Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Source: NYSE
Stock futures are slightly lower in overnight trading after major indexes saw gains in May.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 35 points, or 0.10%. S&P 500 futures shed 0.09% and Nasdaq 100 futures ticked 0.03% lower.
The moves in overnight trading come after the blue-chip Dow and the S&P 500 gained 1.93% and 0.55% in May, respectively, to mark their fourth consecutive positive month. The S&P 500 closed Friday just 0.8% off its record high.
The small cap Russell 2000 rose 0.11% in May to post its eighth positive month in a row — its longest monthly win streak since 1995.
The Nasdaq gained 2.06% last week to post its best weekly performance since April. However, the tech-heavy composite lost 1.53% in May, breaking a 6-month win streak.
"Overall, given the market's reaction to [Friday]'s PCE release, investor concerns about inflation may have been exaggerated — or perhaps already priced in," Chris Hussey, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, said in a note.
"Consensus may be building that the inflation we are seeing today is 'good' inflation — the kind of rise in prices that accompanies accelerating growth, not a monetary policy mistake," Hussey said.
Investors are awaiting the Federal Reserve's meeting scheduled for June 15-16. Key for the markets is whether the Fed begins to believe that inflation is higher than it expected or that the economy is strengthening enough to progress without so much monetary support.
May's employment report, set to be released on Friday, will provide a key reading of the economy. According to Dow Jones, economists expect to see about 674,000 jobs created in May, after the much fewer-than-expected 266,000 jobs added in April.
China’s surprise decision to allow all couples to have a third child may be too little too late to reverse the nation’s declining birthrate and shrinking workforce.
Economists and demographers say authorities will need a range of supportive policies on childcare and measures to curb high education and housing costs to make it viable for couples to expand their families.
China has been gradually
reforming its stringent birth policy that for decades limited most families to having only a single child. In 2016, couples were allowed to have a second baby, although that did little to boost the birthrate. In a meeting presided over by President Xi Jinping on Monday, the Communist Party’s Politburo agreed to ease the current two-child restriction and also raise the retirement age in a bid to boost the labor force.
No Baby Boom
Number of births in China fell to lowest since 1961
Source: National Bureau of Statistics, data compiled by demographer He Yafu
“It is an important policy move, but the three-children policy alone will not lead to a sustained rebound in the fertility rate,” said Yuan Xin, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin. “A whole package of services and polices, such as childcare, tax-rebates for parents, housing subsidies and even gender equality, are needed to create a social environment that encourages parents to have more babies.”
The declining birthrate means China’s population, currently at 1.41 billion, may begin to shrink before 2025, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates. There were 12 million new babies born last year amid the uncertainties of the coronavirus pandemic, the lowest number since 1961.
Yuan of Nankai University said a fertility rate of 1.8 is ideal for healthy population growth. The rate is currently at 1.3.
Labor Drag
China’s population will likely peak by 2025
Source: NBS, United Nations World Population Prospects (2019), Bloomberg Economics
China’s fertility rate began a steady decline from the 1970s, as education levels increased and the government encouraged rural women to have fewer children, culminating in the national “one child” policy which applied to most women from the end of that decade. The rules were often harshly enforced, especially in countryside areas where officials sometimes ordered women to have abortions.
What Bloomberg Economics Says...
China’s new three-child policy is a step in the right direction but it’s not enough to head off an inevitable demographic drag on the economy. Other steps, including birth- and parenting-friendly policies and an increase in the pension age, are needed as quickly as possible if China stands a chance of slowing a looming decline in its workforce and crunch from an aging population.
A lower birthrate and bigger elderly population is putting pressure on the economy and government resources. To maintain economic growth, Beijing will need to rapidly increase spending on pensions and health care while maintaining a high level of corporate and state investment in order to upgrade its vast industrial sector and increase education levels, according to economists.
“A comprehensive policy package ranging from tax incentives, education and housing subsidies, more generous maternity leave, universal provision of child care” is needed for the three-child policy to be effective, said Liu Li-Gang, managing director and chief China economist at Citigroup Inc. The government will need to rebuild the social safety net, as well as contain housing prices and reduce education costs, he said.
China has maintained rapid economic growth in recent decades despite its slow population growth, with migration to cities propelling a shift from agriculture to factory and service work, which increased economic output per worker. The current proportion of people living in urban areas of about 64% is roughly on par with the U.S. in 1950, suggesting potential for further catch-up.
Policy Mix
To help sustain growth, China is looking to raising the
retirement age, one of the lowest in the world, and increase urbanization. The government is aiming to gradually lift the retirement age from the current level of 60 years for men and as low as 50 for women, and plans for 50 million people to move permanently from rural to urban areas in the next five years to take up service and manufacturing jobs with higher wages.
The right mix of policies could mean China becomes the world’s largest economy, continuing to propel global demand for commodities in the coming decades, while its gray consumers become a vast market for multinationals, with a huge pool of pension savings targeted by global finance companies. A less effective response could mean China never overtakes the U.S. in terms of economic size, or does so only fleetingly.
WATCH: China will allow all couples to have a third child as it aims to slow the declining birthrate amid a rapidly aging population. Tom Mackenzie reports.
(Source: Bloomberg)
The trend toward fewer births is likely to continue even with a looser birth policy. As in East Asia and Europe, preferences have shifted toward smaller families. A spike in births following the previous relaxation to allow most families to have two children was short-lived, with many parents citing the high costs of housing and education as a limiting factor.
