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George Parker, Political EditorYESTERDAY 345 Print this page British and EU politicians and officials would regularly get back in the room together on a scale not seen since Brexit negotiations, under plans by Sir Keir Starmer’s government to reset relations. Nick Thomas-Symonds, Starmer’s EU ministerial envoy, said Britain wanted “structured dialogue to happen as soon as possible” to build closer ties on a wide range of issues including security, trade and migration. Thomas-Symonds confirmed that Britain was also seeking an UK-EU leaders’ summit to help seal the new partnership, saying both sides would be “laying some groundwork for this in the autumn”. In his first interview as EU relations minister, he said talks with Brussels would include efforts to dismantle Brexit trade barriers. “What business wants is fewer barriers to trade,” he told the Financial Times. Starmer this week hosted a European Political Community meeting of 44 European leaders — representing both EU and non-EU nations — at which the new prime minister vowed to move on from the trauma of Brexit. Since the UK’s departure from the bloc took effect in January 2020 official contacts between London and Brussels have withered — aside from official-level meetings to discuss aspects of the UK-EU trade deal. Thomas-Symonds said it was in Europe’s interests for a regular dialogue to begin again. “It’s about creating a formal structure which is politician to politician and official to official,” he said. “Whatever form it takes, it’s going to have a regularity of meetings.” A first UK-EU summit since Brexit is also being lined up to baptise the new partnership, with officials looking at early 2025 as the most likely date, to allow time for a new European Commission to bed in. Charles Michel, president of the European Council, which represents EU leaders, said on Thursday it would be “good if in the months to come there would be a bilateral summit”. Thomas-Symonds said his comments were “evidence that the suggestions we’re making are well received.” Thomas-Symonds said the Labour government had set out in its manifesto some of its objectives for the new relationship, including seeking a new security pact covering defence, migration and energy. Labour also had specific manifesto proposals to remove Brexit trade barriers, covering areas such as agricultural trade, professional qualifications and visas for touring artists. Most of them are relatively modest and constrained by the “red lines” that Starmer has laid down, insisting he will not take Britain back into the EU, the single market, customs union or restore free movement. The EU has repeatedly rejected any attempt by Britain to “cherry pick” parts of the single market, but Thomas-Symonds wants to explore options for lessening trade burdens by building trust. The EU relations minister said he had been “pleased with the constructive response” to Britain’s overtures and suggested he would look to go beyond Labour’s manifesto if it was in the national interest. “We do have that framework, but I do believe we can be ambitious about this reset,” he said, while insisting the red lines — identical to the ones adopted by Boris Johnson in his “hard Brexit” deal — would remain in place. Thomas-Symonds wants to reassure the EU that the new government has no interest in creating the kind of “Singapore on Thames” vision of a low regulation post-Brexit economic model favoured by some on the Tory right. “We aren’t a government that’s interested in a race to the bottom, whether it’s on environmental standards, workers’ rights or consumer protection,” he said. “We do aspire to have high standards and it’s pretty clear you want to reduce barriers to trade.” Thomas-Symonds, a former barrister, has been entrusted by Starmer as his link person in Brussels. The EU relations minister sits in the Cabinet Office, next door to Number 10. Details of how exactly “structured dialogue” would take place and detailed talks on trade liberalisation will come into focus in the autumn, but for now the priority has been to rebuild relations with the EU. “You can see Britain reconnected on the world stage — you can see the positive and welcoming response that has received,” he said. “The first thing we wanted to do in opening a new chapter was to set a constructive new mood and partnership,” he said, arguing that the EPC meeting capped two weeks of diplomacy since Labour’s election win. Thomas-Symonds, a post-war historian, said Starmer had reassured EU leaders by vowing “we will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights”, removing the threat made by his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak. The original 1949 Treaty of London that paved the way for the convention was displayed at Blenheim during this week’s meeting to underline the point. Sir Winston Churchill, who was born at the palace, was an architect of the human rights framework. While Sunak called the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg a “foreign court”, Thomas-Symonds wants to reclaim Britain’s role in setting it up: “We are back on the world stage, promoting values that are ours.” But for all the warm words, Thomas-Symonds says Labour has no intention of taking Britain back into the EU: “I don’t think it’s in the national interest to go back to the debates of the past and the uncertainty that would have.” Nor will talks with the EU be easy. For example, the EU would like a youth mobility deal with Britain and improved terms for access to its universities, neither of which are palatable to a government committed to ending free movement and with a higher education funding crisis. But Thomas-Symonds said the diplomacy of the past two weeks had been promising. “We are certainly encouraged,” he said. “It’s about setting a mood, an atmosphere. I don’t think we should be underplaying that.” Additional reporting by Andy Bounds in Brussels and Peter Foster in London

Last Updated: July 19, 2024 at 3:01 p.m. ETFirst Published: July 19, 2024 at 3:46 a.m. ET

Barbara Kollmeyer, Ciara Linnane, James Rogers,

CrowdStrike shares plunge after software update affects Microsoft’s operating system

Major airlines grounded flights, airport operations were snarled and companies globally were experiencing computer outages caused by a CrowdStrike cybersecurity platform issue on Friday.

