The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly more than expected last week, indicating that the labor market recovery was gaining traction.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 232,000 for the week ended Feb. 19, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 235,000 applications for the latest week.
Claims had risen in the week ending Feb. 12, which economists blamed on week-to-week volatility in the data and the delayed impact of winter storms early in the month.
With a near record 10.9 million job openings at the end of December, layoffs are minimal and economists expect claims to fall back below 200,000 in the coming weeks. They were last below this level in early December.
Many Federal Reserve officials view labor market conditions as being already at or very close to maximum employment.
Claims have dropped from a record high of 6.149 million in early April 2020. The tightening labor market conditions are boosting wage growth, which is contributing to high inflation.
Rising wages and better job security should, however, help to underpin consumer spending and sustain the economic expansion even as the Fed starts raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, and government money to households and businesses dries up. The U.S. central bank is expected to start raising rates in March, with economists anticipating as many as seven hikes this year.
A separate report from the Commerce Department on Thursday confirmed that economic growth accelerated in the fourth quarter as the drag from a resurgence in COVID-19 infections over the summer, driven by the Delta variant, eased.
Gross domestic product increased at a 7.0% annualized rate last quarter, the government said in its second GDP estimate. That was slightly up from the previously reported 6.9% pace. The economy grew at a 2.3% growth pace in the third quarter.
The economic momentum, however, appeared to have faded by December amid a strong headwind from coronavirus infections fueled by the Omicron variant. But activity has since picked up as the winter wave of infections subsided.
Retail sales surged in January and business activity rebounded in February, data showed this month. That has created an upside risk to GDP growth estimates for
the first-quarter, which are mostly below a 2.0 rate. The United States is reporting an average of 80,131 new COVID-19 infections a day, sharply down from the more than 700,000 in mid-January, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.
High prices have prevailed for several months in the family basket of the capital of Valle del Cauca.
Basic products such as potatoes, meat, rice, grains, fruits and others have been under the movement of high values.
Now there is a drop in costs, although that depends on the movement of cargo and other factors such as the weather.
(Read in context: The family basket in Cali is still ‘through the roof’)
From the sectors that transport, distribute or market, higher costs have been argued in the production and distribution of food.
ANDhe executive president of the National Federation of Merchants (Fenalco), in Valle del Cauca, Octavio Quintero, notes that 70 percent of the food that makes up the family basket in Valle del Cauca is imported, especially from other departments.
There is also food and supplies that arrive from other countries.For the price and market information coordinator of the Valle del Cauca Supply Center (Cavasa), Oliver Medina, the one in Cali is the highest family basket in recent years.
Merchant Edgar López, spokesperson at Santa Elena gallery
Edgar López, spokesman for the merchants in the Santa Elena gallery, there is a respite in the price of some of the basic foods.
As an example, on Saturday, market day, a product such as brown potatoes lowered its price because the 50-kilo package was 170,000 pesos, but it is available for 130,000.
Thus, tomato, banana and watermelon, among others, have lowered their price in the main food pantry of Caleños, which is the Santa Elena market square.
López points out that it is important to take into account that there are serious risks in food security, products such as beef and potatoes have increased their price above the adjustment in the minimum wage for 2022.
With great concern I see how the prices of the family basket are rising in Cali, the argument of the man from the store: “with the closure of the tunnel of the line, the consumption of gasoline and freight increased, will it be only Cali? The argument will be valid or usury.
— Father Orphan Senate #19 Citizen Force (@PadreHuerfano1) January 21, 2021
The merchant invited “the citizens of Cali to buy the Santa Elena gallery in the largest food pantry, associating with their neighbors, friends and family so that they can make their purchases in bulk and thus obtain a better price, with this you help the merchant that has seen its sales reduced by 30 percent due to the loss in the purchasing power of the people of Cali and the peasant who produces what we eat”.
Read more news from Colombia
Truck collided with power cables and knocked down poles in the center of Cali
An 8-month-old baby fell from the seventh floor of a residential building located in the municipality of Solitude, Atlantic. The little boy would have fallen into the void after leaning on a grid of the balcony of the house, which burst.
After falling from a height of approximately 20 meters onto a space covered with grass and asphalt, the minor was immediately transferred to a medical center to be evaluated, however, the doctors were surprised to find no injury.
Jairo Quiroz, director of the Reina Catalina Clinic, in Barranquillaassured in an interview with Noticias Caracol that the baby is fine and apparently came out of the accident unharmed.
(You can read: After an accident that left 2 dead, the Metro union demanded more security).
“A fall from the seventh floor does not correlate to what the child presents. The child is fine. […] He was assessed by pediatric surgery, which found absolutely nothing, neurosurgery and children’s orthopedists either. They find only a linear fracture,” Quiroz explained in said interview.
For her part, the baby’s mother assured the same media outlet that her son “was born again.” “This is a miraclehis father and I are giving glory to God,” he added.
(You can read: Ambulance plane left the runway at the San Andrés airport and crashed).
