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LOS ANGELES (AP) — California’s lieutenant governor and other elected officials on Tuesday urged Taylor Swift to postpone her Los Angeles concerts as a way to stand in solidarity with striking hotel workers. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and dozens of state and local politicians signed an open letter telling Swift that her tour makes the region’s hotels money, with some properties “doubling and tripling what they charge because you are coming.” Meanwhile, the letter said, many housekeepers and other hotel workers can’t afford to live close to their jobs and some sleep in their cars and risk losing their homes....

Mom of teen bought tickets from CraigslistThousands of Swifties were packed inside Ford Field for Taylor Swift’s one of two concerts in Detroit. Not among them, though, were four teenagers from Berkley after falling victim to a ticket scam of $1,200. “This is the first time I haven’t been able to get tickets to a concert,” said one of the girl’s moms, Lisa Turner. Turner went to Craigslist and found four tickets to Taylor Swift’s Friday (June 9) show at Ford Field. They were priced at $300 apiece. “(The seller) Had a big story about why he wasn’t able to...

… Speaking to the thousands who gathered for the first of three nightly performances at Soldier Field, Swift emphasized that her concert was not only a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community - but also a celebratory space. "One of the things that makes me feel so prideful is getting to be with you and watching you, interacting with you, being so loving, so thoughtful and so caring," she said. While saying she wishes "every place was safe and beautiful for everybody in the LGBTQ community," the pop star did mention that "we can't talk about Pride Month...

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is condemning the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Black boy by a convenience store clerk in Columbia, S.C. In a statement this week, Clyburn said he is praying for “swift justice” for Cyrus Carmack-Belton, who was shot in the back after a convenience store owner falsely accused him of shoplifting on Sunday night. “I’m horrified and deeply saddened by the senseless murder of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton in Columbia this weekend,” Clyburn said. “His family and loved ones should be celebrating his recent eighth grade graduation from Summit Parkway Middle School. Instead, they are mourning this unimaginable...

Taylor Swift came close to finalizing a sponsorship deal worth over $100 million with FTX, the massive crypto exchange that just imploded into bankruptcy, The Financial Times reports. FTX’s embattled founder Sam Bankman-Fried — recently seen insisting he “did not ever try to commit fraud on anyone” during a live video interview from the Bahamas — was reportedly a driving force behind the possible partnership. As one FTX employee put it, he’s “a fan of Tay Tay.” The talks with Swift reportedly began last fall and ended in the spring. While one person said that Swift “would not, and did...

AUSTIN, Texas – College students still trying to "shake it off" after scalpers jacked up resale tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming Era’s tour, sometimes hitting tens of thousands of dollars, sounded off to Fox News. "It's just so much gluttony in the world," a University of Texas student, Leila, told Fox News. Melis, another UT student, called the Swift resale prices "very exploitative." "I do not agree with people that both buy tickets and then resell them and price gouge," she said. Ticketmaster crashed after millions of buyers, including bots, flooded the site to purchase pre-sale tickets for Swift's tour...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she would call a Senate hearing to probe Ticketmaster after the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco this week left many fans frustrated and empty handed. This comes as the company canceled the general public sale of tickets originally scheduled for Friday "due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand." Swift fans sought tickets earlier this week with pre-sale codes and credit card exclusives, a rollout that was beset by technical problems. Klobuchar, who chairs a Senate subcommittee focused on consumer protection and anti-trust, said she...

Iran and Russia are working together to create an alternative payment system to the U.S.-based SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) to facilitate bilateral economic cooperation in the face of Washington's illegal sanctions against the two countries. "Naturally, two countries that want to de-dollarize their transactions should have a special system similar to SWIFT," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Mehdi Safari said.

Issue: July 13, 2022 https://reclaimthenet.org/wef-restricting-certain-actors-defi WEF pushes for restricting “certain types of actors and transactions” from using decentralized finance Kicking people out of the financial system. Like the response to trucker protests in Canada demonstrated earlier in the year, a centralized and tightly controlled financial system makes it very easy to punish those participating. On a much bigger scale, the same is true of entire countries – if they are dependent solely on centralized international systems, they can be cut off at any point, and those in control of the systems can use them as very effective weapons. But the...

Russia cut its gas supply to top Dutch trader GasTerra on Tuesday, escalating the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and pushing up European gas prices. The move comes a day after Denmark flagged a potential end to its Russian gas supply and the European Union's toughest measure yet against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, an agreement to halt sea-borne imports of its oil. GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said it had contracted elsewhere for the 2 billion cubic metres of gas it had expected to receive from Gazprom through October. "This...

