The Grand Cafe, a longtime restaurant in south Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighborhood, has ended its second chapter.
Established in 2006 at the corner of 38th and Grand by Dan and Mary Hunter, the Grand Cafe was reborn in 2017 under the tutelage of chef Jamie Malone. Malone and her team quickly won national praise for the kitchen’s whimsical approach to Parisian classics — including a Paris-Brest pastry filled with chicken liver mousse that landed on the cover of Food and Wine magazine when the Grand Cafe was named a 2018 Restaurant of the Year.
Malone’s version of the Grand Cafe served its last dinner Nov. 14. A statement released by the building owners noted that “the changing landscape for fine dining in the Twin Cities followed by the pandemic” has proved a challenging situation for many local restaurants.
Malone told the Star Tribune that the pandemic “created opportunities to rethink and reimagine restaurants, take stock of what works and what doesn’t. There are so many things that have been status quo in the past, that just didn’t serve the business or its employees well. Now is our chance to do that and create a better world for restaurant workers.”
The restaurant had only recently reopened for limited-seated dinners and ticketed events.
Malone says the meal kits will continue to be offered from her downtown Minneapolis restaurant, Eastside.
“We will, as we have been for the last eight months, be operating as Grand Café at Home, creating our meal kits and other take-home experiences,” she said. “We use our second restaurant Eastside as a ghost kitchen, because it is a large space and allows us to cook and package in a safe and spread-out manner.”
The Hunters, the building’s owners, are looking for a new tenant or buyer for the 5,700-square-foot space, built in 1926, at 3804 Grand Av. Before the Hunters first opened the Grand Cafe, the address was home to several food businesses, including the Grand Bakery and the Bakery on Grand. The Hunters served classic French country fare for 10 years before leasing the space to Malone for the Grand Cafe’s new iteration.
“We’ve been happy to be stewards of this special building in such a great neighborhood, and we know that on the other side of this challenging time, there will be yet a new place where people will gather once again,” said Mary Hunter. “Like many older buildings, this one has both a history and an ongoing story. Those don’t end now; we just don’t yet know what the next iteration will be — this place has such a simple beauty and old-world charm; it’s such a great canvas to work with.”
Both Malone and her version of the Grand Cafe were nominated for James Beard Awards. Food & Wine said Malone created “the Francophile fever dream she knew her hometown deserved.”
The Star Tribune gave the restaurant 3½ stars. “One of the traits that makes Malone’s confident work so compelling is her obvious curiosity for quirky — and superior — ingredients, a passion that reaps untold benefits at the table,” the Star Tribune’s Rick Nelson wrote.
“Malone is cooking like no one else in the Twin Cities.”
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Some will be available online weeks earlier; the schedule depends on your status and your branch of service. For those who receive their tax statements by mail, those forms will be mailed no later than Jan. 31.
Military retirees will have access to their retiree 1099R statements on myPay starting Dec. 15.
As for tax statements on myPay for active duty and members of the Reserve components:
• Reserve Army, Navy, Air Force W-2: Jan. 8
• Active duty and Reserve Marine Corps W-2: Jan. 13
• Active duty Army, Navy, Air Force W-2: Jan. 25
Tax statements for annuitants will be ready on myPay by Dec. 19; federal civilian employees serviced by DFAS will have access to their W-2 statements by Jan. 20.
Sign up for the Pay and Benefits Report
Stay up-to-date on changing military benefits and pay
Starting in January, DFAS customer service phone numbers will provide prompts for those who need tax statements reissued. DFAS also provides for online requests through its askDFAS feature. Click on “Contact Us” at the top of the myPay site for more information. Phone and online requests are answered within seven to 10 business days with printed and mailed documents.
While you can start gathering your documents and working on your tax returns, you can’t file the returns immediately. The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t start accepting tax returns generally until late January. That start date hasn’t yet been announced, but it should be announced in early January.
Service members and their families have options for free tax preparation, through on-base tax centers with trained, certified volunteers who also have training in military-specific tax questions. In addition, Military OneSource offers free MilTax Preparation and e-Filing software starting in mid-January. Military tax consultants are also available year-round through Military OneSource for those with questions.
While there's support from both Republicans and Democrats for sending out another round of payments, it's unlikely Americans will get a second round of stimulus checks before the end of the year -- and lawmakers have been unable to come to any agreement on a broader economic aid package.
Congress returns to Washington this week focused on passing a broader spending bill by December 11 to avert a partial government shutdown, though it's possible that some relief programs could be added to such a broader spending bill.
If anything, those provisions may extend programs set to expire on December 31 -- including expanded unemployment benefits, an eviction moratorium and a pause on student loan payments.
Disagreements over new checks
There's been little talk from lawmakers of a second round of stimulus checks since the summer. The most recent stimulus package proposal put forth by Republicans, who currently control the Senate, didn't include money for direct payments.
President-elect Joe Biden supports a $3 trillion Democratic-backed bill that passed the House in May, which provided for a second round of checks. But that package has little chance of passing Congress unless Democrats gain control of the Senate by winning both runoff Senate races in Georgia set for January 5.
More than 160 million Americans received stimulus payments earlier in the year, after Congress approved a $2 trillion aid package in March. They helped keep many families out of poverty as millions of people lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
But for many, that $1,200 check has already been spent. Now, as coronavirus cases surge, a group of more than 120 economists are urging lawmakers to approve another round of checks, arguing that they are "one of the quickest, most equitable, and most effective ways to get families and the economy back on track."
Congress has already allowed some relief programs to expire, like the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and the $600 federal boost to weekly unemployment benefits.
