Washington: US President Joe Biden announced that he’s nominating Julie Su to serve as his administration’s labour secretary.
Su currently serves as the deputy secretary of labour and would replace Marty Walsh, who’s stepping down to lead the National Hockey League Players’ Association, Xinhua news agency reported.
Previously, Su was California’s labour secretary and spent 17 years as a civil rights attorney, according to the White House.
A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, Su is the daughter of immigrants, speaking Mandarin and Spanish, the White House said.
World Bank president David Malpass on Wednesday said he would leave his post by the end of June, months after running afoul of the White House for failing to say whether he accepts the scientific consensus on global warming.
Malpass, appointed by Donald Trump, will vacate the helm of the multilateral development bank, which provides billions of dollars a year in funding for developing economies, with less than a year remaining in a five-year term. He offered no specific reason for the move, saying in a statement, “after a good deal of thought, I’ve decided to pursue new challenges”.
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen thanked Malpass for his service in a statement, saying: “The world has benefited from his strong support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion, his vital work to assist the Afghan people, and his commitment to helping low-income countries achieve debt sustainability through debt reduction.”
Yellen said the United States would soon nominate a replacement for Malpass and looked forward to the bank’s board undertaking a “transparent, merit-based and swift nomination process for the next World Bank president”.
By long-standing tradition, the US government selects the head of the World Bank, while European leaders choose the leader of its larger partner, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Pressure to shake up the leadership of the World Bank to pave the way for a new president who would reform the bank to more aggressively respond to climate change has been building for over two years from the United Nations, other world leaders and environmental groups.
In November 2021, special adviser to the UN secretary-general on climate change Selwin Hart called out the World Bank for “fiddling while the developing world burns” and said that the institution has been an “ongoing underperformer” on climate action.
Pressure on Malpass was reignited last September when the World Bank chief fumbled answering a question about whether he believed in the scientific consensus around climate change, which drew condemnation from the White House.
In November, special envoy on climate change John Kerry said he wants to work with Germany to come up with a strategy by the next World Bank Group meetings in April 2022 to “enlarge the capacity of the bank” to put more money into circulation and help countries deal with climate change.
More recently, Yellen has launched a major push to reform the way the World Bank operates to ensure broader lending to combat climate change and other global challenges.
Malpass took up the World Bank helm in April 2019 after serving as the top official for international affairs at US treasury in the Trump administration. In 2022, the World Bank committed more than $104bn to projects around the globe, according to the bank’s annual report.
A source familiar with his thinking said Malpass had informed Yellen of his decision on Tuesday.
The end of the fiscal year at the end of June was a natural time to step aside, the source said. The World Bank’s governors are expected to approve the bank’s roadmap for reforms with only minor changes at the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank set for mid-April.
Still, World Bank sources said they were surprised by his decision to step down before the joint meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Morocco in October.
[ad_2]
#Trump #pick #World #Bank #chief #early #exit #climate #stance #misstep
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Mumbai: The competition among the top 8 contestants in Bigg Boss 16 is getting fierce as the show slowly sails towards the finale. While the makers are yet to make an official announcement, speculations are rife that the grand finale will be taking place in the second week of February and fans are curious to know all details about it.
‘Briefcase’ filled with a huge amount of money has always been one of the most interesting parts of the finale. To add to their excitement, Bigg Boss decides to test the contestants’ integrity by sending a mysterious briefcase inside the house. Participants will give the option to take the money bag and leave the show just a few hours before the winner announcement.
Bigg Boss 16 Briefcase
In the last season, we saw Nishant Bhat walking out of the show with a briefcase filled with Rs 10 lakh cash. Paras Chhabra took to the same amount in the 13th season, while Rakhi Sawant opted for the suitcase with Rs 14L in Bigg Boss 14. So, considering the amounts of the previous season, the briefcase prize money for BB 16 is likely to be between 10-14L. However, the actual amount will be disclosed at the time of the finale only.
It is being said that Archana Gautam is expected to make a smart move by opting for a briefcase call this season as she has less chance of winning the show. Let’s wait and watch.
Who do you think will pick the briefcase in Bigg Boss 16 finale? Comment your opinion below.
“You’re jumping ahead in your own analysis,” Hochul said after an unrelated event in Albany. “You’re making an assumption that I have not stated to be factual that we’re going down a certain path. I recommend you don’t do that because you will all know everything you need to know in due process and due time.”