Companies were gradually rolling out updates to fix the problem, which CrowdStrike blamed on an errant update rather than a security breach or hack.

American Airlines Group Inc. AAL, -0.38%, Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL, +1.16% and United Airlines Holdings Inc. UAL, +3.32% had to ground flights, and although financial markets were operating, the feed the London Stock Exchange uses to disseminate company announcements was down for several hours.

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Major hospitals were also scrambling to respond. Mass General Brigham in Boston said that all previously scheduled nonurgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits were canceled Friday, although the hospital remains open for patients with urgent health issues.

Main Line Health, which has several hospitals in the Philadelphia region, said it is experiencing issues with clinical and nonclinical applications and that elective surgical procedures were paused Friday morning.

At the University of Kentucky, hospitals and clinics are seeing disruptions due to CrowdStrike issues, and the IT team is working to restore servers and workstations throughout the system and to “prioritize the needs of our most critical and complex patients,” a spokesperson told MarketWatch.

For more, read: Hospitals, 911 systems scramble to respond to CrowdStrike issues

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President Joe Biden has been briefed on the outage and his administration is in touch with CrowdStrike and with affected entities, according to the White House.

“His team is engaged across the interagency to get sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed,” a White House official said.

The president was also briefed on a drone attack carried out overnight in Tel Aviv.

The latest cybersecurity update from CrowdStrike was putting computers using the Microsoft Windows MSFT, -0.74% operating system into a “blue screen” reboot loop. Systems using Apple Inc.’s Macintosh AAPL, +0.06% or Linux operating systems were not affected.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” CEO George Kurtz said in a statement.

“Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” he said. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Kurtz told NBC’s “Today” that the problem was caused by a bug in a single update. The company quickly identified the issue and remediated it, he said.

Kurtz was asked how a single faulty update could cause such widespread disruption and chaos.

“We have to go back and see what happened here,” he said, adding that it could be some time before systems are back to normal, because they will not “just automatically recover.”

The news rattled CrowdStrike’s stock CRWD, -11.10%, in what multiple analysts described as a black eye for the company.

Raj Joshi, senior vice president at Moody’s, said the incident would hurt CrowdStrike’s reputation, despite the company’s strong track record of innovation, market leadership, growth and customer-retention rates.

“The disruptions will also negatively impact operating performance, and there is a risk of large potential liability claims from customers that were affected by the outages,” Joshi said. “While this incident calls into question CrowdStrike’s software-engineering practices, it also underscores growing vulnerabilities in global cloud infrastructure from increasing points of failure.”

The CrowdStrike outage has also affected some applications and services at NASA, according to the space agency.

“NASA is assessing potential impacts to agency systems related to Microsoft partner CrowdStrike. So far, we have seen some impact to various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” a NASA spokesperson told MarketWatch.

“Currently, there are no impacts to operations or communications for the International Space Station,” the spokesperson added. “We are continuing to monitor the situation.”

CrowdStrike’s stock was last down 11% as the fix was being implemented, after falling more than 20% early in the day.

Microsoft shares MSFT, -0.74% slipped 0.7%.

Eleanor Laise contributed.

Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry, was arrested in March 2023 in a case his employer called hostage-taking.

By Robyn Dixon

Updated July 19, 2024 at 8:57 a.m. EDT|Published July 19, 2024 at 4:57 a.m. EDT

After a closed trial with secret evidence, a Russian court on Friday convicted American journalist Evan Gershkovich of espionage — charges that the U.S. government said were wholly fabricated — and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony, according to Russian state media.

Gershkovich was the first American journalist arrested in Russia since the Cold War, and his case has grave implications for press freedoms.

The trial proceeded with unusual swiftness — suggesting potential developments in negotiations for a prisoner exchange. Trials for espionage in Russia typically take months.

Gershkovich’s arrest in March 2023 seemed to mark a brazen new chapter in hostage diplomacy, by which the Kremlin detains foreigners on minor, or even baseless, charges to then use them to negotiate exchanges for Russians convicted and imprisoned for serious crimes in the West.

Senior Russian and U.S. officials have said that talks about an exchange involving Gershkovich are underway but, according to Kremlin policy, would only proceed once the trial was over.

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The secrecy of the trial and arguments means that the evidence presented against Gershkovich faced no public scrutiny and may never be disclosed. The prosecution on Friday had requested an 18-year prison term on Friday, close to the 20-year maximum.

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President Biden said in a statement that Gershkovich was targeted because he was an American and a journalist and sentenced to 16 years despite having committed no crime.

“We are pushing hard for Evan’s release and will continue to do so,” Biden said, describing Gershkovich as a “hostage.”