“These days, few women or families opt to have three children,” said Herald van der Linde, head of equity strategy for Asia Pacific at HSBC Holdings Plc. “The issue is high childcare costs, employment discrimination against women in childbearing age, lack of childcare in the workplace etc. And all sorts of policies have been thrown at families to have more babies in other countries -- even cash handouts -- but often with little effect.”
Shares in Chinese companies related to infant care continued to rally Tuesday. Milk formula maker Beingmate Co. rose by as much as its daily limit of 10% for a second day in Shenzhen, while Jinfa Labi Maternity & Baby Articles Co. also climbed by 10%. Japan and Australia stocks also moved.
The policy change was quickly mocked on Chinese social media, with many people lamenting the fact that couples from single-child households would now have to raise three children while supporting four elderly parents and repay heavy mortgage debt. It also triggered concern over women’s employment, with some saying that it will become even harder for females to get a job as companies are unlikely to be willing to shoulder the costs.
“For those people who are rich, relaxing the policy will encourage them to have more children but for the common citizens, like the middle class or even the lower class, they don’t have enough incentive to make use of this new policy,” said
Vivian Zhan, an associate professor of Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
— With assistance by Tom Hancock, Yujing Liu, Jing Li, Kari Soo Lindberg, and James Mayger
June 01, 2021 at 05:41AM
https://www.nbc12.com/2021/05/31/my-heart-still-feels-little-heavy-virginia-war-memorial-honors-fallen-heroes-during-memorial-day-ceremony/
‘My heart still feels a little heavy’: Virginia War Memorial honors fallen heroes during Memorial Day ceremony - WWBT NBC12 News
Do you have trouble keeping the names Covid-19 variants straight, and struggle to distinguish B.1.1.7 from B.1.351 or B.1.617.2?
The World Health Organization wants to help. On Monday, it announced a new naming system it devised for so-called variants of interest and variants of concern, the forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with important mutations.
Each variant will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigma from the emergence of new variants. A country may be more willing to report it has found a new variant if it knows the new version of the virus will be identified as Rho or Sigma rather than with the country’s name, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s coronavirus lead, told STAT in an interview.
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Under the new scheme, B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, will be known as Alpha and B.1.351, the variant first spotted in South Africa, will be Beta. P.1, the variant first detected in Brazil, will be Gamma and B.1.671.2, the so-called Indian variant, is Delta.
When the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet have been exhausted, another series like it will be announced, Van Kerkhove said.
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A plan to simplify the nomenclature of the variants has been in the works for several months, led by the WHO’s Virus Evolution Working Group. But it was surprisingly tricky to come up with an acceptable system, Van Kerkhove said.
The initial plan was to create a bunch of two-syllable names that aren’t words — portmanteaus, said WHO’s Frank Konings, who leads the working group. But it quickly became apparent that too many were actually already claimed — some were the names of companies or locations, others were family names. Combining three syllables didn’t solve the problem and four syllables became unwieldy.
For a while, the group considered names of Greek gods and goddesses, but that was eventually nixed. The idea of just numbering them one, two, three, and so on was considered, but rejected because it was thought it would likely create confusion with the names the viruses are given in genetic sequence databases that track the evolution of the SARS-2.
“We’re not saying replace B.1.1.7, but really just to try to help some of the dialogue with the average person,” Van Kerkhove explained. “So that in public discourse, we could discuss some of these variants in more easy-to-use language.”
The Greek alphabet suggestion drew the approval of the experts the WHO convened to come up with the naming system, some of whom are members of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses. That group is charged with naming new species of viruses — it named SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. But it does not name subspecies of viruses, which is why this fell to the WHO.
“I heard it’s sometimes quite a challenge to come to an agreement with regards to nomenclature. This was a relatively straightforward discussion in getting to the point where everybody agreed,” Konings said.
The WHO will maintain a list of variants with their new names on its website.
Musician Little Simz (aka Simbiatu ‘Simbi’ Abisola Abiola Ajikawo) takes a moment to call out women from Tanzania to Brooklyn in the unifying groove of her newest single “Women.” Here, the London-based artist demonstrates a confident lyrical swagger that underpins a sound that not only moves listeners rhythmically but also resonates as a statement of unapologetic strength. “I love it when I see women doing their thing and looking flawless; I’m here for that!” she said in a statement. “It’s empowering, it’s inspiring; I wanted to say thank you and I wanted to celebrate them.” ‘That message of empowerment is beautifully manifested in the video for the song which represents her directorial debut.
Sylvan Esso’s new single with co-producer Teddy Geiger, “Numb,” features the synth-pop tapestry they’ve perfected throughout the years—a sound grounded by an ethereal vocal grace. “The song itself is about figuring out how to shake yourself out of depression by celebrating,” said singer Amelia Meath of the song. “Teddy took the bones of Numb, kept the idea of a serious backbeat, but brought out the softer, romantic parts of the song. I’m just so grateful that we have gotten to work with her.”
Sleater-Kinney have returned as a duo with a forthcoming album in tow called “Path Of Wellness” (their first since the departure of longtime drummer Janet Weiss in 2019). Guitarists and vocalists Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker wrote and recorded the album in Portland during the lockdown. This effort, set to arrive on June 11, is also their first self-produced album. The song “Worry With You” leads the way with energic fun and a youthful spirit perfectly captured in the accompanying music video (also shot in Portland and directed by Alberta Poon).