The administration of the residential complex of Soledad, Atlántico, where this case was recorded, assured that it will carry out the corresponding maintenance to avoid accidents such as the one that occurred with this baby.
Veteran NFL coach Anthony Lynn appreciates the league policy that requires teams to interview minority candidates for their top jobs, and he has even benefited from it.
Like many of his peers, though, the assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers believes the policy has fallen short of its good intentions: There were three non-white head coaches when the rule went into effect in 2003; today, there are five.
The figure has risen and fallen slightly over the past 20 years, but skepticism about NFL hiring practices has remained steady among minority job candidates even after the league introduced the so-called Rooney Rule, named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who oversaw the league’s diversity committee.
Lynn, who is Black, long ago added his own personal amendment to the Rooney Rule: As his star rose as one of the league’s top assistants in the mid-2010s, Lynn would only meet with teams to discuss a head coaching vacancy if they had already brought in at least one other minority candidate, something the Rooney Rule didn’t require until 2021.
“I just didn’t want to be a token interview,” Lynn told The Associated Press. “I really believe in the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but I just saw how people were abusing it and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”
FILE – Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn watches during warmups before an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Detroit, Oct. 31, 2021.
The racial discrimination lawsuit filed this month against the NFL and several teams by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has magnified attention on the league’s hiring practices and stirred up long-simmering frustrations with the Rooney Rule. It has also prompted comparisons from Lynn and others to corporate America, which has also struggled to diversify its leadership ranks.
Lynn’s perseverance paid off in 2017 when the Los Angeles Chargers made him the first Black head coach in team history.
The candidates Lynn beat out for the job included Teryl Austin, who is now a defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Austin’s interview with the Chargers was one of 11 occasions where he earned a face-to-face meeting, but failed to land the head coaching job.
There were times when Austin felt like he was really in contention, and others when he felt he “was one of those guys where they were checking a box” to comply with the mandate.
Austin’s personal journey is included in Flores’ lawsuit as evidence of a discriminatory system that is failing qualified job candidates.
FILE – Pittsburgh Steelers assistant coach Teryl Austin watches the team warm up before an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sept. 26, 2021, in Pittsburgh.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell partially pushed back on Wednesday, saying the league has made a “tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas.” He acknowledged, though, that the league is lagging when it comes to head coaches.
“We have more work to do and we’ve got to figure that out,” Goodell said in Los Angeles ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. Goodell said the NFL has already engaged “outside experts” to help it review hiring policies and he didn’t rule out the possibility of eliminating the Rooney Rule.
The two teams playing in this year’s Super Bowl — the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams — are led by offensive-minded, white head coaches in their 30s. There is considerable diversity, however, among the dozens of coaches that oversee their offenses, defenses and special teams. Half of the coaches working for Rams head coach Sean McVay are Black.
Art Rooney II — Dan’s son and the current Steelers president — defended the impact of his father’s eponymous hiring policy.
“While I acknowledge that we have not seen progress in the ranks of head coaches, we have seen marked improvement in the hiring of women and minorities in other key leadership roles,” he said.
In many cases, there was nowhere to go but up.
The NFL is running in place in terms of diversifying its most visible leadership positions. While over a third of assistant coaches are Black, only two teams employed Black offensive coordinators this season, considered the final rung of the ladder before becoming a head coach. Nearly 85% of the league’s general managers and player personnel directors are white, according to a report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
FILE – These are 31 of the 32 NFL football team head coaches as of Feb. 10, 2022. The Minnesota Vikings head coaching position is currently vacant.
“This is a willingness and heart issue,” said Troy Vincent, a former player who is now the league’s executive vice president of football operations. “You can’t force people, so we have to continue to educate and share with those in the hiring cycle.”
Players also have a role in promoting change, says Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
Lapchick points to the NBA, where players have taken an increasingly public role in social activism. Nearly half of the NBA’s 30 teams are led by Black coaches and over a quarter employ Black general managers.
“I don’t think that the (NFL) office can do it on their own,” Lapchick said. “The impact will only take place … when the athletes themselves raise their voice and say it’s important.” Roughly 70% of NFL players are Black.
Corporate America has run into many of the same diversity challenges as the NFL, and the same legal problems.
“The NFL is no different than the rest of society,” said Lynn of the 49ers. “Look at the top Fortune 500 companies. How many minority CEOs do you have in that industry versus ours? Our percentage may be higher.”
Over 90% of Fortune 500 presidents and CEOs are white and only 3% are Black, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
Former Morgan Stanley chief diversity officer Marilyn Booker sued the bank in 2020 for racial discrimination and retaliation. She alleged that the company’s overwhelmingly white executives stymied her plans to diversify its management structure. The two sides eventually settled out of court.
Last year, five of the largest banks — J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — agreed to make public commitments to policies that echo the Rooney Rule, according to a spokesman at the AFL-CIO, which helped secure the agreements.
But experts say many of the biggest companies still have further to go.