“As I have long said and as the U.N. also concluded, there is no question that Russia is wrongfully detaining Evan.”

In Russia’s highly politicized legal system, where the courts routinely are used to jail journalists, democracy advocates, human rights activists and political opponents of the government, Gershkovich’s conviction had appeared inevitable since his arrest, but supporters and friends nonetheless expressed their shock.

“Russia has just sentenced an innocent man to 16 years in a high security prison,” Pjotr Sauer, a correspondent for The Guardian and close friend of Gershkovich, posted on X, formerly Twitter. “I have no words to describe this farce. Let’s get Evan out of there.”

In a joint statement, the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Almar Latour, and editor in chief, Emma Tucker, called for an end to Gershkovich’s ordeal, which began with his arrest in March last year.

“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” the statement said. “We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family.”

Video published by Russia news outlet Vedemosti showed the judge rapidly reading the judgment, conviction and sentence, as Gershkovich, clad in a black T-shirt, stood in a glass box in the courtroom, his head shaven.

Journalists were admitted only at the beginning before evidence was presented, and at the end for the reading of the conviction and sentence. An armed security agent wearing a black face mask stood nearby.

Gershkovich, his employer the Wall Street Journal and the State Department have all strongly denied the accusation that he was working for the CIA. His conviction was widely expected.

The 32-year-old, who was accredited as a journalist by Russia’s Foreign Ministry, was detained while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg and accused of spying. He pleaded not guilty.

The conviction at least opens the possibility that Gershkovich could be released if the United States can reach a deal with Russia.

The second day of the trial, at the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, was moved forward to Thursday from Aug. 13 at the request of Gershkovich’s defense team, according to the court.

Russian prosecutors alleged that Gershkovich was operating on the orders of the CIA, gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a state-owned machine-building factory in Nizhniy Tagil, about 87 miles southeast of Yekaterinburg, which manufactures tanks for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the hearing was closed because it was a sensitive case. Russian legal rights activists, however, have reported that the number of cases closed to the public has increased dramatically since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“You know that the charges there concern espionage,” Peskov said. “Therefore this is a very, very sensitive domain, and therefore, the judge has chosen a closed-door format,” he said during a phone call with journalists. He declined to comment on the possibility of an exchange.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said last month that the case against Gershkovich was “not about evidence, procedural norms, or the rule of law. It is about the Kremlin using American citizens to achieve its political objectives.”

Fueling the sense that the result was a political inevitability, senior Russian officials immediately denounced the journalist after his arrest in March last year. Within hours, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had proclaimed that his work in Yekaterinburg had “nothing to do with journalism,” and Kremlin spokesman Peskov insisted that Gershkovich had been “caught red-handed.” Neither offered evidence.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia had “irrefutable evidence” that the reporter had spied and claimed that the use of journalists as spies “at least in the Anglo-Saxon world, is a tradition.” But Lavrov also confirmed that Russian and U.S. intelligence services were in contact on the possibility of an exchange.

In February, President Vladimir Putin indicated he would be willing to exchange Gershkovich for a “patriot” who had “eliminated a Russian bandit” in a European capital, an apparent reference to Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov, associated with Russia’s Federal Security Service. Krasikov was convicted of murder in Germany for fatally shooting a former Chechen rebel commander, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in broad daylight in a Berlin park in 2019.

Last month,Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia was awaiting a response from Washington to its exchange offer. He said “the ball is in the United States’ court. We are waiting for their response to the ideas that were presented to them.”

Gershkovich’s conviction is likely to have a further chilling effect on the work of foreign journalists in Russia. Many media organizations pulled their correspondents out after his arrest.

Gershkovich is the first American journalist arrested in Russia for alleged spying since 1986, during the Cold War, when Nicholas Daniloff, a correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, was detained by the Soviet security service. Daniloff was held for 13 days before being freed without facing trial in exchange for Gennadi Zakharov, who had been arrested by the FBI in New York for spying in a sting operation.

The United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions this month called on Russia to free Gershkovich without a trial and to pay him compensation. It concluded that, “There is a striking lack of any factual or legal substantiation provided by the authorities of the Russian Federation for the espionage charges” against him.

His arrest was “designed to punish his reporting” on Russia’s war against Ukraine, “lacked a legal basis and is arbitrary,” the U.N. working group said.

Associates of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in jail in Russia in February, said that there was nearly an agreement that month on a deal exchanging Krasikov for Navalny and two Americans.

That exchange probably would have involved Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year jail term in Russia after being convicted in 2020 of spying.

Whelan, 54, has spent more than 5 1/2 years in prison in Russia, having been overlooked in two previous exchange deals.

In his statement, President Biden said that since taking office his highest priority had been seeking the release of Gershkovich, Whelan “and all Americans wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad.”