But as time ticks, Hochul appears to be facing a likely losing battle against progressives and unions who quashed LaSalle’s potential ascension as the state’s first Latino chief judge. Opponents said he issued some decisions as a judge that were anti-labor and anti-abortion. LaSalle said that’s not true.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected her pick, Hochul argued that LaSalle needed a full vote in the 63-member Senate. Senators have said no: The Judiciary Committee’s vote is where the issue ends.
Legal experts are split on whether Hochul would win a lawsuit over the matter.
Jerry Goldfeder, a preeminent Democratic election lawyer, wrote Monday that the state constitution indicates a governor’s nominee for the Court of Appeals needs a Senate vote, saying it “requires advice and consent by ‘the Senate,’ not one of its committees.”
Others have suggested “advice and consent” can end with the committee.
Even a successful lawsuit to bring LaSalle’s nomination to the floor would put Hochul back in the same place: She is not expected to have enough votes among Senate Democrats to confirm him, meaning he would simply be rejected again.
Hochul wouldn’t indulge that scenario.
“As the governor, it is my prerogative to do what’s best for the people of the state of New York after a thoughtful analysis and in consultation — and I assure you, that is my guiding star,” she said.
Sen. Jamaal Bailey was the only Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who voted to move LaSalle’s nomination without recommendation — meaning he was willing to have it come to the floor, but also didn’t vote in favor of him. Bailey said he remains “comfortable” with his vote, but did not weigh in on what the future holds.
“The committee decided what it decided. I think that ultimately the next decisions need to be determined by the governor and the leadership about what takes place,” Bailey, a Bronx Democrat, said.
LaSalle’s supporters, including former chief judge Jonathan Lippman, have made several arguments challenging the legitimacy of the committee decision, including asserting that the formal letter of rejection from Senate Democrats signed by Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins should have been signed by Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who is the Senate president, per the constitution.
Stewart-Cousins dismissed that argument, along with the notion LaSalle deserved additional Senate consideration following his five-hour hearing last Wednesday.
“I’m not arguing about who signed the letter or not,” she told reporters Tuesday. “What happened was that there were not enough votes to bring the nominee to the floor. So therefore the nominee did not go through.”
Stewart-Cousins said she was “not concerned” a stand off over a potential lawsuit would derail coming budget negotiations between the governor and Legislature, saying both parties have shown they “continue to interact on a professional level.”
“I have a good relationship with the governor,” she said. “We all do. So we can disagree, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do the work that people sent us to do.”
But asked whether she’d talked to Hochul personally since LaSalle’s rejection and its fallout, Stewart-Cousins said she has not.
There are other options for Hochul.
She could simply withdraw LaSalle’s nomination and pick from among the other six candidates recommended by the state Commission on Judicial Nomination — giving her a new shot at winning Senate approval after a number of lawmakers indicated support for a few others on the list.
Or the Court of Appeals could rule it doesn’t have a chief judge and ask the commission to go through a monthslong process of selecting new candidates for Hochul to consider. Right now, the court has six members, which for a prolonged period could hurt its ability to reach consensus.
Again, Hochul dismissed the turmoil and stuck by LaSalle: “I chose the best person from the list of seven.”
[ad_2]
#Hochul #faces #tough #choices #rejected #chief #judge #pick #good
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
In a conversation and statement shared first with POLITICO, she described her decision not to be renominated as the new Congress has taken over as hers alone and praised the Biden team’s support.
“At present, I don’t see a path forward for confirmation, and after 1 ½ years, it’s time to move on,” Margon said in the statement. “I will continue to work on democracy and human rights, and am grateful to President Biden and Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken for their confidence in me and the honor of a nomination.”
Margon faced opposition from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking Republican, Jim Risch of Idaho. Risch, citing past tweets of hers, accused Margon of supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which targets Israel due to its policies toward the Palestinians.
Margon denied supporting the BDS movement, but her attempts to clarify the tweets didn’t sway Risch. Neither did a letter of support from a bipartisan group of foreign policy professionals, some of them prominent in the Jewish community, who dismissed the anti-Israel allegations against Margon.
A spokesperson for Risch did not immediately offer comment Tuesday morning.
Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who chairs the committee, has spoken in support of Margon’s nomination. But he did not bring her up for a vote in the committee, apparently due to the custom of “comity” that committee leaders follow.