But others end this month. If Congress adds any stimulus to the general spending bill, they may prioritize pushing back those deadlines.
Expanded unemployment benefits
As part of the historic broadening of jobless benefits under the CARES Act, lawmakers created three programs to help out-of-work Americans. While the $600 payment enhancement lasted only four months, the other two run through the week ending December 26, which is the last weekend of the year.
One of them, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, allows independent contractors, the self-employed and gig workers to qualify for payments. It also opens up the program to those who can't work because of the pandemic, including if they or family members are ill or quarantining or if their children's schools are closed.
The other program, called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, provides an additional 13 weeks of federally paid benefits to those who run out of state payments, which typically last 26 weeks.
Student loan payment pause
In March, the US government automatically suspended payments and waived interest on federal student loans. That meant millions of borrowers could skip making their monthly payments without their balances getting any bigger.
Initially, the relief -- which was included in the $2 trillion congressional stimulus package -- was set to expire at the end of September. But President Donald Trump later moved the date to December 31 by an executive action.
If neither Trump or Congress acts to push the deadline back, millions of student loan payments will come due a couple of weeks before Biden takes office on January 20. Even if Biden reinstates the pause retroactively, it could create confusion for borrowers as well as a mess for student loan processors, who aren't built to suddenly stop or start payment.
Eviction protection
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order that went into effect in September temporarily halted evictions through the end of the year. It applies to renters who meet certain income requirements, have experienced significant losses of income and have made their best efforts to find rental assistance and pay their rent.
Since the order does not cancel or freeze rent, all of a tenant's back rent will be due January 1 if the moratorium is allowed to expire. Without rent relief or an extension of the protection, many struggling renters will again face eviction.
An eviction moratorium established by Congress in March shielded only tenants who receive federal assistance or live in rental properties with federally backed financing. That protection lapsed over the summer.
Paid family leave
Earlier in the year, lawmakers expanded paid family leave benefits for many workers who become ill or are caring for someone else.
It was limited to employees of companies with fewer than 500 workers but provided up to two weeks of paid sick leave and an additional 10 weeks of paid expanded family leave for parents who need to care for children whose schools closed.
However, the payments are capped, and small businesses can apply for waivers from the provisions affecting workers whose children's schools have shut down.
Those benefits also are set to expire on December 31.
CNN's Tami Luhby and Lauren Fox contributed reporting.
Last week we announced that the new Stonewall Kitchen had opened a new location in Fort Point on Congress Street.
In addition to featuring specialty foods, this new shop will also feature a cafe selling soups, salads, sandwiches and coffee. Sounds simple and exciting enough, right? Well, this opening is not without controversy. The name of the cafe within the Stonewall Kitchen is called PB&J Cafe – with a menu chock-full of peanut butter items.
What’s the big deal with the name?
Well, the new store/cafe is located in the same building at The Boston Children’s Museum. The museum leases the space to the PB+J Cafe and many children have peanut allergies that can be deadly. So maybe not the best combo.
When the museum’s Facebook page erupted into a storm of parental outrage, the museum and Stonewall Kitchen issued the following statements:
From the Children’s Museum:
Thank you to all who shared concerns about Stonewall Kitchen’s new Café. The safety and wellbeing of all children is our top priority and we want to address your comments. Stonewall Kitchen is an independent company, and separate from the Museum space. We have shared your concerns with Stonewall and they have responded with the following statement. It’s important to note that no food of any kind is allowed in the Museum exhibit halls. We understand this may not allay all of your fears, but we are committed to your safety and will continue to monitor this over the coming weeks.
From Stonewall Kitchen:
We appreciate your concerns about allergens at our recently-opened Stonewall Kitchen Café. The health and safety of our guests, especially children, is our primary priority. Please be assured that we genuinely understand the gravity that this allergen poses for some children (and adults) and are diligent to follow all regulations and protocols to keep people safe. As a food and restaurant company regulated by the FDA and numerous other agencies, we manufacture and serve products with nearly every major allergen, so we are acutely aware of the risks associated with allergens.
In the case of our new café in Boston, there are a few important points to note:
First, the Stonewall Kitchen Store and Café is a separate entity from the Boston Children’s Museum. We lease the space from the Boston Children’s Museum, but we are a completely separate business, not affiliated with the Boston Children’s Museum in any way. Prior to our lease, the Boston Children’s Museum leased the space to Au Bon Pain and before that McDonald’s, two restaurants which also feature numerous allergens in their menu.
While there is an entrance from the Boston Children’s Museum to our store and café, it is through a separate set of doors past the “brown bag” lunch area, which does not exclude peanut butter or other allergens on the premises, similar to other cafeterias. Importantly – visiting the museum does not require anyone to pass through the completely separate brown bag area, or through the doors into the Stonewall Kitchen store or café.
That entrance, as well as the primary entrances from Congress Street, also feature very visible allergen warnings on the doors, consistent with those on our other stores and café. As with any specialty food store or restaurant, those with allergens certainly do need to be aware before shopping at any Stonewall Kitchen store or Cafe. In addition to serving food that may contain allergens at the Café, we typically provide free samples of various products throughout our stores (though that has been temporarily suspended during COVID). For example, we proudly serve clam chowder in the Cafe, which contains shellfish, and sell milk which is of course a dairy allergen.
Lastly, we do happily provide alternatives to peanut butter for those desiring sandwiches, including almond butter or jam-only options.
Thank you for expressing your concerns. We hope this is helpful in clarifying that our new Stonewall Kitchen Café and Store are completely separate from the Boston Children’s Museum, and in deciding whether you or your children can safely visit our café and store.