But some critics have faulted Biden for putting far more emphasis on the American WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was convicted in Moscow of drug smuggling in August 2022 and freed in an exchange that December for Viktor Bout — a convicted Russian arms trafficker.

Former Marine Trevor Reed, convicted of assaulting a police officer, was freed in April 2022 in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been jailed in the United States for drug smuggling.

According to his friends and family, Gershkovich, the son of Soviet-era émigrés, fell in love with Russia when he moved there in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times, a prominent local outlet that pulled out of Russia after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He later worked for Agence France-Presse and joined the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau at the beginning of 2022.

He grew up eating Russian comfort food prepared by his mother Ella Milman and watching classic Soviet-era cartoons. Friends and colleagues describe his open, friendly manner, his passion for reporting and his unerring ability to connect with the people that he meets.

Since Gershkovich’s arrest, the Wall Street Journal has run a campaign to keep his story in the public eye, promoting the hashtag #FreeEvan and running events such as #CookForEvan, encouraging supporters to prepare his favorite dishes and tell his story as a food enthusiast and a great cook who loves to entertain friends.

Daniel de ViséBetty Lin-Fisher

USA TODAY

From ordering a frappuccino online to paying a utility bill to calling 911, a tech outage that impacted businesses around the globe also disrupted the day-to-day tasks of many consumers across the U.S.   

“It’s kind of scary, right?” said Catherine Valega, a certified financial planner in Boston, who lost access Friday to “all my client information, accounts, everything. We’re just down.”

Global outage affects Starbucks

Some Starbucks locations were taking only cash, according to multiple media reports. Some consumers complained on social media about not being able to use the Starbucks mobile app.

“This morning’s outage was so annoying. I had to actually place my @Starbucks order in person like a caveman,” Derek Daczewitz posted on X.

Sherrod DeGrippo posted a picture of a hand-written note at her Starbucks drive-up window that read: “Everything is down plz come to walk-up.”

“I am now personally affected by this because I had to order my Starbucks latte verbally and stand in a line. Am I entitled to compensation?” she asked on X.

Another consumer posted that he had to use his Starbucks points to redeem his Double Shot Ice Shaken Espresso, because the credit card point-of-sale system wasn’t working.

Starbucks responded individually to many consumer posts on X.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said, “Starbucks is among those companies experiencing impacts due to a widespread third-party systems outage, resulting in a temporary outage of our mobile order ahead and pay features. We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Medical facilities affected by outage

Mass General Brigham, a healthcare system in Massachusetts, canceled all non-urgent visits Friday, according to its website. Emergency rooms remained open. 

“A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems today,” the provider said on its site. “This means we are not able to access our clinical systems, including patient health records and scheduling.”

In Phoenix, Banner-University Medical Center appeared to be diverting ambulances to other facilities because of computer problems, according to the Arizona Republic. An ambulance operator told the paper its system was “completely down.”

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio lost many of its Microsoft-based computer systems, according to its website. Appointments resumed as normal in mid-morning. 

“Also, please note that our phones are very busy. If you had an appointment that was canceled this morning, a member of our team will call you to reschedule,” the website said.

‘Store closed’: Microsoft outage affects checkout, campus websites

The global Microsoft outage impacted point-of-sales systems at U.S. stores. “Store Closed” signs were posted on a Key Foods grocery store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, The New York Times reported.

McDonald’s suffered cash register malfunctions at locations in Japan, according to its website.  

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And in the education world, Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan closed for business Friday, saying that “on-campus PCs cannot be used today,” per its website. 

The University of Michigan also reported scattered technical problems with Windows-based machines. 

The outage hobbled some public safety operations as well. Phoenix police suffered glitches in their 911 dispatch center, but later restored service, according to a post on X. The Arizona town of Queen Creek lost dispatch services, the Arizona Republic reported.

Worldwide outage:Global tech outage hits airlines, banks, healthcare and public transit

The 911 service center in Butler County, Ohio, was temporarily disrupted by the outage, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.  And the police department in Middletown, Ohio, lost its phone lines for a time. 

Georgia’s Department of Driver Services offered fewer services Friday because of the outage, according to its website.

Maryland’s entire state court system shut down for the day, save for “emergency matters,” its website said.

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles said its office lost the ability to process transactions, according to its website. 

Some utilities lost service. The power company AES Indiana reported customers couldn’t pay bills because of the outage, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Some media outlets struggled to cover the outage, because of their own technical problems. In Kansas City, Missouri, television station KSHB 41 ran news from the Scripps network in place of its own programming overnight.

That didn’t stop KSHB from reporting on many other outages in its region, affecting the local motor vehicle agency, local UPS and FedEx operations, and at least one local school district.

Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA TODAY. Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her on X, Facebook or Instagram @blinfisher. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, which will include consumer news on Fridays, here.

