Aurelia Butler

(Reuters) – A California task force released a 500-page report detailing the state’s role in perpetuating historic discrimination against African Americans, while recommending an official government apology and making a case for financial restitution.The document made public on Wednesday explained the harms suffered by descendants of enslaved people long after slavery was abolished in the 19th century, citing discriminatory laws and practices in housing, education, employment and the legal system.”From colonial times forward, governments at all levels adopted and enshrined white supremacy beliefs and passed laws in order to maintain slavery, a system of dehumanization and exploitation that stole the life, labor, liberty, and intellect of people of African descent,” the task force said in a report to the California legislature.The task force was formed by California in 2020 to research and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, making it the first U.S. state to engage in such a study. Individual cities and educational institutions have previously taken up the cause.”This system of white supremacy is a persistent badge of slavery that continues to be embedded today in numerous American and Californian legal, economic, and social and political systems,” the report said.”These effects of slavery continue to be embedded in American society today and have never been sufficiently remedied. The governments of the United States and the State of California have never apologized to or compensated African Americans for these harms.”The task force will release a further comprehensive reparations plan next year. California is home to the fifth-largest Black population in the United States.The report also made initial recommendations within the prison system, saying that incarcerated people should not be forced to work while in prison and if they do, they must be paid fair market wages. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan on Wednesday charged a former product manager at OpenSea, the largest online marketplace for non-fungible tokens, with insider trading, the first such case involving digital assets.Nathaniel Chastain, 31, of Manhattan, was accused of secretly buying 45 NFTs on 11 separate occasions based on confidential information that the tokens, or others by the same creator, would soon be featured on OpenSea’s home page.Prosecutors said Chastain chose which NFTs to feature, and sold his NFTs shortly after they were featured, typically for two to five times what he paid.In one instance, Chastain allegedly more than quadrupled his money by purchasing the NFT “Spectrum of a Ramenfication Theory” on Sept. 14, 2021, and selling it early the next morning.Prosecutors said the scheme ran from June to September 2021, with Chastain transacting through anonymous digital currency wallets and accounts at OpenSea, also known as Ozone Networks Inc.”NFTs might be new, but this type of criminal scheme is not,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan said in a statement. “Today’s charges demonstrate the commitment of this office to stamping out insider trading – whether it occurs on the stock market or the blockchain.”Chastain pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to wire fraud and money laundering charges, each carrying a maximum 20-year prison term, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses in Manhattan. Bond was set at $100,000.”When all the facts are known, we are confident he will be exonerated,” Chastain’s lawyer David Miller said in an email.Non-fungible tokens are unique digital assets, reflecting ownership of files such as artwork, other images, videos and text, and recorded on a blockchain.The NFT market totaled about $40 billion in 2021, and more than $37 billion from January to April 2022 though transaction activity has been stabilizing, according to the blockchain data firm Chainalysis Inc.”When we learned of Nate’s behavior, we initiated an investigation and ultimately asked him to leave the company,” OpenSea said in a statement about Chastain. “His behavior was in violation of our employee policies and in direct conflict with our core values and principles.” More

“I don’t think anyone saw the invasion – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – coming, which is driving the high energy prices that we see today,” Adeyemo told MSNBC a day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was “wrong” last year about the path that inflation would take.Yellen had told CNN on Tuesday that since public comments she made in 2021 suggesting a more benign and transitory path for inflation, the global economy was hit by multiple unanticipated shocks, including persistent supply chain disruptions, Russia’s war in Ukraine and strict lockdowns of China’s economy.Adeyemo echoed those comments and said other countries were also struggling with high inflation.”The best way to compare what’s happening here in the United States is to look around the world, because inflation isn’t only happening here in the United States. It’s happening around the globe,” Adeyemo said.Adeyemo said President Joe Biden had outlined plans to address inflation, including potential future releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but dodged a question about new approaches.”The best example of the things we’re willing to do in the future is what we’ve already done, including releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” he added.President Biden was also looking at calling on energy producers to boost production to drive prices lower.”We’re open to doing everything that the president can do on his own, but he also wants to work with Congress to do things like bring down the price of prescription drugs.” Asked if he believed inflation could be brought down without causing a recession, Adeyemo said: “I do, because part of my job is talking to business leaders around the country. The CEOs … make clear to me that they feel as if demand for their products and goods remains strong.” More