For anyone who has a child with food allergies – in particular nut allergies, this issue is not to be taken lightly.
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Acclaimed chef Jamie Malone is done at her south Minneapolis restaurant, Grand Café.
Malone told WCCO’s Jason DeRusha that the Kingfield neighborhood restaurant is currently operating out of the kitchen at her sister restaurant, Eastside, in downtown Minneapolis.
Malone says she’s pivoting to a luxury meal service called “Keep It Grand.”
Malone says that she and her general manager, Nikki Klocker, “are excited to find something a little smaller and better suited to the future of restaurants.”
The last dinner service at the brick-and-mortar restaurant at 38th and Grand Avenue was held on Nov. 14. The building’s owners, Dan and Mary Hunter, are seeking a new tenant.
The Hunters established Grand Café in 2006 and operated it for a decade before Malone took it over in 2017.
Malone’s vision garnered national attention for what had since been a neighborhood staple. In 2018, Food and Wine Magazine named Malone’s Paris-Brest with foie gras mousse its Dish of the Year. Malone has also been nominated four times for the prestigious James Beard Award.
The end of Grand Café comes as many other Twin Cities restaurants are struggling, or have closed, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Since winning the election, Biden has made moves to carry out his campaign promise of building an administration that looks like and reflects the diversity of America. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has already shattered a monumental barrier by becoming the first woman elected Vice President.
Here are other people who would be historic firsts:
First Black Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo
Adeyemo currently serves as the president of the Obama Foundation. Adeyemo served during the Obama administration as the President's senior international economic adviser, and also served as deputy national security adviser, deputy director of the National Economic Council, the first chief of staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and senior adviser and deputy chief of staff at the Department of the Treasury.
First Hispanic American White House Social Secretary
Carlos Elizondo
Elizondo was a special assistant to the president and social secretary to the Bidens for all eight years of the Obama administration. He will be the first Hispanic American appointed to this position. During the Clinton administration, Elizondo served in both the White House and in the Office of the US Chief of Protocol.
First woman to lead the US intelligence community
Avril Haines
Haines would become the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence. Haines served as assistant to the president and principal deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama. She chaired the National Security Council's Deputies Committee, which is responsible for formulating the administration's national security and foreign policy. Haines previously served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Avril was also legal adviser to the NSC. She served as deputy chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while Biden served as chairman.
First Latino and immigrant as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Alejandro Mayorkas
Mayorkas would be the first Latino and immigrant as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security if confirmed by the Senate. He was deputy secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, and served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security's United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. While at USCIS, Mayorkas oversaw the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was an executive action under Obama that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation. President Donald Trump moved to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017 but was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court from doing so.
First woman of color to chair the Council of Economic Advisers
Cecilia Rouse
Rouse would be the first woman of color to chair the Council of Economic Advisers if confirmed by the Senate. Rouse has served as the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, as well as a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. Rouse previously served as a member of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. She also worked at the National Economic Council in the Clinton administration as a special assistant to the president.
First woman of color and first South Asian American as Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Neera Tanden
Tanden would be the first woman of color and first South Asian American to become director of the Office of Management and Budget. Tanden is the CEO and president of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, and is the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Tanden previously served in the Obama and Clinton administrations. She was a senior adviser for health reform at the US Department of Health and Human Services, and also served as the director of domestic policy for the Obama campaign. She was the policy director for Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign, and worked in Clinton's Senate office.
First woman as Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen
Yellen would make history as the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary. Yellen already made history as the first woman to have chaired the Federal Reserve, and did so from 2014 to 2018. She previously served for four years as the vice chair of the board, and president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for four years prior to that. Yellen was also chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999.
Think a cafe serving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sounds like the ideal addition to a children’s museum? Tell that to the parent of a child with a peanut allergy.
On Friday, when some people were perfecting their post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, a new sandwich shop opened inside Boston Children’s Museum: PB&J Café, a kid-focused eatery from Maine-based specialty food producer Stonewall Kitchen. Its menu has all the makings of a lovingly-packed school lunch: build-your-own peanut butter sandwiches; toast with jam, jelly, or marmalade; and cream cheese and jelly served on English muffins. Clam chowder from Legal Sea Foods is also on the menu, along with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.
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But many parents responded to the opening with concern, citing the dangers to children with peanut allergies, whether they eat in the cafe or not. When the Boston Children’s Museum announced the cafe’s arrival in a Facebook post on Friday, the comment section filled with replies calling the move “tone deaf,” “disappointing,” and “unsafe.”
We are thrilled to announce that Stonewall Kitchen's new PB&J cafe is NOW OPEN inside the Boston Children’s Museum…
“Most preschools are nut free, schools offer sun butter and nut free alternatives and you take the stand to alienate a group of children who are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Ann Montague wrote. “Just because this disability is not seen or obvious it is a life threatening daily disability for so many. Not an inclusive restaurant decision.”
“Will there be an alternatives offered for children with nut allergies?” Kristin Moul Driscoll asked. “Any protocols around hand and face washing after consumption? Families are obviously free to make any food decisions for their family, but as a mother to a severe peanut/tree nut child, this makes the museum very risky for us now.”
In response to the flood of concern, Boston Children’s Museum wrote a follow-up post, noting that “The safety and wellbeing of all children is our top priority and we want to address your comments.” The museum shared that Stonewall Kitchen is an independent company and separate from the museum, and that “no food of any kind is allowed in the Museum exhibit halls.”
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Stonewall Kitchen did not immediately respond to Boston.com’s request for comment. The company posted a statement on its Facebook page and attached it to the Boston Children’s Museum’s follow-up post.