By Natasha Chen, CNN

 7 minute read 

Updated 1:57 AM EDT, Sat July 20, 2024

Workers gather with signs as the Teamsters union and Disney cast members demand fair wages at a rally outside Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, U.S., July 17, 2024. 
David Swanson/Reuters

Cyn Carranza buffs, cleans, waxes and scrubs Disneyland floors starting at midnight, so that guests coming the next morning feel as if no one had been there before them.

But after her shifts working near a sparkling Sleeping Beauty Castle, she went “home” to a car, for about four months last year, because her wages, plus earnings at two other jobs, weren’t enough to afford renting a place with a bed.

Now, negotiating better wages and working conditions for Carranza and thousands of other Disneyland employees has gotten messy, to the point where thousands overwhelmingly voted Friday to authorize a potential strike.

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Now that the vote has passed, it’s up to union leadership to decide whether to hold one. It would be the first at Disney’s original resort in 40 years.

“Today Disneyland Park cast members made their voices heard by voting to authorize the Disney Workers Rising bargaining committee to call for a strike to protest unfair labor practices by 99%,” UFCW Local 324 said in a statement. “We stood up and showed Disney that we won’t sit by and allow them to intimidate, surveil and unlawfully discipline cast members for exercising their rights.”

Disneyland Resort spokesperson Jessica Good told CNN in an email late Friday that it remains committed to reaching an agreement.

“We greatly appreciate the important roles our cast members play in creating memorable experiences for our guests, and we remain committed to reaching an agreement that focuses on what matters most to them while positioning Disneyland Resort for growth and job creation,” Good said. “Master Services Council’s strike authorization is not unusual as part of a negotiations process, and we look forward to continuing discussions at upcoming meetings on Monday, July 22 and Tuesday, July 23. A strike date has not been scheduled, and Disneyland Resort continues to welcome guests.”

Disneyland officials previously said that there are plans in place that would allow the parks to continue operating with the same expected level of service, in the event of a strike.

Union leaders said if the strike happens, it would likely be of limited duration, unlike open-ended strikes by actors’ and writers’ unions that halted film and TV productions at Disney and other media and tech companies for much of 2023.

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Strike authorization votes are common, and they typically pass by overwhelming margins. But that does not mean a strike will necessarily happen, as was the case with Teamsters at UPS last year.

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While this potential strike would officially be about Disney not allowing union buttons to be worn at work, the underlying concern among rank-and-file workers is about the current contract that many say does not provide a livable wage.

A dream of affordability

Carranza ‘s Disneyland wage is just over $20 per hour, after factoring in a differential for working the overnight shift. Her work is laborious, often dragging 600 feet of PVC hose and working with heavy machinery to buff the floors.

“It’s upsetting that the balloons that we sell in the park are more expensive than [what] I’m making an hour. I have to work an hour and a half if I want to afford one of those Disney balloons,” Carranza said.

As of April 1, California’s minimum wage for fast food workers is $20 per hour, which has affected other industries competing for the same workers. Voters in the city of Anaheim in Orange County, CA, where the Disneyland Resort is located, had previously approved a measure that required the resort’s employees to make a $19.90 minimum wage as of January of 2024.

But in a county where the 2022 median rent was $2,251 a month, and where about 10% of residents live in poverty, workers said a wage of about $20 an hour is still not enough.

After Carranza lived in a car, she moved into a hotel because she could not afford a security deposit or first and last months’ rent for an apartment.

Today, she shares an apartment with a roommate.

Change at the Disneyland Resort – and in affordability in Southern California in general – has been deeply troubling for Coleen Palmer, who has seen been at Disneyland Resort for 37 years.

When she first started, Palmer says she was able to rent a $400 a month two-bedroom apartment by herself on the around $650 per month wages she earned. Today, she rents a one-bedroom apartment for just a little over $2000 a month, and limits the groceries she buys on the $2800 she says she takes home every month. Then there’s utilities, food, a phone bill, medical care, and other fixed costs. She doesn’t travel anywhere besides work in order to save on gas, and buys items like chicken that can be shared with her dog.

Coleen Palmer, third from left. Courtesy Coleen Palmer

“It does feel very defeating at times. It makes me question my self-worth. And there are times when I think to myself, is it worth it? Should I go somewhere else? But I am a few years away from retirement,” Palmer said. She said she wants to stick it out, especially because she loves the job. She loves talking to kids about what they’ve been doing around the park and telling them they’ve been brave to try the thrill rides.

Palmer is happy to see the lowest wage earners get an increase due to the city’s minimum wage laws. But those earning slightly more, with decades of experience, did not get a raise. Palmer said she makes just under $24 an hour after nearly four decades, while an entry-level employee makes $19.90 an hour.

Disneyland officials said wages are up more than 40% in the last five years. But much of that increase has followed changes in the state and local minimum wage.

Escaping reality, not confronting it

A strike would involve about 9,500 employees who work at Disneyland Park, currently under a contract that expired in June.

