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Trump Administration Taking the Ax to NAFTA With Lumber Tax?
Additionally Trump’s tax package would eliminate all benefits on the personal side with the exception of retirement savings, charitable giving and mortgage interest.
The White House plan also would eliminate the alternative-minimum tax and the “death tax” (aka estate tax), but Cohn refused to comment on the status of the marriage penalty.
The new proposal calls for the collapse of the current seven-tier bracket system to just three brackets, with a decrease in the top tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. Previous floated proposals had the top rate at 33 percent. The administration aims to set the other two tax rates at 25 percent and 10 percent, the latter down from an initial 12 percent proposal.
While critics have accused the administration of looking to give tax relief to the rich, this revised proposal would be a smaller-than-expected break for the richest Americans in the country. It could also alleviate some concerns over substantially increasing the deficit.
“In 2017 we are still stuck with a 1988 corporate tax. That’s why we are one of the least competitive countries in the corporate world when it comes to the corporate tax,” Cohn said.
The administration also proposed cutting the corporate tax rate by twenty percentage points, from 35 percent to 15 percent and switching it from a worldwide taxation system to a territorial one.
A territorial taxation process taxes only the income earned by a company within the specific country. The intention of this switch is to drive investment back into the country and stop companies from moving their headquarters overseas to avoid the burden of heavy American tariffs.
While the administration insists the tax reform package will pay for itself, creating “trillions of dollars of additional revenues,” the cut in the corporate tax rate alone could cost the country $2.1 trillion through the year 2026, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.
Quentin Tarantino's Brad Pitt vehicle Inglourious Basterds will go head to head against Ken Loach's Looking For Eric in the battle for the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The competition, which includes entries from past winners and nominees, is being billed by film pundits as the "biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown" in recent years.
Quentin's WWII epic is the only offering from an American director in a lineup dominated by European and Asian cinema. Flying the flag for Spain is three-time Palme d'Or nominee Pedro Almodovar, shortlisted for his thriller Broken Embraces, which stars Penelope Cruz.
Nine-time nominee Ken's film features footballer-turned actor Eric Cantona as himself and tells the story of a footie-mad postman who seeks life lessons from the former Manchester United player.
Other contenders include Bright Star, a film by New Zealand-born The Piano director Jane Campion, about the romance between poet John Keats and his 18-year-old neighbour Fanny Brawne.
Heath Ledger's final work The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus will also be screened at the festival, but outside the competition. Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law stepped in to complete the Australian star's role after he passed away part way through filming.
The festival kicks off on May 13 with - for the first time - an animated opener, Up from the creators of Toy Story.
A leading authority on corporate governance issues said a chief executive is normally not the largest shareholder in a large public corporation like Walgreens.
Stefano Pessina's iron grip on Walgreens a concern to corporate governance experts.
Stefano Pessina, Walgreens Boots Alliance's chief executive officer, is also the company's largest shareholder, which raises unusual corporate governance issues, experts said.
Pessina became the permanent CEO last week after taking over the role temporarily when Greg Wasson unexpectedly announced his retirement in December just days before Walgreens shareholders were due to vote on the acquisition of European drugstore chain Alliance Boots. Wasson, a 34-year Walgreens veteran who started at the Deerfield-based company as an assistant store manager, was supposed to lead the newly combined company.
Pessina, 73, became Walgreens' largest holder by way of the merger. He was the largest stockholder in Alliance Boots and controls about 20 percent of Walgreens' stock.
Charles Elson, a leading authority on corporate governance issues, said a chief executive is normally not the largest shareholder in a large public corporation like Walgreens. Such situations are sometimes found in smaller companies and startups where a CEO is often the founder and remains the principal shareholder.
"Twenty percent makes him pretty powerful," said Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. "It puts other directors in an awkward position when evaluating him."
One of the biggest jobs of a board is the hiring and firing of a CEO. Directors, who are elected by shareholders, also set the CEO's pay.