“Many companies are engaging in these types of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts as performance-art theatrics,” said Nicholas Pearce, clinical professor of management and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
Whether in sports or business, Pearce says one easy way for hiring managers to reduce the effects of implicit bias would be to require more diverse panels to conduct job interviews.
With the exception of Jacksonville’s Shad Khan and Buffalo co-owner Kim Pegula, all NFL teams are privately owned by white men, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, which is publicly owned.
Jerod Mayo, a 35-year-old linebackers coach for the New England Patriots, has ambitions of one day becoming a head coach. And Mayo, who is Black, is optimistic that by the time he’s ready, many of the challenges that veterans such as Lynn, Austin and Flores have faced, will be a thing of the past.
“You know, that’s a beautiful day where we don’t need the Rooney Rule.”
The sixth wave of covid continues its decline and hospital pressure falls sharply day by day, but deaths from the coronavirus remain high, today almost 400
Image of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus. Courtesy photo
We start today with the hospital pressure of covid.
The number of patients in health centers stands at 13,623 (10.9%), 817 less than yesterday (14,440).
In the ICUs, today there are 1,633 patients with SARS-CoV-2 (17.4%), while the data yesterday was 1,700. They are 67 less.
Cumulative incidence
The accumulated incidence falls another 126 points and drops to 1,566, maintaining the trend of recent weeks, and the number of cases in the last day is 53,055, up to a total of 10,555,196 infected since the pandemic began.
By region, Cantabria has the highest incidence (2,371) and Andalusia the lowest (591).
By age groups, it is those under 11 years of age who continue with the highest incidence figure (2,531) and people between 60 and 60 years of age the lowest (865).
Deaths
The most negative figure in the evolution of the sixth wave of covid is deaths. On the last day 393, up to an official total since the pandemic began of 95,606.
In the line of the last weeks, the admissions for covid are much less than the discharges.
Admissions are 1,180 and discharges 1,938, including that of actor Antonio Resines, after more than a month and a half admitted, much of that time in the ICU.
PCR positivity continues to decline, although it is still above 30 percent.
From this Thursday, February 10, thanks to the good evolution of the sixth wave, masks are not mandatory on the street.
Two women walk down the street, with and without masks. EFE/David Aguilar
The current week is being confirmed as that of the decline in the curve of the sixth wave of covid. All indicators of the pandemic continue to fall
Two women talk sitting on a bench in the streets of the Born neighborhood in Barcelona. EFE / Enric Fontcuberta
The falls are generalized in all the communities and in all the indicators.
The cases are already well below 100,000 daily, this Thursday 74,368 to a total of 10,199,716 infections since the coronavirus broke out almost two years ago.
The accumulated incidence, number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants, registers considerable decreases; today 144 points and figure 2,420.
By communities, Catalonia, going down, is the one with the highest incidence (4,046).
Andalusia, the least affected in this sixth wave, has already dropped to 831.
By age groups, those under 11 years of age continue to lead but falling (4,569).
The lowest incidence is offered by the age group between 60 and 69 years (1,173).
Notable drop in hospital pressure
The number of patients with covid continues to fall both on the hospital floor and in the ICUs.
Today those admitted to the centers are 17,012 (13.5%), compared to 17,441 yesterday. A fall of more than 400 patients in one day.
Patients with SARS-CoV-2 in intensive care units drop below 2,000, since they number 1,947 (20.6%), while yesterday 2,010 were counted.
There is still a substantial number of daily entries. Today 1,722, but for days now the highs are clearly higher, this Thursday, 2,195.
PCR positivity continues to drop day by day, albeit slowly. If yesterday it was 35.3%, today it is 34.8%.
Deaths
Deaths don’t go down as clearly. Today there are 183 up to a total of 94,040, with a lethality that does not reach 1 percent.
Darias: Hipra will be “the European vaccine we were all waiting for”
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, assured this Thursday in Valencia that the Spanish Hipra vaccine, which has reached its last phase, “is going to be the vaccine, the European vaccine that we were all waiting for” against the coronavirus.
During an appearance before the media together with the president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, after visiting the Clínic and Fe hospitals in Valencia, as well as the “vaccination center” installed in the City of Arts and Sciences, Darias stated regarding Hipra that it is “fantastic news to have a Spanish vaccine that is going very well” in the phases developed so far.
After recalling that the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) has authorized its passage to phase 3, it has indicated that the results of the previous phases “are very encouraging in the generation of neutralizing antibodies.”
In this last phase, for which there are 3,000 volunteers (around 600 in the Clinical Hospital of Valencia), the safety and tolerability of the vaccine will be seen.
The minister affirms that the removal of outdoor masks “will be soon”
Carolina Darias, when asked when the masks will be removed outdoors, stated that “it will be soon” because in Spain “we are on the right track” and with the conditions to “relax measures”.
The minister has made this assessment after recalling the high rate of vaccination coverage in Spain, where 90.8 percent of those over 12 years of age have the full schedule and more than 90% of those over 60 years of age have the dose of reinforcement.
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, during the press conference after the visit of the vaccination device in the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. EFE/Biel Aliño