Another 4,500 employees in the same bargaining group work at the Downtown Disney retail and dining district, the Disney hotels, or the resort’s other theme park, Disney California Adventure. Their contract expires in September, and they are not part of the current strike developments.

Together, they represent about 40% of the entire resort’s employees. But only the Disneyland Park employees will vote and participate in a strike for now.

The unions and Disneyland have two more meetings scheduled on Monday and Tuesday.

These groups do not include the character and parade performers who organized in May as part of Actors’ Equity Association and have yet to start their bargaining process.

Officially, this potential strike would be over union buttons depicting a raised Mickey fist.

A UCFW button is displayed Courtesy Jenna Thompson, UFCW 324

SEIU-USWW, Teamsters Local 495, UCFW Local 324 and BCTGM Local 83 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Disney in June for what they say are hundreds of instances of unlawful discipline, intimidation and surveillance of union members wearing these buttons at work.

The NLRB is expected to investigate the charges over the next few months, after which a regional NLRB director could decide if the case merits a hearing.

Disneyland officials told CNN the wearing of union buttons goes against the parks’ uniform policy and that only a “handful” of employees have been disciplined.

Disneyland officials said in a statement that the parks strive to give guests “an uninterrupted, immersive experience,” and that “anything that distracts from the show or story, be it a non-approved button, pin or sticker worn by a cast member, would be addressed by a leader.”

The term “cast member” refers to any Disney employee, as the company treats any experience in front of a guest as a performance. Every employee works toward creating a space where guests escape reality and suspend disbelief, to feel as if they are truly on a Star Wars planet, for example. For the same reason, cast members are not allowed to refer to humans underneath character costumes, because this would break the façade.

Disney’s policy is that a leader would ask the employee to remove the union button to maintain the integrity of the “show.” Only repeated violations would warrant any disciplinary action, starting with a verbal warning.

CNN’s Chris Isidore and Paradise Afshar contributed reporting.

The UK will resume funding UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, the foreign secretary has announced.

David Lammy told MPs he had received reassurances about its neutrality in the wake of a review of alleged links between its staff and terror groups.

The UK was among 16 Western countries to halt donations in January, after Israel alleged 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 2023 attacks by Hamas.

An internal UN investigation into allegations related to that attack is ongoing.

But a separate UN review, published in April, found Israel had not provided evidence for its claimshundreds of UNRWA staffwere members of terror groups.

Lammy urges immediate ceasefire during Israel visit

UK halts aid to UN agency after Hamas attack claim

The announcement brings the UK into line with other countries that have resumed funding since then, leaving the United States, UNRWA’s single biggest donor, as the only country not to have restarted donations.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Lammy said “no other agency” was able to deliver aid at the scale required to alleviate the “desperate” humanitarian situation in Gaza.

He added UNRWA was feeding more than half the territory’s two-million population and would be “vital for future reconstruction”.

He said he had been “appalled” by Israel’s allegations, but the claims had been taken “seriously” by the United Nations.

He had been reassured the agency “is ensuring they meet the highest standards of neutrality” in the wake of the April review, he added.

This included “strengthening its procedures, including on vetting,” Mr Lammy said.

He told MPs a resumption of the UK’s £21m annual funding would include money put towards “management reforms” recommended by the UN review.

The Foreign Office said £6m would be given to UNRWA’s flash appeal for Gaza, and £15m to the agency’s budget to provide services in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and wider region.

UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told the BBC the agency welcomed the announcement, which came at a “critical time as humanitarian needs in Gaza continue to deepen”.

She added that the agency had reassured the UK it was implementing recommendations from the April report, “especially with regards to continuing to follow the principle of neutrality in our programmes”.

Colonna review

The review, by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, found Israel had “yet to provide supporting evidence” for its claims that a “significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations”.

Israel has said more than 2,135 employees of the agency – out of a total of 13,000 in Gaza – are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK, US and other countries.

However, the review concluded the agency must do more to improve its neutrality, staff vetting and transparency.

Israeli authorities suggest the report ignores the severity of the problem, and claim UNRWA has systematic links with Hamas.

Israel initially alleged that 12 UNRWA staff took part in the Hamas attacks on southern Israel, which saw 1,200 people killed and about 250 taken hostage.

More than 38,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the attacks.

UNRWA sacked the 10 of the 12 employees who were still alive when the allegations emerged and the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight launched an investigation into the claims.

In April, the body said eight employees remained under investigation, with inquiries suspended in four of the cases because of insufficient evidence.

It added it had also begun investigations into an additional seven staff members, and six of those cases were ongoing.

UK weapons sales

During his Commons statement, Mr Lammy also rejected calls from some Labour MPs to impose a ban on all UK weapons sales to Israel.

Alongside Green MPs and pro-Gaza independents, some 14 Labour backbenchers want to table an amendment calling for an arms embargo during a debate next week on the King’s Speech, the government’s law-making plans.