That custom calls for the top Democrat and top Republican on the committee to jointly agree on items such as scheduling votes on nominees. The idea behind the tradition is to avoid having the majority run roughshod over the minority, but the minority can also use it as a stalling tactic.
In a statement Tuesday, Menendez called the GOP opposition to Margon’s nomination “deeply unfortunate.” But he defended the comity custom as one that fosters cooperation across the aisle.
“I believe we are strongest when we speak with a bipartisan voice,” he said. “This underpins our committee’s ability to pursue robust activity that advances American foreign policy priorities.”
A senior State Department official heaped praise on Margon, calling her an “extraordinary person with immense talent, drive and determination.” The administration will now have to decide on a new nominee, the official said, without disclosing potential names. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the topic involved sensitive personnel matters and discussions with Capitol Hill.
Even if the Biden administration finds a new nominee quickly, however, the confirmation process could drag on again, a pattern statistics indicate has gotten worse over the past two decades.
Biden has insisted that he is committed to keeping human rights at the core of his foreign policy. But his administration, like many others before it, has been accused of inconsistency on that front, not least as it has tried to gain favor with autocracies such as Saudi Arabia for geostrategic reasons.
The senior State Department official said that even if the assistant secretary role is not filled, the administration has others who routinely raise human rights with foreign counterparts.
“We need to get this post right, but throughout the department, throughout the administration, you have a commitment to human rights,” the official said.
[ad_2]
#Bidens #human #rights #pick #withdraws
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
And it came off to many as a clear, though not irreparable, miscalculation that was an embarrassing loss to start her term and one that could weaken the moderate governor’s standing at the state Capitol with an emboldened Legislature that has increasingly moved to the left.
How both sides react next could set the tone for the next six months as the governor and Democrats in the Senate and Assembly negotiate a $220 billion state budget. After narrowly winning election last year, she’s also looking at proposals to reinvigorate New York City and the state with a massive housing plan and make further changes to the state’s controversial bail laws.
“Governing is about compromise, but it’s also about understanding when you have leverage, how you use it, and never forfeiting it needlessly, which is what she’s appeared to do in the last few weeks,” said Bob Bellafiore, an Albany-based communications consultant and a former press secretary for Republican Gov. George Pataki.
For example, a bargaining chip could have been to refuse to sign off on lawmakers’ pay raise in December until they could assure LaSalle would be approved, but she approved the raise and didn’t appear to offer any other enticement to get him over the finish line, two people close to the Senate and familiar with the negotiations said.
Hochul also erred by not lining up support early for LaSalle, who would have been the first Latino chief judge, or perhaps pulling the nomination when it was likely to fail. Instead, she set herself up for defeat by trying to force it through the Senate when powerful unions — including CWA and the AFL-CIO — had already opposed him because they viewed a few of his court decisions as anti-abortion and anti-labor, which he refuted.
“There was a lot of energy around this,” Sharon Cromwell, deputy state director for the Working Families Party, which opposed the nomination, said Thursday. “We understood the stakes of what it means to have a chief judge that has a track record of not standing with unions and working people — and a track record to make some anti-abortion decisions.”
How does Hochul respond after the loss? She didn’t rule out a lawsuit to try to force a full Senate vote, but also vowed not to let it derail her agenda.
“I did not say what course we’re taking,” Hochul told reporters Thursday. “I just said we’re weighing all of our options. But I put forth an ambitious plan for the people of New York. And I believe that there’s a lot of common interest between the executive and the legislative branch.”
Senators who opposed LaSalle early on framed the historic rejection as the right and responsibility of the Senate, perhaps a nod to confirmations with governors past that have been nothing more than a rubber stamp, including the last one, Janet DiFiore in 2016 who was widely panned for her leadership and left under an ethics cloud last summer.
LaSalle’s rejection is the first for a New York governor under the current nomination system that dates to the 1970s.
“The Senate has now set a new standard in thorough, detailed hearings — an achievement for our democracy and a harbinger of future proceedings,” Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said in a statement. LaSalle didn’t fit the wish list for a new chief judge that he and his colleagues had sent to the nominating commission months earlier, he said.
Bronx Democrat Sen. Gustavo Rivera said in a statement he hoped everyone could move forward in round two. Hochul would have to select from a new list of candidates from the Commission on Judicial Nomination.
