The United States is working with G20 nations on a global minimum tax for companies, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday. It’s part of President Biden’s corporate tax plan that also includes raising the corporate tax rate in the United States and setting minimum taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign earnings.
Yellen said reaching an agreement would move the world away from what she called a 30-year race to the bottom.
“Together we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations, and spurs innovation, growth and prosperity,” Yellen said.
Yellen’s remarks came during a speech Monday before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group kick off a new round of spring meetings this week. This is Yellen’s first participation in the meetings as Treasury secretary.
While the Biden administration is calling for a global minimum tax, a Treasury official would not give a specific number for what the target minimum is, only saying that the U.S. is looking to reach a comprehensive agreement on corporate taxation with other major economies. The G20 is aiming to reach a political agreement by July.
The Treasury official acknowledged that some countries may not agree to a deal but argued there are a number of provisions in the Made in America Tax Plan to help address tax havens and the U.S. is working with major partners as well. The tax proposal is part of the president’s American Jobs Plan, unveiled last week, which would pay for infrastructure including roads, bridges and airports but also affordable housing, broadband and other provisions. As part of his plan, the president is also calling for upping the minimum tax on U.S. multinational corporations from 10.5% to 21%, which would be calculated on a country-by-country basis to help hit profits in tax havens.
According to the Tax Foundation, the average corporate tax rate across 177 different jurisdictions in 2020 was just under 24%. The regional average was lower in Europe – just under 20% — and higher in in Africa, at 28.5%. With the Trump 2017 tax law, the U.S. brought its corporate tax closer to the average, from 35% to 21%.
Yellen has spent the past week briefing House and Senate leaders on Biden’s tax plan. According to the administration, the tax plan would raise more than cover paying for the $2 trillion infrastructure plan over 15 years, in part by reversing some of the Trump administration tax cuts. Yellen will also brief House Democrats on Tuesday.
On Monday, Yellen also laid out other global cooperation priorities including addressing climate change, fighting inequality, working with partners to advance the global economic recovery from the pandemic, and making sure the world’s poorest countries have access to vaccines and financing.
The Treasury secretary said the Biden administration is committed to restoring U.S. leadership to help make the world economy stronger and advance American interests, stating the U.S. needs a strong presence in the global market and would cooperate with willing partners, but she did not shy away from the challenges, specifically China.
“Our economic relationship with China, like our broader relationship with China, will be competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can be, and adversarial where it must be,” Yellen said.
During Monday’s speech, Yellen highlighted the sharp shift from the previous administration’s approach on the world stage, saying America is strongest when it engages with the world.
“Over the last four years, we have seen firsthand what happens when America steps back from the global stage,” Yellen said. “America first must never mean America alone.”
Under the deal, teachers were expected to return to school buildings on Tuesday, with students joining them the next day. Leaders of the union described the agreement as imperfect and were highly critical of Ms. Lightfoot, but they said the deal was needed given the conditions teachers are facing in the pandemic.
“This agreement is the only modicum of safety that is available for anyone that steps foot in the Chicago Public Schools, especially in the places in the city where testing is low and where vaccination rates are low,” said Stacy Davis Gates, the union’s vice president.
School leaders across the United States have scrambled to adjust to the highly infectious Omicron variant, which has pushed the country’s daily case totals to record levels and led to record hospitalizations. Most school districts have forged ahead with in-person instruction, as the Biden administration has urged, sometimes quarantining individual students or classrooms as outbreaks emerge. Some large districts, including in Milwaukee and Cleveland, have moved class online.
But the debate in Chicago proved uniquely bitter and unpredictable, with hundreds of thousands of children pulled out of class two days after winter break when teachers voted to stop reporting to their classrooms. Rather than teach online, as the union proposed, the school district canceled class altogether.
Chicago Public Schools leaders have insisted that virus precautions were in place and that pausing in-person instruction would unfairly burden parents and harm students’ academic and social progress. Union members said that the schools were not safe, that more testing was needed and that classes should be temporarily moved online.
According to Levine, when Mario Testino, the fashion photographer, saw “Lightness of Being,” he said: “People need to see this. It’s the most beautiful image.” Levine said he expected the image to be shared widely on social media after the queen’s death.
Queen Elizabeth sat for hundreds of official portraits like Levine’s during her seven decades on the British throne. But what was it like for artists to meet her, and try to make a distinct image? We spoke to three artists behind key portraits of the queen to find out.
Here are edited extracts from those conversations.
Credit…Thomas Struth
‘Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth II,’ 2011
Thomas Struth, photographer
I did much more preparation than I normally would for a family portrait.