“We appreciate your concerns about allergens at our recently-opened Stonewall Kitchen Café,” the statement said. “The health and safety of our guests, especially children, is our primary priority. Please be assured that we genuinely understand the gravity that this allergen poses for some children (and adults) and are diligent to follow all regulations and protocols to keep people safe. As a food and restaurant company regulated by the FDA and numerous other agencies, we manufacture and serve products with nearly every major allergen, so we are acutely aware of the risks associated with allergens.”
Stonewall Kitchen pointed out that the museum previously leased out the space to Au Bon Pain and McDonald’s — “two restaurants which also feature numerous allergens in their menu,” Stonewall said. It also noted that visitors do not need to pass through the cafe or the new Stonewall Kitchen shop located next to it in order to get to the museum, and that the cafe’s entrance, as well as the main entrances on Congress Street, feature allergen warnings on the doors.
“Lastly, we do happily provide alternatives to peanut butter for those desiring sandwiches, including almond butter or jam-only options,” the company concluded.
Still, some prospective museum guests were not convinced that Stonewall’s safety measures or alternatives would protect those with allergies.
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“You can say that there are doors between your place and the restaurant, but it’s not good enough protection for the many, many children who deal with the #1 food allergen,” Michelle Brassens wrote. “There will be countless families who choose not to visit the museum now in order to keep their kids safe.”
“Even with these ‘protocols’ kids will still be eating here and then running through the museum contaminating everything they touch with peanuts,” shared Bre Edwards. “Allergic children can have life threatening reactions just to touching their allergen. This will increase the risk of reaction just due to the increased amount of kids consuming peanut butter before going through the museum.”
“There is a remarkable difference between having allergens within a menu and prominently featuring the most common child allergen as the entire focus of the menu and restaurant,” wrote Chrissy Martin Better. “Instead of saying oops we kinda screwed up here, let’s fix it together, they’ve dug themselves 10x deeper with this ridiculous response. Adding that they have alternatives like almond butter and jam demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of food allergy concerns.”
PB&J Café at Boston Children’s Museum; 308 Congress St., Boston; Daily 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; bostonchildrensmuseum.org
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Early bitcoin investors and founders of crypto-exchange Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, see bitcoin gaining more than 25 times its current value as more investors adopt the cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge.
"We think it will be the best performing asset of the current decade," Tyler Winklevoss said in an interview with Seema Mody on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday.
"Our thesis is that Bitcoin is gold 2.0 and it will disrupt gold. If it does that it has to have a market cap of $9 trillion. So we think bitcoin could price one day at $500,000 a bitcoin. So at $18,000 bitcoin it's a hold or if you don't have any its a buy opportunity because we think there's a 25x from here," Tyler expounded.
The price of Bitcoin rose 5% on Monday to top $19,000 as investors continue to pile back into the cryptocurrency in 2020. The price of bitcoin was trading around $19,022, according to data from industry site CoinDesk. The cryptocurrency first climbed near the $20,000 mark in December of 2017. It collapsed soon after, and had not recovered to the $18,000 level until recent weeks.
The asset is up over 160% this year with interest from big-name investors such as Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller. Fintech giants Square and PayPal have lowered the barrier for entry into the asset.
"I think a lot of it is investors coming in and realizing that inflation, there's a specter of inflation out there and how do you protect against that? I think there's not much of a debate about all the debt that's increased in the U.S., the money printing, so how do you defend against that?" Cameron Winklevoss added. "I think a lot of people are starting to realize that bitcoin is really the best defense and offers the opportunity for an asymmetric return of something like 25 to 40x from here. I don't think there's an asset in the universe that can credibly offer that kind of potential and protect against inflation."
The Winklevoss twins said gold has historically been the classic hedge, but bitcoin is moving in as gold 2.0.
"It doesn't really need to be a great medium of exchange, it just needs to be better than gold and it's better across the board. So bitcoin, the supply is fixed at 21 million. Gold is scarce. Bitcoin's software it can be sent through the internet, like email, gold is hardware and its hard to transport," Cameron Winklevoss said.
The total number of bitcoins that will ever be produced is capped at 21 million. The digital asset underwent a key technical event in the spring known as the "halving," which saw the amount of bitcoins rewarded to the so-called "miners" who add bitcoin transactions to its public ledger get cut in half.
The Winklevoss twins are not concerned about regulation headwinds for the digital asset.
"Back in 2013, there was a question about whether bitcoin was going to be outlawed. We're way passed that. We believed in healthy, thoughtful regulation. We don't see that not continuing. We think bitcoin's here to stay, we think thoughtful regulation around it in the U.S. and other sophisticated jurisdictions is also here to stay," Tyler Winklevoss said.
"Bitcoin is still the best performing asset of the year, even compared to equities," he added.
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The nation was heading into winter with the threat of a new infectious disease from abroad causing widespread panic. Hospitals lacked proper protective gear and were struggling to contain outbreaks. And Donald Trump was using his Twitter account to attack Democratic officials over their handling of the virus and spread misinformation.
But this was 2014, not 2020. And the virus causing alarm around the globe was Ebola, not the coronavirus.
Six years ago, President Barack Obama and his administration feared the kind of calamitous situation the coronavirus has unfortunately caused. To help ensure that did not happen, Obama tapped a veteran Democratic operative, Ron Klain, to oversee the response to the outbreak in West Africa that had already made its way to the U.S.
Now Klain is on the verge of returning to the White House as chief of staff to President-elect Joe Biden as the country battles a raging pandemic far more deadly and pervasive than Ebola ever became. As one of the key architects of the incoming administration’s Covid-19 plan, Klain’s experience is already shaping how the next administration will respond.