The foreign secretary said it would “not be right to have a blanket ban” as Israel was surrounded by enemies in “one of the toughest neighbourhoods in the world”.

He added that arms export licences would be kept under review “in the normal way” by reviewing assessments of Israel’s compliance by government lawyers.

A “comprehensive review” was under way and he would update MPs once it was complete, Mr Lammy said.

However, he did not commit to publishing internal legal advice – something he called on the previous government to do when Labour was in opposition.

Israel-Gaza war

David Lammy

United Nations

UPDATED FRI, JUL 19 20244:23 PM EDT
Alex Harring

Jesse Pound

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on June 24, 2024.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Stocks retreated Friday, as Wall Street wrapped up the week defined by a rotation out of this year’s megacap winners in favor of smaller names.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.71%, closing at 5,505.00. Nasdaq Composite slid 0.81% to end at 17,726.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 377.49 points, or 0.93%, to 40,287.53.

Friday’s moves marked another day of declines across the board, with the Russell 2000 down 0.63%. But a shift toward names viewed as bigger beneficiaries of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, like small caps, still appears to be theme of the week.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq slipped 1.97% and 3.65%, respectively, marking their biggest weekly losses since April. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also snapped a six-week win streak. On the other hand, the Dow advanced 0.72%, while the small cap-focused Russell 2000 climbed 1.68%.

“The stock market is experiencing a long overdue rotation,” said Glen Smith, chief investment officer at GDS Wealth Management. “Investors are taking money out of big tech stocks which have performed so well and moving that money into other areas of the market.”

That divergence has encouraged some Wall Street pros, who had worried that the market rally was becoming too dependent on a handful of massive tech stocks. Meanwhile, rising optimism around forthcoming interest rate decreases from the Fed have bolstered smaller and more cyclically oriented names.

A shift away from megacap artificial intelligence beneficiaries can explain the Nasdaq’s underperformance this week. Similarly, the information technology sector led the broad S&P 500 lower with a 5.1% drop.

“The headline is ‘these are down’ with some of the momentum stocks getting hit,” said Chris Verrone, head of technical and macro research at Strategas, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” But, “the breadth under the surface these last two weeks has been absolutely spectacular.”

CrowdStrike tumbled 11.1% following a major information technology outage that impacted business around the world. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq both said trading did not appear affected.

• Investors should lock in attractive yields: fixed income team
• Firm is keeping lower-than-average allocation for junk bonds

A pedestrian walks past the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC.Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Now is the time for credit investors to put money to work before the Federal Reserve starts cutting its policy rate, according to Vanguard Group Inc.

The $9.3 trillion global money manager’s fixed-income team led by Sara Devereux wrote in a third-quarter outlook seen by Bloomberg that while “significant” policy easing isn’t expected this year, “investors shouldn’t miss the opportunity to lock in attractive yields and potentially benefit from the price appreciation that would occur when rates eventually decline.”

The team’s base case remains the Fed being on hold most, if not all, of 2024.

But investors are betting there will be at least two rate cuts by year’s end, with the first one occurring in September. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Wednesday added to a growing chorus of Fed officials — including Chair Jerome Powell — who have signaled the central bank is moving closer to cutting rates but is not ready to do so quite yet.

Overall, the Vanguard team said, “We are approaching a turning point in the economic cycle, which historically has been a good environment for higher-quality bonds.” Earlier this year, the firm said the Fed’s lack of cuts offered an extended chance for investors to lock in attractive yields for longer.

As for high yield, Vanguard is maintaining a lower-than-average allocation. “We remain cautious mainly because of tight valuations, particularly in higher-quality names,” the note said.

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19 July 2024 • 9:59pm

So that is it. It is official. Rory McIlroy has gone the full 10 years without winning a major and in this barren run, he might well have saved the worst until last.

The 152nd Open Championship was beyond dreadful for McIlroy. A 78-75 for an 11-over total and a big, fat MC.

The world No 2 arrived at the Ayrshire links claiming he was confident that he could end the drought that goes all the way to the last Big Four event of 2014 – the USPGA, his fourth major – and that he could bounce back from the crippling disappointment of last month’s US Open, where two short missed putts in the final three holes handed the title to Bryson DeChambeau.

Alas, his inconsiderable efforts did not even qualify as a dead-cat bounce. Needing a score under par following his six-over beginning, the only comeback Troon witnessed was McIlroy coming back and doing the same again. Until it was too late, of course and he birdied the 14th and 16th to send himself soaring into the top 130. The damage was wrecked early.

McIlroy parred the first two holes, bogeyed the third and then on the fourth came the triple-bogey that extinguished whatever fragments of hope remained.

That par five summed up his week. He pulled his drive into the thick stuff and could only advance his ball two yards with his second. At least he located the fairway with his third, but from 175 yards he missed the green on the left and was soon sending it across the green into a bunker with his fifth. Splash out, two putts, regulation snowman.