I looked at a ton of photographs that exist of her — hundreds — and thought, “People don’t look at her as a person, as a woman.” I wanted to show the queen and Prince Philip as an elderly couple who’re very close to each other and used to each other.
One of my requests was that I needed to choose the queen’s dress, because I didn’t want the danger that she’d show up in a bright yellow one that would make it impossible for me to make a good picture. When I’d looked at other portraits, so many had her wearing something bright, and it just makes her chest the dominant signal and her face look small.
On the day, my feeling was they were surprised everything was so well prepared. The queen’s dresser said, “You may touch the queen if necessary,” and after two or three exposures I realized a pillow behind her back was lining up badly, so I walked to her, moved her forward and changed its position. She found that somewhat surprising.
I exposed 17 plates and then knew I was done. I just sensed I had the image. I had 15 more minutes left, but I gave them that as a gift — some unprogrammed time.
I heard later that when they saw the picture in a museum, they stood in front of it for a long time. It’s quite big — eight feet wide and maybe six feet high — and it’s very, very sharp. You can see all her veins. Prince Philip said, “How did he do that?”
Credit…Justin Mortimer; Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts Manufacturers & Commerce; Bridgeman Images
‘The Queen,’ 1998
Justin Mortimer, painter
I was commissioned not long after Diana died.
I was 27, and do think they chose me because they were keen to modernize the public’s view of the monarchy, since they were being lambasted at the time as these inward-looking, irrelevant people.
It was a little overwhelming at the first sitting. When she walked in, I instantly addressed her the wrong way!
I started by taking some photos. She had a very, very straight gaze, and she never blinked, even though I was going closer and closer with my Polaroid camera. When I pulled back from her, I realized I’d shot all these Polaroids straight into her lap, which was embarrassing, but she was, like, “Don’t worry, dear. Lord Snowden used to shoot me all the time on these.”
I just remember thinking: “I’m in the presence of this human being who has met all the iconic people of the 20th century. Just down the corridor, she would have met Jackie and J.F.K., and Churchill and Idi Amin. Everyone from heroes to criminals.”
In my studio, the only way I could approach it was to paint her in the context of my other works at the time, and I did have these figures with disjoined limbs and slightly dismembered heads, so I ended up basically taking out her neck. It was a bit cheeky. I knew people would bring ideas, like, “Cut off her head!” to it.
I didn’t go in as a raging republican. I just wanted to suggest this vein of unease about the royal family at the time.
After it appeared, I had newspapers all around the world calling me and interviewing me, and people seemed really affronted by what I’d done. But the fact it’s still remembered shows the work has an almost iconic status.
I don’t know what the queen thought of it. But funnily enough, I was asked to do another portrait for the Royal Collection of Lord Chamberlain, who was this very grand old gentleman in the royal household. I’m wondering if that gives you an inkling of the queen’s sense of humor, getting me to “do the business” on this fellow.
Credit…Chris Levine (artist) and Rob Munday (holographer); Jersey Heritage Trust
I was going to make a holographic portrait of her and was originally thinking of making a pulse laser hologram, which would have involved exposing Her Majesty under laser light. But I got nervous on health and safety grounds, that someone was going to say, “You’re kidding, aren’t you? You want to fire lasers at the queen?”
So we came up with a different approach, where we have a camera move along a track taking a series of 200 stills from left to right, and then making a hologram from each still.
I had an idea in my mind from the beginning — to get beyond all the noise and reduce her to a kind of essence. I wanted to make it really iconic, something that would resonate.
At the time, I was really getting into meditation and was almost evangelical about it. So when the camera had finished a run and was resetting, I asked Her Majesty to breathe. I had another camera in the middle of the track, and took the image that became “Lightness of Being” while she was resting.
I called the first portrait I made “Equanimity,” and I do think she developed this mechanism of being equanimous and not giving anything away, to protect herself almost.
I showed her the work in progress at Windsor Castle — just me, her and her corgis — and asked what she felt about the title and she said, cryptically, “Well, things aren’t always as they seem.”
We did talk about meditation, yes. She said her meditation was gardening at Balmoral.
Whatever indifference I might have had about the queen up until the commission, I felt a real affection for her by the end.
But that’s not what happened, it claims. Instead, between October 2011 and December 2016, Netanyahu allegedly tried to help Milchan’s business interests in a number of ways. According to the indictment, the prime minister on two occasions lobbied U.S. officials to get Milchan a visa, and in another incident appealed to then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid to extend income tax breaks to the businessman. In Netanyahu’s capacity as minister of communications — a position he occupied because it was vacant at the time — the prime minister tried to help push through a merger beneficial to Milchan, the indictment says.