Michael Pryce-Jones, who represents a small Walgreens shareholder, was critical of the board's appointment of Pessina as CEO.
"The board has handed the keys to Pessina," said Pryce-Jones, director of corporate governance at CtW Investment Group, an arm of labor federation Change to Win. "Given his ownership, how on earth are they going to push back? He basically has veto right over their election."
CtW was not in favor of Walgreens' roughly $14.7 billion plan to buy the 55 percent of Alliance Boots it didn't already own, arguing that the deal was overpriced and unnecessary. With Wasson's 11th hour departure, executives from Alliance Boots make up the majority of Walgreens' senior leadership.
When Wasson left, the board said it would search for a permanent successor. But seven months later, it handed the reins to Pessina, an Italian-born billionaire who lives in Monaco.
The appointment came even though Pessina had publicly said he had no interest in becoming the permanent CEO. In an interview with the Telegraph in London published in January, he insisted he was only occupying the CEO role temporarily and didn't care about managing the company.
"The board has decided that bearing in mind the pace of change and the amount that we still have to do, there is a benefit to stability at the senior level in the organization and to focus on the operational and strategic task before us rather than appointing, orienting and educating someone new to the business during the period."
He added that the role presented him with personal and logistical challenges, which he did not identify but suggested he was reluctant to take the helm permanently. He said he accepted the appointment "in the best interest of the company, my colleagues and, of course, my fellow shareholders."
Executive Chairman James Skinner said in a statement Thursday that Pessina's appointment was a reflection of the "extraordinary job" he has done "leading the new enterprise, focusing on our strategy while enhancing our financial performance."
Pryce-Jones was not buying the company line. He said the CEO appointment suggested that the company didn't have a succession plan, or it was a foregone conclusion that Pessina would take over.
Pessina's appointment was cheered by some analysts who follow Walgreens' stock. Lisa Gill of JPMorgan congratulated Pessina on the conference call and said, "I'm glad they named you so."
Walgreens' stock has increased 9.9 percent since the announcement of Pessina's appointment, closing at $94.48 Monday. The company on Thursday also reported that its fiscal third-quarter earnings beat Wall Street expectations and raised its profit guidance for the year.
When Pessina became acting CEO in January, the company gave him $7 million in restricted stock units. Skinner also received $5 million in restricted stock.
Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin said Pessina's compensation does not change now that he is the permanent CEO and declined to comment on the governance concerns.
Elson questioned the equity grant to Pessina.
"Why do you have to give him an equity grant when he already owns 20 percent of the company," Elson said. "It's a very strange story."
At midnight on August 24, Kent rang the doorbell at the Fletcher Hills house of his grandfather, Ed Jr. The housekeeper testified that Kent asked to come in the house and sleep, but she told him that was against his grandfather’s orders.
During the next several days, the worms ate their way through my radishes, arugula, and beets. They munched happily — I watched them — on my sunflowers and on my moonflower vines. They ate the leaves in a clean, irregular fashion.
What you must do if you find a human skull.
Couldn't they have used mace?
The Trump administration has provided federal agencies with the latitude to request up to a 5 percent funding boost in fiscal 2019, saying the White House may accommodate a “limited number” of programmatic increases in its final blueprint.
The guidance follows similar guidance agencies received from the Obama administration in preparation for the fiscal 2017 budget—the last year before the process involved special procedures related to the presidential transition—when they were advised to cut their spending proposals by 5 percent, with separate submissions for increases that would not boost their overall spending relative to the previous year.
Like then-OMB Director Shaun Donovan, Mulvaney directed agencies to rank their proposed funding escalations in priority order.
The fiscal 2019 budget process will also provide the mechanism for agencies to finalize their reorganization plans as required by an executive order signed by President Trump in March. Mulvaney vowed to give “special consideration” to the boldest among the reform and restructuring proposals “that have the potential to dramatically improve effectiveness and efficiency of government.” The budget should spell out the savings estimated from those reforms, as well as any initial upfront costs involved in implementing them. If those costs exceed the 5 percent threshold, agencies must provide a “robust justification” for the long-term benefit.