“Klain’s Ebola work, in particular, has played into things hugely — starting back during the campaign with all our messaging and conversation about what to do,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who coordinated pandemic preparedness for the Health and Human Services Department during the Obama administration and served as a public health adviser to Biden’s campaign.
Starting back in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, Klain was part of a tight circle of longtime Biden allies briefing the then-candidate multiple times a week on the pandemic’s progress and advising the policy team as it put together plans on testing, contact tracing, production of protective equipment and preparations to distribute a vaccine. He also served as the public face for Biden’s strategy — standing before a whiteboard in a series of viral campaign videos, walking viewers through his criticisms of Trump’s pandemic response and explaining what Biden would do differently.
Klain is one of a number of people Biden has tapped for his administration whose views on battling a health crisis were shaped by what happened in 2014. At an event in Wilmington, Del. last week, Biden highlighted how his just-announced pick for Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, helped combat Ebola and Zika as part of the Obama administration. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, his pick for UN ambassador, “was our top State Department official in charge of Africa policy during the Ebola crisis,” Biden noted. And the former vice president praised Jake Sullivan, who served as his national security adviser during much of the Ebola outbreak, for “helping me develop our Covid-19 strategy.”
The coronavirus outbreak is different from Ebola in important ways. Covid-19, for instance, is spread much more easily — through tiny droplets that can hang in the air rather than direct contact with bodily fluids. And as Klain himself testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in February, “We know much less about coronavirus today than we did about Ebola in 2014.” But many of the public health, communication and government mobilization lessons Klain and his team learned then are not only applicable now; they’re also at the core of Biden’s plan for tackling the pandemic when he takes office in January.
Four, in particular, will be critical to the new president‘s — and the country’s — success in finally curbing the virus:
1. Managing the pandemic response is a full-time job.
Klain's experience coordinating the Ebola response taught him that managing a disease outbreak has to be full-time job and the person doing it has to be as close to the levers of power as possible — a model he'll bring to the Biden White House as they work to bring Covid-19 under control.
“What we learned in Ebola is that there are assets at the Defense Department, there are assets at the State Department, there are assets at Homeland Security, there are assets throughout HHS,” said Leslie Dach, the senior counselor to the secretary of Health and Human Services during the 2014 outbreak. “And we needed somebody at the White House to pull all that together.”
The lack of centralized coordination in the Trump administration, Klain said in an interview earlier this year, created “this rotating carousel of Covid coordinators” — with HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Vice President Mike Pence, coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, alternately taking control of different aspects of the pandemic and promoting competing messages and goals. All of them already had full-time jobs, Klain has noted, and none were empowered to pull together the diplomatic, economic, health and national security components of the response.
All that will change once Biden takes over, Klain pledged in his first TV appearance since being named chief of staff.
“He will have a Covid coordinator who works in the White House who has direct access to him and will be briefing him daily,” Klain told MSNBC. “The important thing is that that official will have a team of people he works with: someone coordinating vaccine distribution, someone coordinating fixing the supply chain problems we're having, someone coordinating the testing problems we were having so that we get this response where it needs to be.”
Biden’s team will soon announce who they want in this pivotal role, and is considering both Jeff Zients, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, and former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy — both of whom were closely involved in the campaign‘s and transition’s Covid-19 plans.
2. Set appropriate expectations … and let the scientists do the talking.
As they’ve forged plans for tackling Covid-19 — including the rollout of a vaccine and strategies for getting more people to wear masks — Klain and the rest of Biden’s team have focused heavily on which officials should talk about the pandemic and how they should do so.
Drawing on his experience with Ebola, Klain has urged the team to put the career federal scientists who’ve been sidelined by the Trump administration front and center, in the belief that they can help persuade a skeptical and fatigued public to rally behind the measures needed to defeat the virus.
“Our approach on H1N1 and on Ebola was to have the messaging coming from the scientific experts,” Klain told POLITICO earlier this year. “[Biden’s] view then was that information should come from medical experts so it would be seen as neutral, expert-based advice and not shaped by political considerations.”
Still, Klain stressed, there are moments when “people need to hear from your president in terms of the progress of the disease.” And in those moments, leaders need to be careful to stick to hard facts, set realistic timelines, and manage expectations on everything from a vaccine to school reopenings.
“The reality is the reality. People are experiencing it,” he said. “Trying to tell them we don’t have a Covid problem is not going to work, because people are seeing it in their own communities.”
That’s why in his speeches on Covid on the campaign trail and as president-elect, Biden has taken pains to give sober assessments of the many months left to go before a vaccine is widely available — a sharp departure from Trump’s repeated declarations over the summer that the pandemic was “rounding the corner” and a vaccine would be out by Election Day.
It’s a lesson that Biden, Klain and others learned the hard way during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, when the Obama administration failed to meet its early promise to have 100 million vaccine doses ready by the start of flu season in October. Beset by manufacturing problems, as few as 11 million doses were available by mid-October, according to one report. And by the time production ramped up, demand for the vaccine had gone down.
Now, with vaccine hesitancy on the rise and the public deeply divided following the election, Biden adviser Jen Psaki said “the public communication portion of this” had been significantly influenced by those past experiences, with a focus on managing expectations.
“We are fully eyes-open that there needs to be a rebuilt trust in government and institutions and what is communicated to the American people, and that’s part of the discussion,” said Psaki, whom Biden has tapped to be his White House press secretary.