Un día bastante agitado en el mundo deportivo y en DIEZ.HN no ha sido la excepción, por ello te presentamos un resumen con las seis noticias más leídas de este viernes.
6. La actualidad de los extranjeros que brillaron en Honduras
5. La lista de jugadores con la que negocia el Barcelona
El técnico español Luis Enrique puso en marcha la maquinaria culé para fichar de cara a la temporada 2016-17 y ya han salido varios nombres a la luz. Uno de ellos es Marquinhos, quien juega para el PSG, pero lleva mucho tiempo en el ojo azulgrana.La nota completa aquí.
4. Reservista del Zaragoza no superó las pruebas en Olimpia
El hondureño Nelman Castellanos decidió dejar las reservas del club español para retornar a Honduras con la ilusión de cumplir su sueño de vestir de blanco, pero este viernes el asistente técnico Nerlin Membreño confirmó que no logró convencer. La explicación completa que dio Membreño.
3. Los estadios más temidos de Centroamérica
El fútbol centroamericano sigue luchando por crecer y destacar, pese a ello hay canchas donde a los visitantes les cuesta mucho salir con un resultado positivo. Acá el listado.
2. Jugadores del Real Madrid en lista de salida
Real Madrid cerró la temporada ganando la Champions League de la mano de Zidane, pero ahora el técnico francés busca armar una plantilla que le permita este año competir además por Liga y Copa del Rey, para ello busca fortalecerse y ya hay una nómina de los que podrían marcharse. Acá la podés revisar completa.
1. El islandés Aaron Gunnarsson sale en defensa de Cristiano
El diario alemán Bild publicó este viernes que el delantero luso no quiso intercambiar camisa con el seleccionado de Islandia y que le habría dicho: “¿Mi camiseta? ¿Y quién eres tú?”, pero el mismo defensor lo desmintió. Acá su aclaración y lo que ocurrió verdaderamente.
HOWELL, MI – President Joe Biden will visit Michigan for the first time since July in an effort to build public support for his Build Back Better agenda, including the infrastructure plan currently pending in the U.S. House.
Biden will travel to Howell on Tuesday, Oct. 5, according to a White House release. The trip will allow pooled press to attend, and additional details will follow, the release stated.
The visit will pitch the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved 69-30 by the Senate in August. The plan sends hundreds of billions to states for public works projects, including rebuilding roads, broadband internet and water pipes, according to the Associated Press.
House Democrats are currently negotiating the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with Republicans, with Biden pledging it would get done in remarks made Friday at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Another subject of Biden’s visit will be to further his Build Back Better agenda, the release stated, by speaking on how it “invests in working families, paid for by repealing tax giveaways to the rich.” The initially-proposed $3.5 trillion government-overhaul plan addresses dental, vision and hearing care for seniors, free child care for pre-kindergarten and climate change initiatives, the AP reported.
Like the infrastructure bill, this next phase of his agenda is under deliberation and debate in Congress.
Biden last visited Michigan in July with a trip to King Orchards in Northern Michigan. He discussed issues such as coronavirus restrictions, vaccination strategies, electric vehicles and more while enjoying the region’s famous cherry pie and ice cream.
Chinese newspaper editor debunks Trump’s trade war claims
President Donald Trump said China is ready to come back to the negotiating table, but one Chinese insider is calling Trump’s bluff, saying, “China didn’t change its position.”
No todo es el dólar, ni la ronda cero, o como se llame, ni la violencia desaforada. Gil está de plácemes. La Fórmula 1 vuelve después de veinte años de ausencia a nuestro país. Gamés no podía con la mortificación, cada noche le decía a su alma vagabunda: ¿por qué no hay Fórmula 1 en México? ¿Qué hicimos mal? ¿Por qué nos hemos acostumbrado a vivir sin la escudería? La verdad la vida no era una vida tan vida hasta que la noticia atravesó los portales, los foros televisivos, las redacciones de los diarios: Fórmula 1 vuelve a México. ¿Querían resultados de las reformas estructurales del gobierno de Peña? Ahí los tienen: Fórmula 1 en nuestro país. Gran noticia.