Mulvaney instructed agencies to divide their reform ideas into four categories: eliminating activities, restructuring or mergers, improvements to organizational efficiency, and workforce management. Trump’s EO and ensuing guidance from OMB directed agencies to develop long-term plans to trim their workforces. Preliminary, high-level proposals were due to OMB by June 30.
Agencies will not include proposals that shift costs to other parts of the budget in their spending estimates, and should consult with OMB to determine the best way to present suggested major organizational changes.
OMB also directed agencies to prioritize goals of the Trump administration. The White House office recently announced it had instructed agencies to no longer report on the goals established by the Obama administration. The objectives for the fiscal 2018-2019 cycle should be “near-term, implementation and outcome focused, measurable and reflect the performance priorities of agency leadership,” Mulvaney said.
Continuing one priority of the Obama era, Mulvaney also asked agencies to submit proposals that would boost their use of evidence and data to improve government effectiveness.
The police seized 1.5 kg of charas from a car and arrested car owner Rakesh Kumar of Kolpur village in Rakkar tehsil of Kangra district on Thursday. The driver of the car, however, managed to escape.
Superintendent of police Khushal Sharma said a naka was put up at Charara village for routine checking. Around 11.15am, a car stopped some distance away on spotting the policemen. The driver reportedly ran away, leaving the car owner behind. The police searched the vehicle and recovered the contraband from a bag which was in the possession of Kumar.
The SP said the accused later identified his accomplice as constable Narinder Kumar of the Kangra police, who till recently was on traffic duty in Jwalamukhi and was recently transferred to the Kangra police lines. The SP said the Kangra police had informed that the constable was currently absent from duty.
Sharma said as the recovered material was more than 1 kg, the offence was not bailable. The car used in the crime had been impounded, said the SP, adding that the vehicle was using a Press sticker. He added that Kumar ran a dhaba near his home and detailed investigation would reveal the modus operandi and network of drug distributors.
2010 retro action pic as well as its sequels. To that end the plaintiffs want back the $102,250 that was paid to Callaham for as a “writing credit bonus” after the WGA arbitration went his way four years ago. In their demand for a jury trial and unspecified damages plus legal fees (read it here), they also want any sequel payments nixed and the court to rule that Callaham committed fraud by withholding vital correspondence from the WGA that revealed his true and much more limited role in The Expendables script. They also want the 2009 WGA ruling partially reversed and the Guild to “discipline” UTA-repped Callaham for not revealing emails in which he seemingly indicates his lesser involvement in the Expendables script.
“Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Callaham intentionally withheld these material emails, and concealed the limited extent of his contributions to The Expendables from the WGA screen writing credit arbitration panel in 2009 and instead continued to assert before the arbitral tribunal his patently false assertion that he was entitled to sole ‘Written By’ credit for The Expendables,” claims the 17-page complaint filed Monday in LA Superior Court.
According the filing, the alleged misrepresentation at the 2009 arbitration only recently came to light after Callaham made move earlier this year for sequel payments, which is why Nu Image and Millennium are pursuing this action now. That and the fact that with Expendables 3 set to be released on August 15, 2014 they don’t want to have to pay Callaham more than $230,000 in further payments. Callaham, who has a story credit on Warner Bros and Legendary’s upcoming Godzilla reboot, received $250,000 back in 2002 after Stallone “reviewed” his Barrow script while writing The Expendables. Being that the actor/director admittedly did base some of his mercenary characters on elements on Callaham’s work, the plan was also that the scribe would get a shared “Story By” credit but that long time WGA member Stallone would receive sole screenplay credit.