3. Hospitals need protective gear and federal support to handle a new disease.
Klain has said repeatedly that one of the darkest moments of the Ebola crisis came in late September 2014, when a Liberian national visiting family in the U.S. tested positive for the virus at a hospital in Dallas and two nurses subsequently became infected, setting off a wave of public hysteria and fears of a widespread outbreak.
“Confusion and a lack of preparation led to missteps when the first case of Ebola arrived in Dallas,” Klain told a House committee earlier this year.
A National Security Council report in 2016 went into greater detail, outlining the “oversights in personal protective equipment use, disinfection, the collection, transport, and disposal of hazardous waste, the provision of social services for those placed under quarantine, and post-event monitoring and travel restrictions for potentially exposed health workers” that characterized the Dallas scare.
Working with several different government agencies, Klain implemented plans to create a network of hospitals where health workers were trained and properly equipped to test for Ebola, treat infected patients and safely transport serious cases.
“Somebody who got sick could go into an assessment center and somebody there would quickly ascertain whether they had Ebola or not and would make sure that nobody else was infected while that process was going on,” said Dach, who worked with Klain on the hospital network plan in 2014 and now serves as chairman of the health advocacy group Protect Our Care. “It was a very rigorous process and Ron was very hands on, working with us at HHS.”
Some of the same shortages of protective gear and federal resources for medical workers have plagued the Covid-19 response, and Biden’s team has made eradicating these issues a top priority.
The president-elect told a group of front-line health care workers in a virtual meeting on Nov. 18 that he planned to use the Defense Production Act to produce enough masks, gloves and gowns to ensure that medical providers and other front-line workers are protected. He also said he would implement and enforce paid sick days to allow infected workers to recover, and push Congress to approve adequate funding for hospitals and state health departments.
“It’s not enough to praise you,” he told the group. “We have to protect you.”
4. A global pandemic demands a global response.
Biden’s pledge to rejoin the World Health Organization on his first day in office can be traced directly to what his team learned from the Ebola outbreak, when the success of protecting Americans from the disease depended on working with international bodies and heads of state to stamp out the virus where it originated.
“This is not just a domestic issue,” Psaki said Wednesday. “It’s also an international issue, and there needs to be coordination across the national security and domestic teams. ... Certainly, that was the case with Ebola.”
It’s the subject of some of the very first meetings the transition team is holding with federal agencies, Psaki added.
Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who volunteered as an Ebola aid worker in Guinea in 2015 and is now serving as a member of Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board, said she expected that same philosophy to infuse the Biden administration’s vaccine distribution plans.
While Trump moved to cut off funding for the WHO’s vaccine development and distribution work and has pushed for Americans to be first in line for the shots — even though Pfizer’s vaccine was created by German scientists — Gounder says Biden’s views are shaped by an understanding that “we’re not an island.”
"If anything, March and April taught us that supply chains are not just in the U.S.," she said. "If we withhold access to vaccines, they may withhold access to other critical supplies — for example, gloves and masks and so on. We do have to work with others.”
Biden himself emphasized the parallel last week, in a statement pledging to reinvest in the Global Health Security Agenda that was first set up during the Obama administration and that has had its funding slashed under the Trump administration.
“Whether it’s Ebola or COVID-19, diseases do not respect borders, and the capacity to fight them must be strong, resilient, and accessible the world over,” Biden said in a statement.
End this pandemic, prevent the next one.
Despite some missteps that Klain and others have openly acknowledged, his and his team’s efforts in 2014 calmed the public panic and squashed the Ebola outbreak with only a single fatality on U.S. soil. Now, as he rejoins the White House, he faces a far more daunting challenge with Covid-19, which has killed more than 265,000 Americans and infected more than 13 million, with a widely available vaccine still months away. Still, those who worked with Klain on Ebola say they believe he can actually "turn the corner" on the pandemic the way Trump has been promising since March.
“I literally sleep easier at night knowing that Ron Klain will be part of the administration’s response,” former CDC Director Tom Frieden, who worked on the Ebola response, said in an interview.
The rising economic power of women in this country is one of the most significant financial shifts of recent decades. The bottom line: Women are generating and managing an increasing amount of wealth in the U.S.
Today, women control more than $10 trillion (about 33%) of total U.S. household financial assets. Meanwhile, an unprecedented amount of assets will shift into the hands of U.S. women over the next three to five years, representing $30 trillion by the end of the decade. Why? Because as men pass away, they will leave control of these assets to their female spouses, who tend to be both younger and to live longer.
This is a wealth transfer of such magnitude that it approaches the annual gross domestic product of the U.S.
"This is a huge transfer of wealth in and of itself but, because women traditionally outlive men, women stand to inherit most of it," said certified financial planner Marguerita Cheng, CEO of Blue Ocean Global Wealth in Gaithersburg, Maryland. "As more and more women have a say in significant financial decisions, it's easy to see they're not adhering to business as usual."
If you are a brand-name consumer products company, a financial services company, or are in the business of selling real estate, for example, women will be making the majority of these decisions in the years ahead. So attracting and retaining female customers will be a critical growth imperative for your business. To succeed, business of all types will need to truly understand women's needs, preferences and behaviors when it comes to spending and managing their money.
Women continue to make more financial decisions on behalf of the household and more women are also turning to the investing decisions. In fact, women are leading the field when it comes to Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance investing, according to a recent article in Fortune magazine.
In general, a higher percentage of women are interested in ESG investing than men, says CFP Cathy Curtis, CEO of Curtis Financial Planning in Oakland, California. A Calvert/Investment News study showed that usage of ESG funds are up 25% year over year and the trend of ESG investing is more pronounced in women, with 53% doing so currently.
