Mandalay Bay owner MGM Resorts International continues to question the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's timeline of the Oct. 1 shooting that left 58 people dead and almost 500 injured at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
On Monday, police said Stephen Paddock, 64, shot 200 rounds into the hallway of the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay six minutes before he started firing on the crowd outside. When he shot into the hallway, he hit an unarmed Mandalay Bay security guard named Jesus Campos in the leg. Police said he started shooting at concertgoers at 10:05 p.m., and over 10 minutes, fired more than 1,000 rounds. Officers made it to the 32nd floor at 10:17 p.m., two minutes after he stopped shooting. This timeline was different from one released the previous week, which said Paddock shot through his door and wounded Campos after he finished shooting at the crowd.
In a statement released Thursday, MGM Resorts International said the revised timeline came from a report that was put together after the mass shooting, and "we are now confident that the time stated in this report is not accurate." MGM Resorts International said Paddock shot Campos "at the same time as, or within 40 seconds after" he began firing into the crowd at the festival, and Campos was able to radio for help. A maintenance worker also called for help after hearing the shots, and asked the dispatcher to notify police that there was someone on the 32nd floor shooting a rifle, the company said. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did not comment on MGM Resorts International's statement. Catherine Garcia
TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has agreed to completely sever ties with the social media app's U.S. operations with Microsoft taking over, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters Saturday.
The report comes a day after President Trump said he planned to ban the popular video app in the U.S. amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. TikTok became caught up in the conflict over the U.S.'s growing concerns that ByteDance was harboring users' personal data, which the Trump administration considers a national security risk.
Microsoft has reportedly been working to purchase the app for a while, and it looks like the deal will go through, although it's unclear if Trump will remain committed to his threat. Previously, ByteDance was aiming to retain a minority stake in the U.S. business, a proposal the White House rejected. Bloomberg reported earlier Saturday that threatening to ban the app in the U.S. was a negotiating tactic Trump used to force ByteDance to fully sell its stake.
If ByteDance has indeed made that concession, as indicated by Reuters' sources, the move will test whether Trump was bluffing. Read more at Reuters. Tim O'Donnell
While the Federal Reserve has earned praise for many of its actions aimed at stabilizing the economy in the United States since the coronavirus pandemic began, its "Main Street" lending program — which is designed to rescue companies that are struggling to stay afloat during the crisis — has sputtered, Politico reports.
The main reason for that, Politico notes, is because the companies that need the Fed's help the most, like hotels with big mortgages, aren't eligible because their debt levels are too high. The Fed, which can't provide grants, is legally prohibited from lending to insolvent companies, and the central bank has subsequently remained cautious about when and where to step in. "It's just too hard to do this through the constraints the Fed has on it by law," David Beckworth, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, told Politico.
At the moment, borrower demand reportedly isn't especially high, but if the pandemic doesn't slow down going forward, it won't be a "very rosy picture," said Brian Crawford, executive vice president of government affairs at the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Read more about the program at Politico. Tim O'Donnell
In an op-ed published Saturday by The Washington Post, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman spoke out about his decision to retire from the United States military after more than 21 years of service.
Vindman, who entered the national spotlight after he provided damaging testimony during the House's impeachment investigation about President Trump's infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last year, said he decided to leave the Army amid a "campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" by Trump, which he wrote reminded him more of the "authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving," referring to the Soviet Union and the U.S., respectively.
Despite his personal concerns about the the federal government, Vindman said he stands by the conviction that he "will be fine for telling the truth," even amid the backlash from the White House. He also said he remains "hopeful" for the United States and will continue to "believe in the American Dream" and "defend my nation." Read the full op-ed at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell
The reality of modern slavery and its role in nearly every consumer good purchased by the American people is as undeniable as it is difficult to extricate from global supply chains. If you own any cotton garment, for example, there is a 20 percent chance that it is sourced from Xinjiang in China, the "autonomous region" in which more than a million Uighur Muslims are subject to forced labor and other horrors.
A recent piece of legislation introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley would help to change this. The bill presented by the Missouri Republican would among other things require companies to certify that slave labor is not present at any point along their supply chains and implement a detailed auditing process that would include interviews with management and labor and independent review of documents. It would also institute severe penalties, with amounts as high as $500 million, for noncompliance.
This seems like a no-brainer, right? Alas, not all economists agree. In a piece for Bloomberg, George Mason University's Tyler Cowen argues that, in fact, requiring American companies not to employ slaves is a bad idea because it will make products ranging from texiles to food more expensive: "[R]ather than buying shrimp from Southeast Asia," he writes, "a retailer might place an order for more salmon from Norway, where it is quite sure there is no slavery going on ... The losers will be U.S. consumers, who will face higher prices and less choice."
Who would have thought that it costs more to buy something when it is produced by someone who works in humane conditions for a living wage? The next thing we're going to hear is that not being allowed to pollute our rivers and streams places an undue burden on our already-struggling multinational corporations.
There is a reason we call economics the dismal science. Matthew Walther