Para quienes lo ignoran: el Gran Premio de México es una carrera de campeonato mundial. El triunfo se lo han llevado a casa Ayrton Senna, Alan Prost y Ricardo Patrese. ¿Cómo les quedó el ojo? No empiecen, caracho. Si no saben nada de nada, Gilga les va a explicar: es como si dijéramos que en un equipo juegan Messi, Christiano y el gran Chícharo. Ya en serio: como si una mesa la compartieran Flaubert, Dickens y Dostoyevski. Como lo oyen. Si la lectora, el lector y el lectere supieran algo, Gamés añadiría que Senna y Prost vencieron en un Mclaren Honda, y que Patrese pasó por la meta como una ráfaga en un Ferrari, pero Gilga siente que quienes leen esta página del fondo no sintonizan con el apasionante deporte del automovilismo. Ah, el Autódromo de los Hermanos Rodríguez; ah, el inenarrable circuito; ah, la pasión por el deporte. Digan lo que quieran, pero se trata de un deporte de gran tensión. ¿No?
Ríos rojos Esta semana sólo hemos leído en los periódicos noticias que retumban en esa zona del cerebro donde se produce la felicidad. Ya lo saben: la Nasa dio a conocer uno de los principales hallazgos hechos en el planeta rojo: la presencia de agua líquida salada durante las estaciones cálidas, agua que se evapora durante las épocas frías del año marciano. Si Gil ha entendido bien, cosa improbable, este descubrimiento pone al descubierto la posibilidad de encontrar vida en Marte, o bien que el hombre pueda colonizar ese mundo rojo.
Así las casas (muletilla patrocinada por Grupo Higa), Gilga ha meditado: al paso que vamos en la Tierra, quizá lo mejor sea emigrar al planeta rojo. Eso sí, pioneros mexicanos, y no es que Gamés albergue (no empiecen) nacionalismos inconfesados, pero ya le toca a México un planeta, qué diablos, le hemos dado al mundo el pulque, el sarape, el amaranto, al Chícharo Hernández, a Pascual Ortiz Rubio. Y el mundo, ¿qué nos ha dado? Nada, sólo sinsabores: petróleo a precios de risa, dólar caro, jamás el quinto partido. No hay derecho.
¿Saben qué?, vámonos a Marte. Dejamos aquí al PRI de Beltrones y a la Morena de Liópez, al PAN del enjundioso joven Anaya y a los partidos pequeños como el PRD. Nos llevamos un pie de cría de los Ángeles Azules, unos tacos de suadero, unas chelas bien muertas y verán si no fundamos una civilización poderosa como el Dios marciano manda. Porque efectivamente, al cambiar de planeta, cambia el Dios, ¿no es cierto? No se sabe bien, pero mientras lo averiguamos busquen a Gilga en Marte.
Populismo Gil caminó sobre la duela de cedro blanco y meditó: nadie sabe si en Marte hay populismo. El presidente Peña ha llamado la atención sobre los peligros del populismo en el planeta Tierra y en especial en México. En poder de Gilga obran documentos en los cuales se demuestra que en Marte sí hay populismo.
Un marciano que se dice bueno y que afirma representar a la marcianiza pobre está necio con que le robaron la presidencia marciana, que no cualquiera gana. Aquí en la Tierra es fácil, pero allá arriba (¿o abajo?) está muy cañón porque falta el oxígeno. A ver, ¿ganen unas elecciones sin oxígeno? Ese marciano quiere persuadir a su planeta de que puede ahorrarse 500 mil millones de marciapesos, que cotizan como la lumbre, no el pesito que tenemos de este lado del u universo. El marciano mayor no se anda con pequeñeces. Según él, si nos ahorramos unos celulares y bajamos los salarios, en Marte todo será bienestar. En fon, cada quien su vida marciana.
La máxima de Baltazar Gracián espetó en el ático de las frases célebres: “Ciencia sin seso, locura doble”.
California authorities have identified the young girl whose body was found in a duffel bag along an equestrian trail last week.
The girl has been identified as 9-year-old Trinity Love Jones of Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday.
The medical examiner’s office determined that Trinity’s death was a homicide, but the cause of death is being withheld, the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
Authorities have detained two persons of interest in the case, but did not identify them.
Trinity’s body was dumped near an equestrian trail in Hacienda Heights sometime on the evening of March 3. It was discovered on the morning of March 5 by Los Angeles County maintenance workers, the LASD said last week.
The child’s body was found partially inside a black rollaway-type duffel bag, and her upper body was seen protruding from the bag. No obvious signs of trauma were found on her body, the sheriff’s department said last week.
The LASD had released a composite sketch of Trinity, urging the public to identify the little girl.
Trinity was wearing gray panda print pants and a pink shirt which read “Future Princess Hero.”
A majority of voters do not believe President Donald Trump has paid his “fair share” of federal income taxes as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden continues to lead by double digits.
The new polling released Sunday by ABC News and TheWashington Post shows 57 percent of likely voters believe—and 51 percent strongly believe—that Trump has not paid his fair share in federal income taxes
Notably, there is a strong partisan divide, with 93 percent of Democrats saying Trump hasn’t paid enough in federal income taxes while just 16 percent of Republicans say the same. A majority of independents (57 percent) think the president has underpaid in federal income taxes.
