offer for their interests in Nyhamna and Polarled, respectively.

But Norway aims to have full ownership in Nyhamna JV and Polarled JV, too.

“The State aims to take over the remaining interests in these two joint ventures when the license periods expire or through an agreement prior to this,” the Energy Ministry said.

The government’s rationale for the takeover is that “Ensuring low tariffs, right capacity, and high regularity in the gas infrastructure best facilitates good resource management and high-value creation from the petroleum resources on the Norwegian continental shelf.”

Norway is now Europe’s single largest natural gas supplier after Russian deliveries collapsed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court on Nov. 12 turned away former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s request to transfer his election interference case from a Georgia state court to federal court.

The justices issued the court’s new unsigned order without explaining why, as is its custom when rejecting petitions.

Meadows filed his petition with the Supreme Court on July 26, arguing that the case should be heard in federal court because he was performing his duties as a federal officer when he disputed election results.

Meadows was indicted by a state grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, in August 2023, over his role in President Donald Trump’s challenge to the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, a state he ultimately lost in that election.

Meadows was accused of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act during the period from Nov. 4, 2020, which is the day after that year’s presidential election, to Sept. 15, 2022, for his allegedly illegal efforts to contest the presidential results in the state.

He argued that the case should be heard in federal court because, “for nearly two centuries, Congress has provided a federal forum for federal officers facing criminal charges brought by state and local officials,” according to the petition.

“Over time, Congress has consistently expanded access to federal forums for federal officers invoking federal defenses,” he argued.

A federal district court in Georgia refused to stay the prosecution in September 2023.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled against Meadows in December 2023, allowing the prosecution in Fulton County to proceed.

Earlier in the day Tuesday Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East Amos Hochstein told reporters that he is working diligently on achieving a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. He expressed that this could be achieved soon and that the White House believes that “there is a shot” to secure a peace deal.

However, within hours after, President Biden contradicted him – in so many words – by shooting back angrily at a journalist who asked whether a deal related to Gaza or Lebanon is realistically achievable by the end of his term. The moment, which apparently Biden thought was not being filmed ‘live’ while sitting in the Oval Office is illustrative of just how “serious” Biden is about Middle East peace (…not very serious, considering his answer below).

Israeli White House correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13 news Neria Kraus asked simply, “Do you think you can get a hostage deal by the end of your term?” His “joking” response was to essentially threaten her with bodily harm. This tells us everything we need to know about what Biden hopes to achieve during the rest of his lame-duck session. America’s hostile and senile Commander-in-Chief is on full display here in this somewhat disturbing clip captured Tuesday…

Reporter: “Do you think you can get a hostage deal by the end of your term?”

Biden: “Do you think that you can get hit in the head by the camera behind you?”pic.twitter.com/rxhrQ8LQTK

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) November 12, 2024

The answer to the below is: Umm No…

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Five people, including three Houston school employees, were indicted in October for allegedly running a million-dollar cheating ring that allowed over 200 educators to falsify their teaching certifications.

The three Houston employees collectively earned $1.3 million in taxpayer-funded salary between 2017 and 2023, according to data obtained by OpenTheBooks.com.

Two employees from the privately-owned Houston Training and Education Center were charged, but their salaries are not subject to federal disclosure.

Key facts: Vincent Grayson, the boys’ basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School, allegedly organized the scheme. Aspiring teachers would pay Grayson $2,500 to guarantee a passing grade on their certification exam, according to an investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Criminal Investigations Division.

The teachers would show up to the testing center, sign in, and leave immediately. Nicholas Newton, an assistant principal at Booker T. Washington, would then show up and take the test for them, prosecutors claim.

The results were reportedly upheld by Tywana Gilford Mason and Darian Nikole Wilhite, two test proctors who allegedly received a 20% cut of the money.

LaShonda Roberts, assistant principal at Yates High School, allegedly helped recruit interested teachers.

Grayson made $400,750 in salary between 2017 and 2023, OpenTheBooks found. Newton earned $448,205 and Roberts made $409,455. All three were arrested and fired, and Houston has promised to take “swift action” against any teachers who used their services.

The group made over $1 million from the cheating scandal, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. She told CNN the full extent will “never be known,” but that at least 200 teachers took at least 400 fake tests.

Background: Houston Independent School District is the largest in Texas. As in many other nearby districts, a large pay gap exists between teachers and higher-level officials.