However, because Stallone was also the director of the pic and a production executive, an automatic arbitration to sort out screenplay credits kicked in under WGA rules. It was at that 2009 ruling that the plaintiffs say Callaham overstated his participation. “Plaintiffs allege that upon information and belief Callaham contended that he alone wrote the screenplay for The Expendables…these representations and Callaham’s position were patently false and confirmed by Callaham’s own written words and disclosures that came to light years thereafter,” says the complaint. On September 22 of 2009 the WGA revealed its determination that Callaham was to receive the lone “Story By” credit and the top spot in the shared “Screenplay By” credit with Stallone on the Lionsgate distributed pic. In May of this year, Callaham and his Jittery Dog company instigated a new arbitration for a $175,000 sequel payment for 2012’s Expendables 2 even though he had nothing to do with the writing for that movie.
The plaintiffs in the complaint are Nu Image Inc, Millennium Films, Double Life Productions, Alta Vista Productions Inc., Alta Vista Financing and Alta Vista Productions, LLC. The defendants are David E. Callaham, his company Jittery Dog Productions and the Writers Guild of America West. Nu Image and Millennium and the other plaintiffs are represented by Charles Coate and Darius Anthony Vosylius of Santa Monica firm Costa, Abrams & Coate LLP.
Rangers ace Davie Weir insists there's no way he's ready to give up his Scotland place to Celtic twosome Gary Caldwell and Stephen McManus.
National coach George Burley only called the 38-year-old into his squad for the 0-0 draw with Northern Ireland after Caldwell pulled out injured and has stated the Parkhead pair are his first-choice picks for central defence.
Weir, however, played 72 minutes of Wednesday's Hampden tussle and wants to make Burley think again despite respecting his call to knock him down the pecking order.
He said: “That's what being a manager is about - you've got to make decisions.
“Not everything is going to go your way, so all I can do is play football and hope to change the manager's mind.
“At the end of the day, I am not going to fall out with anyone about it.
“I want to be involved in these games with Macedonia and Iceland.
“I am not going to retire and I am available.
“That's the way it is, that's the way it has been for a while and I don't think that'll change because I enjoy it.
“I understand that I am not going to be here forever and I have to be realistic, but I want to play as long as I can and I want to enjoy it as long as I can.
Burley has already spoken to Weir about his future and left him out of the original squad for Northern Ireland because he wasn't going to give him a game.
Weir said: “The manager said to me that there was no point bringing me along if I wasn't going to play.
“That was fair enough and I understand that.
Here I am with Francis Bacon, both looking a little worse for wear in David Hockney’s Paris studio in 1975. I had first met Bacon a dozen years earlier, when I interviewed him for a student magazine I edited called Cambridge Opinion. I had heard Bacon to be monstrous, but he was absolutely charming. He swept me straight off to lunch: a decadent, extended affair involving chablis and oysters in the most expensive restaurant I had dined in. The interview – if we can call it that – took the form of a long, open conversation. I immediately fell under his sway.
That conversation continued for 28 years, in a sense. We became firm friends, and met very frequently for the rest of his life. I don’t know what he saw in me particularly. I’m not homosexual, so that played no part, but he loved talking about his life, work and thoughts, and I was fascinated. I never made written notes at our meetings or dared to record our conversations, but instead made mental notes – aided by his habit of repeating proclamations for emphasis. I ended up being able to recall, verbatim, vast sections of our conversations.
Paris was always a great love of Bacon’s. In 1971 a retrospective of his work was held at the Grand Palais. It was a roaring success and the French art world went wild for it, but unfortunately the whole event was marred by tragedy. George Dyer, Bacon’s former lover, had been invited since he was the subject of so many portraits in the exhibition. Dyer was unstable and a hard drinker, and on the opening night he fatally overdosed on alcohol and sleeping pills.
A few years later Bacon asked me to find him a studio in Paris, as I lived there. He wanted to create some dark, inward-looking paintings in the city so as to exorcise the guilt and sadness he felt at Dyer’s death. I found him a place where he could work and sleep, and he began visiting regularly. This photograph was taken a few months after he moved. We had been out for one of our typically protracted lunches, running into Hockney in a cafe afterwards.