"Mommy, why do we not learn about Asian American history? Why are other ones more important?" the elementary student asked Kim, an associate professor of elementary and early childhood education at Kennesaw University. "Why are other people more respected?
About 22.9 million people in the US identify as having Asian heritage, according to the US Census. Yet, in many schools across the US, if Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are mentioned in social studies and history lessons at all, they boil down to brief lines describing primarily two topics: immigration and Pearl Harbor.
"School curriculum is missing AAPI stories that are needed to build up who they are as American citizens," said Kim.
Experts say this gap in representation has severe impacts on Asian students, who don't see themselves woven into the tapestry of US history, and for non-Asian students who are not taught to value the contributions of communities with which they do not identify.
Now there is a fresh drive from teachers, organizations and legislators -- motivated by a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes as well as the celebration of AAPI Heritage Month -- to bring more nuanced, representative Asian American history to classrooms.
This year, partially prompted by the mass shooting in the Atlanta area that left six Asian women dead, fifth-grade teacher Lisa Chu wanted to expand her students' understanding of AAPI history.
But the single detail in the curriculum that covered Asian history only described Asian immigrants coming in through Angel Island in San Francisco instead of Ellis Island through which European immigrants came in, and she turned it into an experiential learning moment.
She discussed the different treatment of Asian immigrants, how they were held for weeks at the port while European immigrants were often held for only hours. She and her students discussed what it was like to be subjected to embarrassing, invasive questioning. They talked about how that treatment was rooted in racism, a sentiment that has not gone away.
"I think as this generation continues to get older, the more aware they are the more powerful they have to actually cause change," said Chu, who teaches in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
"My country doesn't treat me as a somebody"
Education researchers say that denying AAPI students education about their own history not only inhibits their knowledge, it is detrimental to their identity as Americans.
Sohyun An, a professor of elementary and early childhood education at Kennesaw University in Georgia, has researched AAPI history education across ten states including, Georgia, California, New Jersey and Texas. She found that if there was any mention of Asian American history, it was mostly limited to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and Chinese immigration and their participation in building railroads.
Although people of Asian descent have been part of the fabric of the US since its early days, that isn't taught to students, she said. Instead, the lessons teach that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners, according to An.
When An's daughter learned about the American Revolution, she came to her mother asking if she would have been a slave in those times. She couldn't figure out where she fit in, she said.
Kim's children came to her with similar questions.
"Mommy, what color is my skin? I think that I'm not White, and I'm not Black and also I'm not Brown," they asked.
"If we don't teach about Asian American history, it's not only letting non-Asian people to treat us as non-humans, but it is also a curriculum of violence because it kills humanity and agency," An said. "My country doesn't treat me as a somebody."
Kiana Kenmotsu was in the sixth grade when she first read about her own history in school.
It was one story about the internment of Japanese Americans, a wrong suffered by her grandfather, but now 18-year-old Kenmotsu said it changed everything for her.
"Every time (Asian history) was brought up, I felt a high," she said. " History is something you connect with. I was never able to connect with it."
That crucial identity formation that is offered through learning history can be especially complicated for Asian American students because their individual experiences under many nationalities often get lumped together under one Asian identity, said Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn with the Learning for Justice, an organization founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Or educators get too overwhelmed to touch the topic at all. "For Asian American students, it erases your own understanding of yourself," Blackburn said.
Stereotypes keeping people divided
But the impacts go beyond those who identify as Asian.
Five years after Kenmotsu's first encounter with Asian American history, a class in her school held a trial over the morality of internment during World War II and the verdict reached was that the US was right to detain residents the students found to be a threat.
Kenmotsu said she couldn't look her classmates in the eye afterward, feeling they did not have the knowledge to empathize with and value the trauma inflicted on her family throughout history.
When the history that is taught in the classroom is representative of all American populations, it teaches students that the US belongs to the many groups -- not just the European immigrants represented in most of their textbooks, An said. Understanding other cultures and seeing their importance encourages compassion and fights the stereotype of immigrants as dangerous, she said.
Chu said she noticed that Asian history only comes up when an Asian population did something dangerous or when the event has been sugar-coated. It is much less common to hear in a classroom about contributions Asian Americans have made to the nation.
It can also be seen as unpatriotic to talk about the harm the US has inflicted on groups of people, Blackburn said.
Without a rich understanding of how Asian Americans have been discriminated against and been central to the American system, some students are left only with stereotypes to fill in their understanding, researchers said.
The model minority, the economic competitors and the foreigners ordered to go back to their country -- even if their families have been in the US for generations --- are common roles Asian Americans are cast in during times of crisis, An said.
"Stereotypes erase individuals," Blackburn said. And without individual power, Asian Americans are stripped of their collective power, which can be used to fight for their own interest as well as in alliance with other minority groups, she said.
Legislation and calls for action
Blackburn and organizations like Learning for Justice hope to equip teachers to make their classrooms more equitable and their curriculum more representative, but others are pushing for legislation to implement change.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago worked with State Senator Ram Villivalam and Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz to introduce the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act in Illinois.
The legislation, which has passed the state house and senate and is going back to the house for a concurrence vote, would amend the Illinois School Code to mandate Asian American history be taught in every public school.