Removing Russian banks from SWIFT but leaving the energy intact so Europe has power, was so brilliant they obviously never played chess. Putin just put Biden’s king in check by ordering Europe to pay for gas now in Rubles. That will provide support for the Ruble, and undermine Europe and its Euro as well as the dollar in the long run.

Together with Slovenia and the Czech Republic, Poland has prepared a list of actions the EU must enforce if it really wants to end the war. 1) Cut off all Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system. 2) Put in place a common asylum policy for Russian soldiers who refuse to serve the criminal regime in Moscow. 3) Completely stop Russian propaganda in Europe. Freedom of speech does not mean the right to lie. 4) Block Russian ships from our ports. 5) The same blockade must be put in place for road transport in and out of Russia. 6)...

With Russia now officially cut off from both the USDollar and the euro, Russia's VTB Bank is seeing a surge in Chinese Yuan deposits, attracted by the bank offering significantly higher interest rates as Putin shifts focus to 'friendly' nations.The state-owned bank is offering a Chinese yuan savings account with a maximum interest rate of 8%, hailing the currency as "one of the most affordable and promising options for investing funds" after the country was hit by Western sanctions.Putting that in context, the three-month deposit rate is 8% in dollars and 7% in euros, while the six-month rate for ruble...

The overuse of financial sanctions risks much of the world losing confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.America cutting off Russia’s central bank from its U.S. dollar reserves could carry huge consequences that the D.C. establishment hasn’t considered.Here’s how the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Sindreu framed what happened: “After Moscow attacked Ukraine last week, the U.S. and its allies shut off the Russian central bank’s access to most of its $630 billion of foreign reserves. Weaponizing the monetary system against a Group-of-20 country will have lasting repercussions.”Reserves are globally accepted foreign currency that a foreign central bank holds...

The government of the United States has intervened militarily in other countries for decades, against the council of founders like George Washington who advised America should “observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”But the U.S. doesn’t only project power across the globe through its massive military. It also weaponizes the U.S. dollar, using its economic dominance and its privilege as the issuer of the reserve currency as a carrot-stick tool of foreign policy. The U.S. government showers billions of dollars in foreign aid to “friends.” On the other hand, “enemies” can find themselves...

Thirty years ago in Moscow the Soviet Union crumbled and everyone watched on CNN. Pause Current Time 1:47 / Duration 3:25 Loaded: 99.97% Captions Fullscreen Unmute 0 White House issues executive order on cryptocurrency One question was still undecided. This was what would happen to the “Near Abroad” — Russians who were now separated from Russia in independent republics. President Boris Yeltsin promised that they would have the Russian republic or Federation to look after their interests, language and culture. Capital One Shopping - Coupons & Savings Ad Ad capitaloneshopping.com Capital One Shopping - Coupons & Savings President Vladimir Putin...

Germany has emerged as the main barrier to tougher sanctions against Russia, threatening to spark a rift in western efforts to punish the Kremlin.Europe’s largest economy is the main power resisting attempts to add Sberbank to a list of Russian financial institutions cut off from the Swift payments system, Bloomberg reports.Sberbank, which is Russia’s largest lender, was left off the initial list as part of a decision to protect energy-related transactions, but calls are now mounting for the EU to tighten its sanctions.It’s not Germany’s only area of resistance, either. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has publicly opposed sanctions targeting Russia’s...

The Russia-Ukraine war is changing the very foundations of the global order. As the debris settle, we will see a more militarised Europe & a more multipolar world with repercussions for India's interests as well, writes Dr. Swasti Rao Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to be a hinge point in contemporary history. It has shown that brute power politics and the threat of war can very well be unleashed in the most developed, democratic and industrialised parts of the world. The concomitant background of the rather overdone ‘conflicting sphere of influence’ debate does not explain the unfolding ground situation....

On Tuesday, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon warned the world that cutting Russia out of the SWIFT system would yield “unintended consequences.”That’s a monumental understatement.In short, SWIFT is a system banks use to securely and quickly communicate transfer instructions across international borders. Cutting off an entire nation and its people from this system will have steep consequences across the globe.We could be looking at the potential demise of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, another likely Lehman moment, and the acceleration of China’s progress from third-world nation to global power.Here’s how the US’s influence on this apolitical...

...many did not think the EU would play the SWIFT card on Russia. It turns out they were correct...SWIFT is the international payment system. Cutting off a top country from SWIFT access is a very big deal.When the US and EU trotted out the SWIFT sanction card, I thought I got that one wrong. Closer inspection by Eurointelligence and others shows it's Not So Swift After All.FAZ informs us that the Swift sanctions are essentially dead in the water. Only seven banks, representing a quarter of the Russian banking sector, are subject to the sanctions. What happened is that once...