“It is unfortunate that this process has become so acrimonious, and I implore the governor to work collaboratively with the Senate so that we may approve the nominee she selects next,” he said.
While the state Constitution says a judge to the Court of Appeals nominated by a governor has to be confirmed with the “advice and consent” of the Senate, it’s not explicit about whether the committee membership adequately represents the chamber. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins says it does. Hochul says it does not.
Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in constitutional law, said it is unclear whether Hochul would win a lawsuit to force a full Senate vote.
“The Constitution speaks about the Senate taking up the matter, but it doesn’t say what it means ‘by the Senate,’ and another provision of the constitution says the Senate can determine its own rules or proceeding,” Briffault said.
Former Gov. David Paterson — a Hochul supporter who is also a former Senate minority leader — said he would have expected senators to bring the matter to a full Senate vote as Hochul wished as a way to avoid any legal uncertainty. The nomination was likely to fail on the Senate floor anyway — and would still if Hochul were to win a lawsuit.
But Paterson noted that leaders in Albany have long memories.
“It was a bad day for the governor,” Paterson said, but added, “The governor has four more years of days to establish who she is. Sooner or later, you know what they say: What goes around comes around. They are going to need her for something, and they are going to find out.”
The former executive doesn’t see Hochul’s adherence to her pick as an error.
“She picked a candidate that she knew they didn’t like. But she’s not supposed to be political here,” he said. “She’s supposed to be picking who she thinks would be the best judge at this time.”
In the aftermath of the hearing, several senators said that despite the clash, they could easily maintain a working relationship with Hochul, who came into office after years of adversarial relations between the Legislature and her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.
She agreed. When asked Thursday if the LaSalle denial — and a potential legal battle — would hurt her housing, mental health and public safety priorities in the budget this year, she responded: “Nothing like this could detract from that.”
[ad_2]
#Senate #flex #Hochul #judge #pick #budget #battle #looms
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The committee’s decision to reject Hector LaSalle after a bruising confirmation hearing means that the full Senate will not consider her choice. The decision, which failed by one vote, is an extraordinary blow to Hochul as the six-month legislative session gets underway.
Hochul swiftly dismissed the committee’s integrity and authority and called for a full Senate vote. The fight pits the moderate governor against the Democratic majority in the Legislature and its allies who rallied against LaSalle, who would have been the state’s first Latino chief judge of the state Court of Appeals.
LaSalle’s opponents, despite his backing among Latino leaders and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were able to outflank Hochul, who has left open the possibility of suing to bring her pick to the Senate floor for a vote.
“While this was a thorough hearing, it was not a fair one, because the outcome was predetermined,” Hochul said in a statement. “Several senators stated how they were going to vote before the hearing even began — including those who were recently given seats on the newly expanded Judiciary Committee. While the Committee plays a role, we believe the Constitution requires action by the full Senate.”
The committee chair, Manhattan Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, said the judiciary’s nearly five hours of public questioning Wednesday fulfilled the review process, and he was incredulous Hochul wanted to stoke a brawl over the state constitution.
“I hope that litigation is not our future — it’s obviously the governor’s decision, but we have so much work to do in Albany. To be distracted by a lawsuit would be a travesty for the people of New York,” he said.
Ten Democrats on the 19-member panel voted against LaSalle, two voted for him and one, along with the committee’s six Republicans, voted to advance the nomination “without recommendation.”
But it was one vote short, a rare case of a vote in Albany failing to get approved. It could put Hochul in a weakened position heading into the six-month legislative session after expending her political capital on LaSalle over other potential candidates and after narrowly winning the election last November in the closest race in New York since 1994.
“I hope and I’m sure that few of us have time to extract revenge and so on,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said about the decision and Hochul’s rejection. “We have work to do, and we have work to do on behalf of the people, and we never lose sight of that.”
Most of the votes had been all but decided prior to the hearing — the culmination of weeks of tension surrounding LaSalle’s ethnicity, record and relationship with the court’s status quo that has resulted in an intraparty clash exacerbated by Hochul’s fierce defense of her pick.
At the heart of discourse Wednesday was whether LaSalle’s ability to drive forth Democratic values could be determined by dissecting any number of some 5,000 cases included on his legal record, including a handful of decisions he had joined that invited labels from opponents such as “anti-abortion” and “anti-labor.”