"I didn't see our community in our textbooks, and it was hard to understand who our community was in relation to everyone else," Villivalam said. "For Asian American students it will be a chance to learn our history, the contributions our community has made."
While Chu said she thinks it is important to expand students' learning, she has questions about whether legislation to make additions to the curriculum is the way to accomplish that.
"I think the idea is great, but I think people forget that social studies is already on the backburner of almost every single teacher," Chu said. With so much already on teachers' backs and reading and math given priority for state testing, if anything gets short changed, it's social studies, she added.
Rather than adding units in a lesson plan, Chu said she hopes state boards of educations and districts change their standards. And, she added, that teachers will choose to go deeper in their own classrooms.
"Embed it without it becoming its own separate unit on its own," Chu said.
Otherwise, she feels that AAPI will be seen as a separate entity "rather than we are a part of American history."
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Last December, when a week-old hedge fund named Engine No. 1 challenged Exxon Mobil to change its ways, laughter echoed through Wall Street circles, from the fund’s name that recalled a famous children’s book to its tiny, then-$40 million stake in what was once the world’s largest publicly traded company.
Just six months later, the fund delivered a massive blow that rippled throughout the oil-and-gas industry. Engine No. 1’s campaign forced Exxon to accept new board members who could bring about a reckoning over its business strategy and confront the risk of global climate change that many investors say Exxon has long been reluctant to address.
Companies with a market value of $250 billion like Exxon rarely face, much less lose, shareholder battles. But stakeholders familiar with Exxon’s thinking said Wednesday’s defeat was years in the making due to ongoing weak returns.
Institutional investors had grown frustrated with the company’s approach to the energy transition, trailing global rivals who promised big spending on power generation, solar and wind. In addition, Exxon failed to recognize how the investment community had become more attuned to climate change issues, which helped Engine No. 1 sway big pension funds in California and New York to its side.
Sources familiar with the company’s strategy say that Exxon was late to mount a defense against Engine No. 1, and even when it did, it concentrated on the threat to the company’s generous dividend. But analysts had for months cautioned that Exxon’s hefty indebtedness could put that dividend at risk, making its warnings of the fund’s intentions less threatening.
“Exxon Mobil worked very hard to lose this battle” over years of inattention to climate change, said Robert Eccles, professor of management practice at Said Business School at Oxford University. In December, Eccles said he thought the activists had a chance to win a board fight.
Exxon did not respond to requests for comment. Company executives have said its scale and investment approach had weathered boom-bust cycles. In a statement on Wednesday, CEO Darren Woods said that Exxon has “been very actively engaged with our shareholders, sharing our plans and hearing their viewpoints and the key issues of importance to them.”
A spokeswoman for Engine No. 1 declined to comment.
ENERGY EXPERIENCE WANTED
When the newly formed Engine No. 1 announced its campaign in early December, Exxon Mobil was closing out a disastrous 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic that would end with $22 billion in losses.
Engine No. 1 saw an opportunity to push for changes to the company’s board, which until this year had nobody – other than CEO Woods – with experience in the energy industry, with arguments about Exxon’s spending and lack of an energy transition plan.
The fund’s top executives Chris James and Charlie Penner undertook a lengthy effort to recruit potential directors with the credentials to challenge Exxon, according to people familiar with the matter, eventually settling on four people all with energy experience.
The fund was able to tap into investors’ discontent to turn the fight into a climate referendum that cost the two sides at least $65 million. CALSters, the California teachers’ retirement fund, supported the campaign from the beginning.
Exxon sought to blunt the fund’s nominees by expanding its board and adding director Jeff Ubben, who runs a sustainable investing fund. It also sought to calm investors’ climate concerns by increasing low-carbon initiatives and lowering the intensity of its oilfield greenhouse gas emissions.
The company also reversed course on a massive oil and gas expansion program, though analysts expect it to pick up the pace of spending next year.
By April, however, Engine No. 1 was lining up more allies. New York’s $255 billion Common Retirement Fund announced it would support the dissident slate of directors, following California’s $300 billion teachers retirement fund.
FOCUS ON DIVIDEND
Exxon was taking the threat more seriously by April, but focused on investor returns, warning in a shareholder letter that Engine No. 1 wanted the company “to pursue a vague and undefined plan – which we believe will jeopardize our future and your dividend.”
The company has long prized its dividend, which during pandemic-driven oil price lows grew to a yield of more than 10%. With the company’s debt load rising to more than $69 billion last year, analysts raised frequent questions about whether the dividend could be maintained as Exxon was being encouraged to cut costs.
“The biggest surprise to Exxon was how the ‘defend the returns’ strategy did not work,” said one source familiar with the company’s thinking.
The tide turned further against Exxon on May 14 after two near-simultaneous events. First was the release of a damning report from influential shareholder advisory firm ISS that criticized the company’s failure to adjust its spending plans.
“Investors have regularly highlighted concerns about preparedness for an energy transition, yet the board did not take action decisive enough to prompt recognition from the market until after launch of the dissident’s campaign,” ISS said.
That was followed by a television appearance from Woods on CNBC, where investors said he looked unprepared for host David Faber’s questions about the ISS report, Exxon’s strategy and the board’s lack of energy experience.
Exxon for years banked on the company’s size and steady dividend to blunt investor criticism, even as it made a series of risky investments such as its purchase of XTO Energy ahead of a sharp decline in natural gas prices and a 2017 purchase of Texas shale properties as oil prices were slipping.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, in a statement on Wednesday, said the fund for years wanted assurance that Exxon’s board took the climate crisis seriously “and was acting to put the company on a path to succeed in the low carbon economy, and for years received platitudes and gaslighting in response.”