Superintendent Millard House earned $350,000 last year. But of the nearly 25,000 employees on the payroll, only 777 made six figures.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Critical quote: “The most important thing to me is the ringleaders have been identified and are being rooted out of our home school district … and the fact that they held positions of power there, where they were held in esteem by the children, is the very worst part of this crime,” Ogg told CNN. “They didn’t deserve those kids’ respect and I think it leaves children feeling betrayed, not knowing who to trust.”

Summary: Aside from paying three potentially corrupt employees, Houston has spent an untold amount on salary for teachers that were never certified.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

President-elect Donald Trump has announced he has selected John Ratcliffe as director of the CIA.

“John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Trump wrote in a message sent on the evening of Nov. 12, the latest in a flurry of Tuesday evening appointments.

“I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions.

He will be a fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”

Ratcliffe, an attorney, served as director of national intelligence during the first Trump term.

As Nathan Worcester reports, via The Epoch Times, Ratcliffe was previously a Republican congressman from Texas and an anti-terrorism and national security chief for Eastern Texas.

Originally from Illinois, Ratcliffe earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame before obtaining a law degree from Southern Methodist University.

He was later U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and, from 2004 until 2012, mayor of Heath, Texas, a community in metro Dallas-Fort Worth.

While in Congress, he was a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.

During Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe made a name for himself as a staunch Trump loyalist.

Trump dropped an early attempt to elevate Ratcliffe to the director of national intelligence position in 2019.

But the following year, he renewed the effort, nominating him in May against the backdrop of the COVID-19 response.

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Candidates for Senate majority leader have said they will honor President-elect Donald Trump’s request to make appointments when the Senate is in recess.

Ahead of the Senate leadership election on Nov. 13, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have said they would support recess appointments.

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump said in a post on X. “Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”

“100% agree,” Scott wrote on X, sharing Trump’s post. “I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.”

Thune said in an X post: “We must act quickly and decisively to get the president’s nominees in place as soon as possible, & all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments. We cannot let Schumer and Senate Dems block the will of the American people.”

“It is unacceptable for Senate Ds to blockade President @realDonaldTrump’s cabinet appointments,” Cornyn wrote on X. “If they do, we will stay in session, including weekends, until they relent. Additionally, the Constitution expressly confers the power on the President to make recess appointments.”

Recess appointments would allow the president to nominate executive and judicial personnel who would likely not receive Senate confirmation. Recess appointments have not happened in years due to the Senate meeting in pro forma sessions, meaning that although the Senate is meeting, it is only for a few minutes and therefore no legislative business is conducted.

The recess appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution states that “the President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

In 2012, President Barack Obama made recess appointments, including appointing Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a ‘Recess of the Senate’ under the Recess Appointments Clause,” the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote at the time. “In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.”

However, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2014 that recess appointments cannot be made when the Senate is in a pro forma session.

Then-Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that “the Recess Appointments Clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It simply provides a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is away during a recess.”

The UN Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP29, kicked off on Monday and will last through the 22nd of this month. Many of the usual climate grifters have skipped the event as de-growth ‘green’ policies in the US are being prepared to be rolled back to some degree under a Trump presidency. Even Swedish far-left activist Greta Thunberg skipped the event (pre-occupied with pro-Palestine protests?). 

On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the world leaders who attended the event that last year’s meeting was a “master class in climate destruction,” adding, “The sound you hear is the ticking clock.”

Guterres also said the transition to clean energy “won’t be stopped by no group, no business, and no government.” He was likely referring to Trump’s plan to roll back certain climate policies that are strangling the economy and simultaneously boosting inflation, making US companies unable to compete in international markets. At the same time, China operates free of these de-growth policies. 

One particular speech by Willem Branten, the public affairs officer of True Animal Protein Price (TAPP) Coalition, a non-profit foundation focused on taxing real meat out of existence to reset the global food supply chain into a planet-based future, caught the internet’s attention given radical far left and their billionaire funders have been pushing fake meat and insects as a way to solve the so-called ‘climate crisis.’ 

LoL.

WEF propaganda non-sense. 

TAPP’s Branten said the quiet part out loud: using policy warfare, such as the “greenhouse gas emission price mechanism” – or a meat tax – to fund their climate crisis agenda and eventually end the overconsumption of animal protein.