LaSalle, who currently presides over the New York Supreme Court’s Second Department in Brooklyn, said that his positions have been misrepresented based on conclusions drawn from a small fraction of cases.
“When we talk about my record, I couldn’t agree with you more — we should look at the record, but I only ask that this body look at my entire record, not the record that certain advocates have chosen to look at,” he said.
“We can look at those — it’s entirely fair, I’d only ask that you look at the others and give those equal weight.”
Opposition to LaSalle’s nomination snowballed since Hochul chose him from a seven-member list in late December. It has reached such a fever pitch that Hochul raised eyebrows on Sunday by comparing the treatment of LaSalle to that of Martin Luther King Jr. during a speech in a Brooklyn church.
Hochul has pointed to LaSalle’s strong legal reputation, his intention to reinvigorate the state’s massive court system following pandemic-related delays, and the historic possibility of having the first Latino chief judge. Several Democratic senators and progressive advocacy groups had decried the more moderate pick as the wrong direction for the increasingly conservative-leaning top court, particularly due to his background as a former prosecutor.
Wednesday’s hearing was atypical amid normally quiet procedural committee votes — preceded by two opposing rallies from the primary groups organizing around the pick — The Court New York Deserves and Latinos for LaSalle. The demonstrations continued into the packed hearing room, with chants of “Hector, Hector” as LaSalle entered, forcing Hoylman-Sigal to pound the committee’s small, largely symbolic gavel.
“This isn’t going to be a roast, but it won’t be your bar mitzvah, either,” Hoylman-Sigal told LaSalle.
Hoylman-Sigal began the hearing suggesting that LaSalle’s rulings “lean toward the prosecution and against civil rights” and pointed to groups like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that have announced opposition. He was also among a number of senators who expressed concern that LaSalle said he was proud to have run on Republican, Democrat, Working Families Party and Conservative party lines during judicial elections.
“As an LGBTQ person, the Conservative Party stands for everything I’m against, against my right to marry, against my ability to have kids, against transgender youth,” he said. “It’s hurtful.”
LaSalle, 54, sought to address the framing of several cases that have emerged in the discourse.
One was related to a crisis pregnancy center that limited subpoena access to their promotional materials for an investigation by the state attorney general.
LaSalle said that his agreement with the decision was not an indication he personally defends crisis pregnancy centers. But he did agree with the boundaries set on what prosecutors could obtain amid the investigation.
Another involved Communications Workers of America and a company’s ability to sue a union official as an individual.
LaSalle said the decision he supported was not new — it was the application of a necessary precedent set out decades earlier. He also drew attention to his background as “a working class kid, from Brentwood, New York” and said labor got him to his position today.
“So when people say I’m anti labor because of the decision in Cablevision, I believe that’s simply a mischaracterization intended to derail my nomination, but it’s certainly not an adequate characterization of who I am,” he said.
But though LaSalle expressed the nuances of the legal choices he’s made, he also stated: “I stand by every decision I signed on to.”
The hearing was an odd twist on a nominee from a Democratic governor —most of the committee’s Democrats hammered him on political and ideological positions, casting doubt on his ability to lead New York’s massive court system and to head a bench responsible for countering conservative decisions coming down from the U.S. Supreme Court.
Republicans, however, were effusive with their praise for a record they say proved he’d approach the role with fairness. Some members of the GOP have expressed no small amount of glee at the messaging — some of it dividing their colleagues in the majority party.
“You know, reading your decisions, and especially in listening to your opening statement, I thought for a moment I was in the wrong room. You do not come across as a right wing conservative nut,” Staten Island Republican Andrew Lanza said.
Lanza said while he doesn’t agree with Hochul often, he “can’t imagine her finding a more qualified nominee.”
The intensity of the public discourse has amounted to “character assassination,” said Bronx Sen. Luis Sepúlveda, one of the two Democrats who approved the nomination.
But both lawmakers and LaSalle said that has not been representative of conversations they’ve had privately. In the end, the committee’s decision was only a nod to the important implications of the nomination, Queens Sen. John Liu said, and “none of this is personal.”
“Everyone has treated me with respect and dignity,” LaSalle said. “The private conversations that I have had have not mirrored the public statements that have been made.”
[ad_2]
#Hochuls #chief #judge #pick #rejected #party #stunning #defeat
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