Blackrock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, which supported three of four dissident nominees, said in a statement on Wednesday that Exxon invested just $10.4 billion on lower-carbon energy technologies in the last 20 years, compared with more than $20 billion in overall expenditures in 2020 alone.
On Wednesday, the company recessed its annual general meeting for an hour, as it continued to count votes. Woods then answered pre-selected questions from investors for 40 minutes, far more than the previous year’s annual meeting.
Among the questions was one about an International Energy Agency report that warned that investors should not fund new fossil fuel supply projects beyond this year if the world wants to reach net zero emissions by mid-century. Woods, however, said that “if you look at the report, it outlines the continued need for investment in oil and gas.”
Correspondent Tracy Smith asked celebrity impersonator Rich Little, "Is it true that when you became a U.S. citizen, the judge asked you to do it in a John Wayne voice?"
"Yeah, yeah. He said. 'I'm gonna swear you in as John Wayne,' So, I got up there and I said, "Well, mister, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. And don't crowd me!"
In case you were wondering, Rich Little is alive and well, and on any given night, so are a lot of his old friends. Right now he's in Las Vegas, filling the reduced-capacity shows at The Laugh Factory at the Tropicana. But at 82, Little's been in show biz longer than some of his audience members have been alive.
Dozens of celebrities and presidents are appearing on stage at the Laugh Factory in Las Vegas, though they look like Rich Little.CBS News
The walls of his home are hung with photos of people he's met along the way – some of the biggest names of the last century. Smith asked, "Is it sometimes hard to believe that you knew all these people?"
"Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, here's a shot of John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and me and Glenn Ford. You know? Yeah, you can't get any bigger than that!"
Comedian and impressionist Rich Little, with correspondent Tracy Smith. CBS News
The Canadian-born entertainer got his start imitating his teachers at school, and he'd sneak into the movies with a tape recorder so he could hear a celebrity voice over and over. That once got him kicked out of a theater showing Jimmy Stewart's 1954 film, "The Far Country." "And I told Jimmy about this when I first met him. He said, 'You, you, you, you, you, you, you did that?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And he said, 'Richard, you shoulda got ahold of me. I, I, I, I coulda sent you the movie!"
But by the 1970s, he'd become pretty much a fixture on TV, especially game shows. Rich Little has been called "Mister Everybody." But he says he can actually do about a hundred really well.
'Course he's also done just about every president, from Richard Nixon, to Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and George Bush. And this summer he'll be in New York appearing as Nixon in "Trial on the Potomac," an Off-Broadway play about what would have happened if Nixon hadn't resigned.
Smith asked, "Do you have a favorite impersonation?"
"Yeah, I would say Ronald Reagan was my favorite," said Little. "Because he was a great friend of mine. We got along great together. I was even up at their quarters in the White House for lunch."
In fact, when the Reagans left Washington for good and flew home to California, Rich Little was one of first to greet them when they landed, telling the audience, "I think my impression of President Reagan is getting better and better, because every time I do you, sir, I get this terrible urge to run off with Nancy."
Truth is, his impersonations haven't always been just for laughs: When David Niven shot "Curse of the Pink Panther," he was terminally ill with ALS, and his voice was barely a whisper. So, a lot of what moviegoers heard was actually Rich Little.
But maybe his best-known impersonation was "Tonight Show" legend Johnny Carson: Little was a regular on the show for years, and even guest-hosted a number of times, until the show abruptly stopped calling.
Smith asked, "What happened with 'The Tonight Show'?"
"Well, I was never quite sure," Little replied. "Either I said something that rubbed somebody the wrong way, or Johnny got tired of me imitating him. I don't know. But suddenly, I was a no-book on the show. And I tried to find out why, but I never really found out."
They did meet again after Carson retired – a chance encounter in a Malibu restaurant. "And when he came over to the table he said, 'Richard, are, are you still, are you impersonating me?' And I said, 'Of course.' He said, 'Re – eally?' I said, 'Well, yeah, John. I mean, people love it. It's one of my best impressions.' 'Well, I'm, I thought, you know, I'm not on the air anymore, maybe they, maybe they've forgotten me?' I said, 'No, no, no. They haven't forgotten you at all. My gosh, I'll be doing you for years.' Which is true, 'cause I'm still doing him."
These days, Rich Little is still keeping Johnny's memory – and those of dozens of others – alive. And after nearly 60 years, the voices come naturally. The hard part, he said, is trying to keep his own voice from fading away.
"When you get to be as old as I am, it's tougher to get on TV," he told Smith. "Now, I'm thrilled to be on this show today, because this is probably the first time I've been on network television in 30 years."
"Do you miss it?"
"Yeah, I do. I think what happens is when you get older, people don't really want to book you on a show. Maybe they think you're not funny anymore, you know? I don't know. So, this is a big thrill for me. I hope it goes over well!"
Smith replied, "I have no doubt it will!"
And as Porky Pig might say, ""Eb, eb, eb, eb, that's all, folks!"
For more info:
Story produced by John D'Amelio. Editor: David Bhagat.
Meyer lemon tartlet with toasted pistachios and Meyer lemon confit from Patty O’s Cafe & Bakery, chef Patrick O’Connell’s new restaurant, at the Inn at Little Washington.