"The Covid-19 pandemic has spotlighted our financial and health-care systems' inequities as more disadvantaged and poor people are losing their jobs and lives," Curtis said. "As a result, where the environment was the main focus of ESG investors, social and governance have become critical and are driving the inflows into ESG products.
"As women inherit more wealth from their parents and spouses and sometimes make the investment decisions for the first time in their lives, I predict more money will flow into ESG and Impact investments," she added.
So, with women making financial choices that have a long-term impact on society, the environment and overall business performance, small businesses and major corporations will need to step up and find ways to support social issues such as climate change, racial and gender inequality, and social justice.
Businesses that prepare for the transition of wealth to women could see four-times faster revenue growth, according to a McKinsey & Co. report.
"It will require businesses to understand a woman's needs, preferences and behaviors when it comes to managing their finances, which I'm not sure they're ready for," Cheng said.
In general, women are not only providing to the household income, they are also responsible for managing the money and making a majority of the financial decisions.
To that point, nearly 9 in 10 women who are married or live with a partner said they are involved in spending and investing decisions in their household, up from just 42% in 2012, according to a recent report from Hearts & Wallets, a consumer research firm.
Studies have confirmed that women approach wealth management differently than men. They tend to be less risk-tolerant and more focused on life goals.
The times are changing. As wealth begins to move into the hands of women, financial services firms and businesses overall will need to commit and adapt to find ways to better meet the needs of female clients and consumers.
LAGUNA BEACH (CBSLA) — Orange County’s first cat café has been forced to close permanently because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Catmosphere Laguna in Laguna Beach was the county’s first cat café, working with rescue groups to bring adoptable cats into its play room to help them find new homes.
But between the earlier shutdown and now limited capacity, the owner was not able to bring in enough business to stay open.
The cafe put on its last adoption events over the weekend.
“While COVID-19 restrictions and our small size mean that, for now, the cat café and lounge will need to close down, Catmosphere Laguna Foundation will live on,” founder Gail Landau said in a Facebook post. She went on to say she plans to put on future pop-up adoption events at other locations to be announced.
"cafe" - Google News
November 30, 2020 at 09:45PM
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Pandemic Closure, Capacity Limits Forces Laguna Beach Cat Cafe To Close Its Doors - CBS Los Angeles
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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Three more Ravens players have been added to the Ravens’ COVID-19/Reserve List on Sunday after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to NFL and ESPN reports.
This comes as the outbreak within the team appears to only grow larger by the day.
As of Sunday night, at least 12 Ravens players and eight members of Baltimore’s staff had tested positive for COVID-19 over the past eight days, according to CBS Sports.
Players who test positive for COVID-19 are required to quarantine for a minimum of 10 days, according to the team. Players who are deemed “high-risk close contacts” have to sit out at least five days.
There are 18 players currently on the COVID-19/Reserve List ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Here’s who is on the COVID-19/Reserve List and when the Ravens added them to the list:
Monday: Mark Ingram II, J.K. Dobbins, Brandon Williams
Sunday’s reports have not been added to the Ravens’ official total, but sources say the three have tested positive for the virus.
Among the Ravens players who will not face the Steelers include Snead, quarterback Lamar Jackson, running backs Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins, offensive linemen Patrick Mekari and Matt Skura and defensive linemen Calais Campbell, Brandon Williams and Justin Madubuike.
The Ravens are expected to play the Steelers on Tuesday, December 1 at 8 p.m.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020.
DETROIT – The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 350,021 as of Saturday, including 9,036 deaths, state officials report.
Saturday’s update represents 8,080 new cases and 103 additional deaths since Friday. Officials say 70 of those deaths were identified after reviewing records, meaning they did not occur between Friday and Saturday.
New COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise in Michigan. Testing has increased in recent weeks, with more than 45,000 diagnostic tests reported per day, but the positive rate has increased to near 13% over the last week. Hospitalizations have increased steadily for the last five weeks, including upticks in critical care and ventilator use.
Since the summertime, we’ve been following data from Covid Act Now, a group of technologists, epidemiologists, health experts and public policy leaders that monitors and identifies each state’s risk level for a COVID-19 outbreak. For months, the group had only four risk level categories: “low,” “medium,” “high” and “critical.” As of Saturday, however, the group has included a new, fifth risk level: “severe.”
The map of color-coded states in “America’s COVID Warning System,” as the group calls it, is doing just that with its daunting red hues: warning Americans that the entire country has reached a critical moment with the virus. Covid Act Now has even labeled this virus surge as the country’s “third wave” of the coronavirus.
As of Saturday, 20 states -- primarily those in the midwest -- are colored maroon, meaning they are identified as experiencing a “severe outbreak” of COVID-19. Most of the remaining states -- 27, to be exact -- are labeled red, meaning they are experiencing “an active or imminent outbreak,” according to the data.
Michigan is currently labeled as experiencing an active or imminent outbreak, which is considered the critical level.
Whitmer is asking Michiganders to wear masks, practice social distancing, wash hands frequently and avoid large gatherings over the holiday.
“Thanksgiving is about taking time to appreciate the things around us as well as give to others,” Whitmer said. “This year in particular, I am thankful for our frontline workers in our hospitals, child care centers, grocery stores, and everyone else who put their lives on the line to protect our families from COVID-19. As the weather gets colder and as cases continue to skyrocket, we must do everything we can to protect these heroes on the front lines. We all have a role to play to keep our family, friends, neighbors, and frontline workers safe. I know this year will be different, but to protect our families, frontline workers, and small businesses, we must make short-term sacrifices for our long-term health.”