Bacon generally held the work of his contemporaries in little regard, but he and Hockney were friends. Hockney had a studio in Paris at the time and invited us to visit. We shuffled over for a cup of tea and did our best to chat through the fogginess of lunch. At some point Hockney pulled out a camera and took this. There aren’t many photographs of us together, and I regret that. I wasn’t to know how important a part he would play in my life.
Food delivery services like Uber Eats and Grubhub are taking off like a rocket. But some restaurants aren't on board.
As the big fast-food restaurants increasingly see vast potential in pushing convenience beyond the drive-thru, Taco Bell and KFC are expanding delivery nationwide in partnership with Grubhub.
The final West Palm Beach City Commission vote on the re-approval process for the controversial Chapel-by-the-Lake condominium project is on the agenda for Monday’s regular meeting.
Commissioners meet first at 4 p.m., sitting as the board of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, and then hold their regular meeting at 5 p.m. Meetings are in commission chambers on the first floor of City Hall, 401 Clematis St.
In December, judges ordered the Bristol’s developers to return for re-approval from the city’s planning board and the city commission. The planning board approved the project Jan. 21 and the city commission said yes Feb. 17 in the first of two votes.
The group fighting the vote, Citizens for Thoughtful Growth, still has a pending suit.
Shivarajkumar, who has lent his voice to many movie soundtracks in the past, has now released a new Kannada song ‘Kannada Kaliya’ that will feature in the movie ‘Taarakaasura’. The catchy tune seems to have already struck a chord with listeners within the few hours of its release online.
“The Kannada language is a privilege to learn. Everyone who has liked the song will also like the language. I enjoyed singing it and didn't expect it to reach people so soon. I thank everybody who has heard the song,” said Shivarajkumar.
“We are not going to target any one particular audience here. Our love for Kannada is great. We are happy that within a few hours, Kannadigas liked the song. This song has gained more popularity because Shivarajkumar has sung it,” says director Chandrashekar Bandiyappa.
‘Kannada Kaliya’ has been written by Kaviraj and composed by Dharma.
‘Taarakaasura’ stars Vaibhav and Manavith as the leads with Danny Safani in a negative role. Produced by M. Narasimhalu, the movie's shoot has been completed and the team is busy with post-production work.
The American father who took his daughter from a Vung Tau resort has vowed to remain in Vietnam with his child until he has achieved at least partial custody.
Karl Werner, 37, says he intends to also sue this and other media outlets for unfair coverage of events of the past month.
Reached at the Tran Vinh Hotel in Bac Lieu City on Wednesday, Werner maintained that taking his five-year old daughter from the Lan Rung Resort was not a crime.
Werner’s Indonesian ex-wife, Ela Herawati, 35, and her lawyer, Nguyen Thi Diem Phuong, 33, began publicly accusing Werner of concocting a false narrative about suffering from bone cancer to lure his ex-wife and daughter to Vietnam.
During an amicable trip to Vung Tau on July 15, they say Werner took the child without Herawati’s knowledge.
Werner largely acknowledged that version of events, but maintained he'd committed “a rescue” rather than an abduction. He also denied allegations that he and his fiancée had stolen Herawati's personal property.
“I have a responsibility to protect my daughter,” he said, adding that intermittent Skype calls with his ex-wife over the past year had led him to believe Herawati's boyfriend had abused their child in Manila — where the mother and daughter now reside.
Herawati denied the claims and pointed to smiling photos of her boyfriend and the child as evidence.
During a protracted interview with Thanh Nien, Werner and his pregnant fiancée, Nguyen Phuc Quynh, 30, emphatically denied allegations that they had stolen Herawati's telephone, cash and personal effects.
“I don't know what happened to her things,” he said.
The couple described Herawati as mentally unsound and generally unstable; they also offered to reimburse her for any money or property lost during her trip to Vietnam.
Herawati has likewise attempted to paint her ex-husband as mentally unsound and dismissed his claims as lies.

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