When Patrick O’Connell first moved to rural Washington, Virginia in 1972, he cooked inside of a decommissioned school bus attached to the back of his house. O’Connell, then 26, grew up about 80 miles away in a Washington, D.C., suburb and had saved enough money working as a waiter to buy a plot of land, and a home, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Appalachian dwellings like his often originated from scrap. “You’d add on,” O’Connell says. “It would become better and better.”
The inn’s historic main entrance.
Now, approaching his 50th year in Washington, population 135, O’Connell, the 75-year-old chef-owner of the Inn at Little Washington, holds the deeds to 21 buildings in town, the result of a purchasing spree that began in the late 1970s when the chef first decided he wanted to run a brick-and-mortar restaurant rather than the catering outfit he’d been operating for five years. (In those days, O’Connell also worked as a butler and a house painter.) The buildings he has since acquired, first with business partner Reinhardt Lynch and then solo, after their 2006 separation, constitute the inn’s campus: 23 lavishly decorated guest rooms and cottages, a Michelin-three-star dining room, a ballroom and shops.
Directed by Justin Kaneps
Aside from the inn’s kitchen, which is housed in new construction and recently underwent a roughly million-dollar upgrade, O’Connell classifies each of his buildings as a “restoration, transformation or resurrection.” This summer, work will be completed on one such project, Patty O’s Cafe & Bakery, O’Connell’s first new restaurant since 1978, when he opened the inn itself.
O’Connell’s holdings date back to the 18th century and represent a number of different styles of architecture, from Colonial Revival to Jeffersonian. Throughout the decades, O’Connell has bolstered his real-estate portfolio in order to accommodate the sustained demand to visit the inn. In doing so, he continues to build a world of his own florid design: a series of meticulously restored colonial American facades whose interiors bear Moroccan lanterns, Balinese umbrellas and animal murals. It all reflects his maximal and fantastical ideas about hospitality, which he describes as a feeling of going to your grandmother’s house if your grandmother dropped acid. “People can come here and be whoever they want, wherever they want,” O’Connell says. “They can bring their own script and escape.”
O’Connell, known as the Pope of American Cuisine, in the inn’s kitchen.
O’Connell owns about a block and a half of the four-block downtown. Washington’s mayor, Thomas Catlin, calls O’Connell a visionary, describing how the chef’s oeuvre has helped safeguard Washington against the kind of rural decay that’s ubiquitous throughout Appalachia. In addition to the inn’s long list of accolades and its critical success (O’Connell won the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and the inn remains the only restaurant in the Michelin Guide for Washington, D.C., with a three-star rating), it is also its county’s largest private employer. The inn’s tax revenue has long paid for the vast majority of Washington’s budget. “We pay them well over $1,000 per day,” O’Connell says. In O’Connell’s case, municipal interest and self-interest have merged. For the inn to thrive as a world-class destination, he believes it must be aligned with the town. “The more we’ve invested, the more there is here for us to protect,” he says.
Grilled king lamb chop perfumed with rosemary on lentils du Puy with minted béarnaise from Patty O’s Cafe & Bakery, which is scheduled to open in August.
“The last remaining piece of our little puzzle is the ugliest building in town,” O’Connell tells me, via Zoom from the duplex suite named for Alice Waters. (Several of the inn’s rooms are named for American culinary legends, including Waters, Edna Lewis and Julia Child.) Seated under tented fabric, atop a velvet sofa and among fringed throw pillows, O’Connell is ensconced in patterns: florals, butterflies and stripes. And his chef’s pants are dalmatian print, modeled after the spotting on his first dog, Rose. (His current dalmatian, Luray, wears a seersucker vest to occasionally greet summertime diners before their meals.)
When O’Connell speaks, his hands sweep, flutter and slash. His voice, deep and sincere, sounds articulate and all-knowing, like a movie trailer’s narrator. (He says being at the inn is like being in a movie.) Even O’Connell’s laughter sounds like the result of elocution lessons, each new “ha” a distinct burst from the last. O’Connell originally wanted to be a stage actor but ultimately found restaurants to have superior sets and more compelling drama.
One of 23 guest rooms and cottages at the inn.
For O’Connell, transforming what he calls Washington’s greatest eyesore into a cafe worthy of a great European town square has taken three decades. The two-story brick building that had been covered with creeping foliage sits kitty-corner to the inn’s main entrance. Box-like in its design, it was built in 1952 as a gas station. When O’Connell bought the 2,900-square-foot property 29 years ago, he inherited two tenants: a post office and a diner called the Country Cafe.
The inn’s gardens, which in the spring include approximately 17,000 tulips.
O’Connell especially abhorred the parking lot in front of the building. “You’re looking at the butt end of pickup trucks,” he says. “The first thing I wanted to do in this town was remove all the cars.” O’Connell envisioned replacing the lot with densely planted flower beds and tables with umbrellas. He’d build a sidewalk cafe like the ones he loved in Rome and Monte Carlo. “Every town needs a living room,” he says. “When you live in the country, it’s something you realize can still be done—you can control your visual universe.”
A sunroom in a suite in the Carter House at the inn.