At U.S. taxpayer-funded #COP29Baku, @tappcoalition‘s Willem Branten calls for taxing meat to reduce its consumption: “Our current food systems are incompatible with the Paris climate accords … vegan diets are projected to have only half of the the climate footprint as meat… pic.twitter.com/HY5x4NcQn8

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 12, 2024

Calling for a meat tax while US retail ground beef prices are soaring shows just how out-of-touch liberals are with concerns of the working class. That’s why they lost the election in the US. 

In other words, the themes of de-growth and de-population promoted by the UN are being pushed by radical leftists who want to control every facet of life—what you eat, drive, and how you live. Trump’s victory last week was a vote by the American people that rejects radical climate grifters and their Marxist friends that have sparked the worst inflation storm in a generation. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Democracy appears to be losing its appeal on the left. After campaigning on panic politics and predicting the imminent death of democracy, some on the left are now calling to burn the system down in light of Republicans not only taking both houses and the White House but Trump likely winning the popular vote.

Some seem to believe that what happened on November 5th is a license to become a modern version of Guy Fawkes

(“Remember, remember, the 5th of November; Gunpowder, treason and plot; I see no reason; Why gunpowder treason; Should ever be forgot”).

Protesters after the election called for tearing down the system as a whole, insisting that “Trump is not an individual. He’s a figurehead of a system that’s rotten.”

Even before the election, law professors and law deans called for a break from the Constitution. Those voices will likely be amplified after the massive electoral loss by Democrats.

Others are seeking to evade the results of the election to still bring Harris to power.  CNN’s Bakari Sellers wants to pressure Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign and replace her with Harris. Former Harris aide Jamal Simmons wants Biden to resign to allow Harris to become president despite the vote of the majority.

It is an ironic twist after Democratic politicians and pundits repeated the mantra that, if we did not elect Harris, this might be our last election. After losing that election, democracy appears to be the problem. The majority of Americans voting for Trump have been called “anti-American” by Gov. Hochul. Other politicians and pundits have called them racists, misogynists, or weaklings seeking domination by strongmen and bullies.

The problem is now with young and minority voters.  Trump won white women voters by eight points at 53 percent. Harris actually fell slightly in the support of women overall. Conversely, roughly 43 percent of men voted for Harris. Forty percent of women under 30 voted for Trump. Even CNN reports that Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, Black voters in 48 years, and Hispanic voters in more than 50 years.

So, it appears that it is time to move on. The call for Biden to simply do what the public did not want to do (in making Harris president) is particularly ironic. Many voters were repulsed by the Democrats simply making Harris the nominee after all the primaries were over. This was the candidate who could not garner any appreciable votes in the prior presidential primaries before being made Vice President by Biden.

Now, the idea is that she would be elevated by the unilateral act of Biden.

Without a hint of self-awareness or recognition of the hypocrisy, Simmons insisted that this would “Fulfill [Biden’s] last promise — to be transitional.” Most people understood that to mean democratically transitional in opening the way for the election of new leadership. He did so after he was forced to step aside after winning every Democratic primary and tens of millions of votes.

Nevertheless, Simmons argued that “Democrats have to learn drama and transparency and doing things that the public wanna see is the time.” That would certainly be dramatic as well as anti-Democratic.  Yet, Simmons explained that “this is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

Indeed, it would. It would confirm that the Democratic Party is an effective oligarchy, the very thing that they just campaigned against.

Sellers is more modest.

He just wants Harris on the Supreme Court. At no point in history has anyone suggested that Harris was a leading legal mind. Nothing in her history suggests that she is a competent, let alone promising, candidate for the highest court.

Harris has previously suggested her support for possible radical changes on the Court, including court packing. She is also a decidedly anti-free speech figure in American politics.

None of that matters any more than the results of the election.

Harris would be put on the Court not due to any specific talents or skills but because it would be “consequential.” He wrapped up by saying “let Republicans go crazy, ape, I’m even mentioning that option.”

Others are not pushing Harris but are pushing Sotomayor to resign to allow for one of the fastest confirmations in history. Under this theory, a lame duck president would muscle through a confirmation before Trump could come into power.

Of course, that ignores the possibility that you could vacate the seat and then fall short in the sharply divided Senate. That includes the possible loss of senators who might balk at such a maneuver, including outgoing Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The one option that does not appear to be popular is to listen to the voters and actually return the Democratic Party back toward the center of our politics. The problem is now the voters themselves.

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau once famously insisted that “War is too important to be left to the generals.” The Democrats appear to be working on a new view that democracy is too important to be left to the voters.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”