Trump has fought hard to keep his tax records secret, repeatedly claiming falsely that he cannot release them due to an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service. But at the end of September, The New York Timespublished a lengthy report analyzing nearly two decades of the president’s personal tax returns that it had obtained. They showed that Trump—a billionaire—paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017.
The tax returns also showed that Trump had paid $0 in federal income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years, while also reporting millions in annual losses. Financial analysts have said the returns show Trump is in a somewhat dire financial position and counter his claims of being a savvy businessman. They also raise questions of potential tax fraud due to some of the write-offs and accounting “magic” employed to reduce his annual payments.
Meanwhile, Biden continues to hold a double-digit lead over Trump. The same poll release today shows Biden is backed by 54 percent of likely voters while just 42 percent support the president. That aligns with other recent polls, many of which have shown Biden ahead by double digits, ranging from 10 to 16 percentage points.
The new survey data also shows a significant majority of likely voters disapprove of the president overall. Only 45 percent of likely voters say they approve of Trump while 55 percent say they disapprove, and 50 percent say they disapprove “strongly.”
The current polling averages compiled by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight show Biden ahead by 9.8 percentage points and 10.3 percentage points, respectively. In state-level contests—which will inevitably decide the outcome of the presidential election—Biden is ahead in all the key battleground states. But those margins are smaller than the Democratic nominee’s national lead.
Democrats are particularly focused on Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—four states that went blue for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 before flipping red for Trump in 2016. The current averages by Real Clear Politics show Biden favored in all four, with a lead of about 3.7 percentage points in Florida, 7.1 points in Pennsylvania, 6.7 points in Michigan and 5.5 points in Wisconsin.
“God gave you a voice. Use it,” Elizabeth Bonker told her fellow graduates. “And no, the irony of a nonspeaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me.”
Scott Cook/Rollins College
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Scott Cook/Rollins College
“God gave you a voice. Use it,” Elizabeth Bonker told her fellow graduates. “And no, the irony of a nonspeaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me.”
Scott Cook/Rollins College
She didn’t say a word — and that only made her message resonate more powerfully. Valedictorian Elizabeth Bonker recently delivered the commencement speech at Rollins College in Florida, urging her classmates to serve others and embrace the power of sharing.
Bonker, who is affected by nonspeaking autism, hasn’t spoken since she was 15 months old. But thanks to an accepting attitude from her peers and teachers and help from technology, she has overcome many challenges and graduated at the top of her class at the Orland0-area school.
“God gave you a voice. Use it,” Bonker told her fellow graduates. “And no, the irony of a nonspeaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me. Because if you can see the worth in me, then you can see the worth in everyone you meet.”
Bonker used text-to-speech software to deliver the commencement address — an honor for which she was chosen by her fellow valedictorians.
“I have typed this speech with one finger with a communication partner holding a keyboard,” she said. “I am one of the lucky few nonspeaking autistics who have been taught to type. That one critical intervention unlocked my mind from its silent cage, enabling me to communicate and to be educated like my hero Helen Keller.”
A new Rollins grad looks to a famous alum: Mister Rogers
In her speech, Bonker also evoked another hero: Fred Rogers, the Florida college’s most famous alumnus. Last year, the school unveiled a statue of the man widely known as Mister Rogers. And it has long embraced his lessons.
“When he died, a handwritten note was found in his wallet,” Bonker said. “It said, ‘Life is for service.’ “
She urged her classmates to rip off a piece of paper from their program, write those words down, and tuck the message away in a safe place.
“We are all called to serve, as an everyday act of humility, as a habit of mind,” she said. “To see the worth in every person we serve.”
The new plan: helping others break through an inability to communicate
After graduating, Bonker plans to use what she has learned to help people who face situations like hers.
“There are 31 million nonspeakers with autism in the world who are locked in a silent cage,” she said. Her life’s work, she said, will be to help them express themselves.
Bonker recently launched a nonprofit organization, Communication 4 ALL, which aims to break down the barriers facing nonspeakers by providing communication resources, particularly in schools.
She’ll also work to educate the public about the millions of people affected by nonspeaking autism. As she has stressed in the past, it is not a cognitive or intellectual disorder.
An estimated 25–30% of children with autism spectrum disorder are nonspeaking or minimally speaking, according to recent studies.
Gunman kills 12 in Virginia Beach; suspect shot dead
A disgruntled public utility employee opened fire on co-workers at city offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Friday afternoon, killing 12 people and wounding several others…
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