But some in the town of Washington had different ideas about what their collective living room should look like. “Each time we made forays toward doing [the cafe],” O’Connell says, “there was a sense of panic on the part of the local people that…coffee might cost $17, and there would be no place for them.” (Coffee at Patty O’s will cost about $4, and entrées will start at around $14.) Catlin, Washington’s mayor since 2018, confirms O’Connell has endured varying degrees of opposition ever since moving to town. “There’s always been this antipathy between longtime residents and the wave of people who started coming in the ’70s,” he says.
“ “People can come here and be whoever they want, wherever they want. They can bring their own script and escape.” ”
— Patrick O’Connell
Both Catlin and O’Connell—a local elected official himself, having served on the Town Council for 11 years—suggest that the hostility has mostly cooled. “Patrick is the most visible agent of change around here,” Catlin says. “People don’t always want change.” O’Connell, characteristically unflappable, describes the cafe’s completion as fated. “It’s all looking like it was destined to be as it is,” he says. “It just took us a long time to get there.”
The Carter House at the Inn at Little Washington.
When O’Connell finally decided to proceed with the cafe in early 2019, he reasoned that his guests at the inn who stayed multiple nights would benefit from having another dining option in town. He thought they might like a crock of French onion soup or a finely made hamburger (more than 50 versions of the burger were tested before a blend of chuck, sirloin and short rib on a brioche bun was chosen for the menu) as a counterpoint to the more haute offerings at the inn: caviar courses, cheese trolleys, desserts dusted with warm herbs.
O’Connell targeted a spring 2020 opening for the cafe. By then, his tenants could relocate. The post office moved to a larger facility on the edge of Washington; the Country Cafe rebranded itself as the Country Cafe Pit Stop and moved to nearby Sperryville. Covid-19 delayed the cafe yet again, shutting down the inn and its dining room for two months and casting great uncertainty around the idea of restaurant dining. “Our bank advised us to wait on opening anything new because we had basically no income,” O’Connell says. In late May, the inn reopened for indoor dining at 25 percent, lodging fully, and has followed strict Covid protocols and precautions. Since there was no restriction on lodging, O’Connell could compensate for a 75 percent empty dining room with nearly fully booked guest rooms touting premium room service. Profits stabilized somewhat over the summer, and the construction of Patty O’s resumed.
Friends at the inn’s farm.
One of two llamas on the farm.
Design meetings via Zoom did not suit O’Connell. “I must touch everything,” he says, every fabric sample, every prototype for a dish or a chair. While the interiors at the inn have been a near-exclusive collaboration between O’Connell and the British designer Joyce Conwy Evans, this time he looked to Paris, hiring Pierre-Yves Rochon, whose firm has designed a number of Four Seasons hotels as well as restaurants for Joël Robuchon, Alain Ducasse and Paul Bocuse. “Covid hit just at the point where Pierre was about to come over, and so he’s never been to our town,” O’Connell says. “So, I keep trying to impart to him that this can’t be slick. It has to be a little bit funky. I told him, ‘I know there’s no word in French for funky.’ ” O’Connell laughs, as he does often. “I’m not entirely sure he gets it.”
The boxy exterior of the cafe’s building has been updated with crown molding and striped sage-colored awnings. The wild, climbing foliage has been cut down. The once brown facade is now white. O’Connell says he has “softened the old gas station.” Inside, a stone fireplace anchors the dining room. O’Connell commissioned muralist William Woodward to paint a dream-like scene depicting a joyous barn dance above the bar. “Hopefully after a few drinks, you’ll hear banjo music and feel like you can just enter the mural,” O’Connell says.
“One of the things I’ve always said to my teams is we have this opportunity and responsibility to create magical worlds, especially during a time when the world needs more magic,” says the restaurateur Will Guidara, whose pursuit of the magical led him to the pinnacle of the restaurant business at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, where he was partner from 2011 to 2020. “I don’t know of anyone who has created a magical world as effectively as Patrick.”
As O’Connell’s team began putting the finishing touches on the cafe in mid-April, the inn’s gardens and grounds became saturated with color. “The tulips are just a few days away from their peak—17,000 tulips in the beds around the place, in soft pink salmon and white and ivory,” O’Connell tells me. “Underneath them are pansies. And the dogwood is coming on. And we have a cherry orchard about a day away from being in full bloom.” O’Connell pauses for a breath. “It’s dazzling.”
The grounds of the inn cover 24 acres.
After a difficult year of closings and delays, reduced dining room capacity and shrunken revenue, all amid larger questions about public life and health in America, O’Connell talks about the state of the inn with the same sense of renewal with which he describes the flora. The inn too is flourishing in the new season. “We’ve accomplished more in the last two years than we have in the last 10,” O’Connell says. The kitchen is gleaming and state of the art. A glass conservatory and Japanese garden have recently been completed off the inn’s dining room. And the cafe is finally aiming to open in August. O’Connell has not stopped buying Washington’s buildings either. Most recently, he took possession of the old bank, with plans to turn it into a general store.
As we all inch carefully into a late-pandemic dining landscape, O’Connell has picked up on something new from his guests and has derived fresh purpose. “Every night we see people who are out for the first time,” he says. “They are euphoric.”
O’Connell had been reclining in the throw pillows but now sits up straight. “We are providing a sanctuary, providing a healing space,” he says. “The guests desperately need to find a place where, for a brief period of time, they can forget what they’ve been going through—and they can feel that life is wonderful, life is good, that they are safe.”