Pfizer formally asked U.S. regulators Friday to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine. Emergency use of a vaccine is when regulators allow shots to be given to certain people while studies of safety and effectiveness are ongoing.
Before any vaccine is permitted in the U.S., it must be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, which requires study in thousands of people. Normally, the process to approve a new vaccine can take about a decade. But the federal government is using various methods to dramatically speed up the process for COVID-19 vaccines.
Michigan Gov. Whitmer was asked Thursday if the state can get its COVID-19 curve down enough over the next three weeks to avoid extending the new temporary restrictions on restaurants, schools and other parts of the economy.
“If we see meaningful movement in the right direction, that is possible,” Whitmer said. “That shows that we are capable of getting our arms around this.”
Michigan is entering a three-week “pause” to several activities in an effort to help stop a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Under new restrictions issued Sunday evening by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), here’s what will be closed starting Wednesday, Nov. 18 until Dec. 8 in Michigan.
Note: The map in the article shows the entire state of Michigan under what MDHHS calls risk “Level E” -- read that here.
What’s closed starting Wednesday, Nov. 18:
High schools (in-person learning)
Theaters, movie theaters, stadiums, arenas,
Colleges and universities (in-person learning)
Bowling centers, ice skating rinks, indoor water parks
Work, when it can be done from home
Bingo halls, casinos, arcades
Dine-in restaurants and bars (indoor dining)
Group fitness classes
Personal services (salon, spa) that involve mask removal*
Organized sports, except professional sports and certain NCAA sports (Big Ten football, for example)
Indoor gatherings are still allowed but only between two households and with no more than 10 people.
Small outdoor gatherings (25 people)
Retail
Preschool through 8th grade (local district choice)
Childcare
Manufacturing, construction, other that is impossible to do remotely
Public transit
Hair salons, barber shops, other personal services (Per the MDHHS order -- Section 4.e.: In facilities offering non-essential personal care services, including hair, nail, tanning, massage, traditional spa, tattoo, body art, and piercing services, and similar personal care services, gatherings are only permitted to the extent that services do not involve the removal of face masks. All services must be provided by appointment, and gatherings in waiting areas are prohibited.)
Gyms and pools (for individual exercise only)
Restaurants and bars (for outdoor dining, takeout, and delivery only)
One of the biggest challenges with containing COVID-19 is trying to limit gatherings -- and a new interactive tool shows just how risky it could be.
Researchers at Georgia Tech released a the “COVID-19 Risk Assessment Planning Tool,” a peer-reviewed resource that tells you the risk of being around someone with COVID-19, by the event size, in each U.S. county, in real-time.
According to the data, as of Nov. 13, at an event with 10 people, the risk of a person present with COVID-19 is 19% in Wayne County, 30% in Macomb County and 24% in Oakland County.
If that event is with 25 people, the risk increases to 41% in Wayne County, 59% in Macomb County and 37% in Oakland County.
At an event with 100 people, risk levels in pretty much every Michigan county surpasses 80%, including some at 99%, like Kent and Calhoun counties.
Michigan hospitals are rapidly filling with COVID-19 patients once again, and experts are warning residents that if this trend continues, it will be disastrous for the state’s health care system.
Brian Peters, the CEO of the Michigan Heath and Hospital Association, spoke about the state’s latest rise in COVID-19 cases during a virtual panel discussion Thursday. The MHA represents all the hospitals and health systems throughout Michigan.
“I can tell you, very clearly, that we are squarely in the midst of a public health crisis,” Peters said.
The MHA is seeing warning signs from all hospitals -- from the small, rural hospitals to the largest urban systems -- in every corner of that state, he said.
“Our hospitals are rapidly filling with COVID-19 patients at a very alarming rate,” Peters said. “If this continues in the coming weeks, we will surpass our all-time record high in terms of COVID-19 inpatient hospitalization numbers here in the state of Michigan.”
Michigan is expanding its COVID-19 exposure app for residents to use statewide after a successful pilot program in October.
The anonymous, no cost and voluntary app, piloted in Ingham County and on the campus of Michigan State University last month, lets users know whether they may have recently been exposed to COVID-19. Users can confidentially submit a positive test result into the app and alert others in recent proximity that they may have also been exposed to the virus.
Michigan COVID-19 daily reported deaths since Nov. 1:
Nov. 1 -- 8 new deaths
Nov. 2 -- 9 new deaths
Nov. 3 -- 43 new deaths (17 from vital records)
Nov. 4 -- 19 new deaths
Nov. 5 -- 51 new deaths (26 from vital records)
Nov. 6 -- 43 new deaths
Nov. 7 -- 65 new deaths
Nov. 8 -- 31 new deaths
Nov. 9 -- 31 new deaths
Nov. 10 -- 84 new deaths (25 from vital records)
Nov. 11 -- 42 new deaths
Nov. 12 -- 45 new deaths
Nov. 13 -- 118 new deaths (83 from vital records)
Nov. 14 -- 65 new deaths (36 from vital records)
Nov. 15 -- 27 new deaths
Nov. 16 -- 28 new deaths
Nov. 17 -- 79 new deaths (24 from vital records)
Nov. 18 -- 62 new deaths
Nov. 19 -- 134 new deaths (61 from vital records)
Nov. 20 -- 53 new deaths
Nov. 21 -- 101 new deaths
Nov. 22 -- 32 new deaths
Nov. 23 -- 33 new deaths
Nov. 24 -- 145 new deaths (51 from vital records)
Nov. 25 -- 73 new deaths
Nov. 26 -- 86 new deaths
Nov. 27 -- 86 new deaths
Nov. 28 -- 103 new deaths (70 from vital records)
Coronavirus resources:
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