It was over, but as if determined to make sure, McIlroy conjured a wedge from 51 yards on the next par five, the sixth, that was simply stunning in its wretchedness. It looked to be as wide as the length of the third shot in the first place.

McIlroy laughed. It was so bad, he could not even raise himself to annoyance. He had dropped five shots in four holes when he was supposed to picking them up. From there it was a slow, depressing walk to the clubhouse, punctuated by two irrelevant figures in red. He had 10 footer for  a birdie on the 18th. It dribbled past.

“Obviously I got off to the worst start possible being six over through six but I then went bogey free for the rest of the round,” he said.  “The wind got the better of me on the Friday at Augusta and then again yesterday on the back nine and this afternoon going out in that gusty wind on the front

“Once I made the eighth, I was thinking about where I was going on vacation next week. I knew from then. I resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to make the cut. It was a pretty meaningless 14 holes after that but at least I played ok.”

McIlroy might take consolation from the other heavyweights joining him in the exodus and not only Tiger Woods on 14-over with a 77. DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg and Tommy Fleetwood, all crashing out on nine-over. They could figure it was a strange week, an odd tournament and hey, at that level, you have to grab the positives from wherever you can.

In McIlroy’s absence, the Irish will have Shane Lowry to cheer, the 37-year-old shooting a 69 to reach seven-under and stand two ahead of English duo Justin Rose (68) and rank outsider Dan Brown (72). It is the first time since 1951 that the top three at the Open halfway mark are all from Britain and Ireland. Three  strokes further back to a group in fourth, most notably world No 1 Scottie Scheffler (70).

Lowry, the 2019 champion, appears ever so comfortable. “I can’t wait to watch Shane this weekend,” McIlroy said. “He’s so creative. I’m looking forward to cheering Shane on and hopefully him getting his second Jug. He relishes these conditions.”

In contrast, McIlroy looked lost, reeling from the pain of Pinehurst giving way to the turmoil of Troon and the meltdown leading to the letdown. It was a tremendously sad fashion by which to close out a chapter.

Some will refer to this period as his “lost decade” and although that it is overly harsh – in this timeframe he has prevailed on 22 occasions, winning everything that is not a major – he is judged by the successes of his early years.

Granted, the competition is stiffer and McIlroy has recorded 21 top 10s in the majors, including four seconds and seven other top fives. This remarkable consistency allows him to declare, with plenty of conviction, “I have never been closer”. Yet here on the west coast of Scotland he has never seemed so far away.

McIlroy has a week off – his first holiday, he says, in “four or five years” – before representing Ireland in the Olympics, on a Le Golf National course in Paris where he played well in the 2018 Ryder Cup, he could take some golden consolation that would rescue his year.

“I feel like I say this every Open but we don’t just play four tournaments a year,” McIlroy said. “Yes the majors have come and gone but yes, reset for the Olympics and try to play well there. And then I’m in contention to try to win both [order of merit] titles on either side of the Atlantic. So still some things to play for this year.”

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Melania Trump, 54, steps back into the limelight at RNC after difficult year that saw the death of her mother, her husband in court and nearly assassinated, and Baron leave for college – but could not be persuaded into speaking

• The former First Lady, 54, strode onto the RNC stage sporting a striking red dress
• It was the first time she attended one of her husband’s political events in months 

By DAVID AVERRE

PUBLISHED: 07:38 EDT, 19 July 2024 | UPDATED: 10:06 EDT, 19 July 202

Donald Trump’s address at the Republican National Congress in Milwaukee last night just days after he survived an attempt on his life sent the adoring crowd into raptures. 

But the unexpected return of his wife Melania Trump to the limelight was arguably the biggest talking point of the night.

The former First Lady, 54, strode onto the stage sporting a striking red dress to thunderous applause and wild cheers prior to Trump’s speech, after which she greeted her husband with an awkward kiss as balloons cascaded from the ceiling.

Melania until last night had practically vanished from public life and the media, refusing to accompany her husband on the campaign trail and remaining absent even through his court battles in New York over the Stormy Daniels hush money payments.

Amid a difficult period that saw the death of her mother in January, followed by Trump’s legal strife and now the imminent departure of son Barron for college, many speculated that the former president had lost the support of his wife. 

But Trump’s brush with death in Pennsylvania last weekend seems to have prompted Melania’s return to the fore as the Republican nominee pushes for a second term in the White House.

Republican Presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump kisses his wife Melania Trump after speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday, July 18, 2024

Former first lady Melania Trump walks out to join Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump

July 18, 2024, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA: MELANIA TRUMP joins her husband DONALD J. TRUMP on stage after his acceptance speech at the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee

Trump signs paperwork to officially accept the nomination during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Thursday, July 18, 2024

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, stands on stage with Melania Trump after speaking during the Republican National Convention, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee

Daughter of former US President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and her husband former US government official Jared Kushner arrive for the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention

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