Bahraini traders are seen at Bahrain Bourse in Manama, Bahrain, November 4, 2020. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Major stock markets in the Gulf were little changed in early trade on Sunday, with expectations of economic recovery nudging Dubai higher again after the index snapped an eight-session winning streak at the end of last week.
Dubai's index (.DFMGI) was up 0.1% after closing lower on Thursday.
The United Arab Emirate's only listed airline Air Arabia (AIRA.DU) rose 1.5%, while shopping mall operator Emaar Mall (EMAA.DU) was up 1%.
Analysts expect Dubai house prices to rise this year for the first time in six years, supported by a swift vaccine rollout that has lifted hopes for an overall economic recovery.
Saudi Arabia's benchmark index (.TASI) inched up around 0.2% in its fourth consecutive day of gains.
Hospital operator Dr. Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Services Group (4013.SE) rose 0.9%, Saudi Telecom (7010.SE) added 0.7% and Sahara International Petrochemical (2310.SE) was up 1.4%.
Saudi Arabia will allow entertainment venues to open at 40% capacity for those who are vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, as the kingdom relaxes restrictions imposed to check the spread of COVID-19. read more
The Abu Dhabi index (.ADI) was down 0.4% led by financials. First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB.AD) fell 1.3% and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB.AD) retreated 0.7%.
Losses were partially offset by International Holdings (IHC.AD) and Emirates Telecommunications Group (ETISALAT.AD) gaining 0.8% and 0.3% respectively.
Qatar's index (.QSI) edged down 0.2% after three session of gains triggered by easing COVID-19 restrictions. read more
Banking shares weighed the most with Commercial Bank (COMB.QA) dropping 1.6% and Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB.QA) down 1.7%.
OAKLAND — On a chilly, windy day at Messalonskee High School, the Edward Little track and field team was nothing but red hot.
The Red Eddies made a clean sweep in a dominant effort Saturday at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Championships for large schools. The Edward Little girls finished with 233 points, while Lewiston (99 points) finished second and Oxford Hills (92.5 points) third. For the boys, Edward Little scored 214 points, with Oxford Hills (134 points) finishing second and Lewiston (117 points) finishing third.
Freshman Makenna Drouin won four events — the 100-meter hurdles, the 100 dash, the 200 and the 300 hurdles — to lead the Edward Little girls team. She was most dominant in the 300 hurdles, finishing with a time of 46.85, more than four seconds faster than second-place finisher Audrey Bilodeau of Lewiston.
“This is my first year doing track in general,” Drouin said. “I wanted to do it in eighth grade, because I wasn’t doing softball anymore, and I like the idea of running.”
Payton Bell earned two wins for the Red Eddies, in the 1,600 and the 800. Bell’s time in the 800 (2:30.08) won the event by over nine seconds.
“Coming in, we’re a very confident team and we’re a big team,” Bell said earlier in the day. “So we have pretty good odds (to win)… It would mean a lot if we won this, because I didn’t get (to run in the postseason) freshman year, so this would be my first year coming to KVACs and winning. That’s pretty cool.”
Other winners for Edward Little included Kasey Smith (1,600 race walk), Katherine Garcia (3,200), Faith Small (javelin) and Saphryn Humason-Fulgham (triple jump).
For the Edward Little boys, Tudum Monday picked up multiple wins in the 110 hurdles (16.10) and 300 hurdles (42.27), while Jacob Jackson won the triple jump (43-06.25) and the high jump (6-00.00). Edward Little also had wins from Finn Thistle (pole vault) and Simon Hall (1,600 race walk). The Red Eddies also won the 4×800 meter relay.
Edward Little’s Payton Bell, left, and Messalonskee’s Charlotte Wentworth were close after the first lap of the 800 meter run that Bell won during the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship meet Saturday in Oakland. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal Buy this Photo
The Oxford Hills boys made a strong run, led by Brodi Rice, who won the discus (132-00) and shot put (42-02.25). The Vikings also got wins from Nickolas Plamondon in the 100 (11.47) and 200 (23.20) while he was fighting through a left leg injury.
“I had practice, and I had to run downhill for sprinting,” Plamondon said. “I tried to stop, but I pulled something. That was like a week ago. I’ve been putting ice, heat, anything at this point. When I was first out (in the 100), I was scared, but as I got about halfway, I just felt like I had to push myself more. As soon as I pushed myself, I felt (the injury) but didn’t feel it as much.”
Messalonskee finished fourth in both boys (69 points) and girls (52). Dylan Flewelling earned wins in the 3,200 and in the 1,600, where he needed a strong finishing kick to break away from Edward Little’s Owen Vincent.
“The plan was to push on the third lap, and hopefully have a little more of a gap on the fourth lap,” Flewelling said. “The third lap was a little harder, I didn’t get the gap I wanted. I just went and found another gear, and it felt really good.”
The team of Sam Fegel, Alonzo Michaud, Lorenzo Michaud and Cody Knox also led the Eagles to victory in the 4×400 relay.
Charlotte Wentworth led the Messalonskee girls with a win in the 400, finishing with a time of 1:02.47 nearly four seconds in front of the runner-up. The Eagles also received a win from Olivia Boudreau (7-06.00) in the pole vault.
“I was a little nervous because I knew everyone was right there with me (at the beginning),” Wentworth said. “But I just went out and did what I could.”
Skowhegan won the boys 4×100 relay (46.42), with the team of Zach White, Aiden Belanger, Billy Albertson and Leland Malyk.
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