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UK’s Labour Run Birmingham City Declares Bankruptcy

Birmingham, the country’s second-largest city, declared bankruptcy on Tuesday, sending shockwaves through the city’s governance. According to the Guardian, the Labour-run administration representing the UK’s second-largest city issued a 114 notice, halting all but essential spending and becoming the latest in a succession of councils to go bankrupt.

A council issues a Section 114 notice when it fears its income will not be sufficient to cover its expenses. In recent years, Thurrock, Croydon, Slough, and Northamptonshire have all issued Section 114 notifications.

The equal pay claim was a major reason for the city’s bankruptcy. The City Council lacks the funds to pay 760 million pounds ($955 million) in equal pay claims owed to female government employees who were formerly paid less than men.

The council reported in June that it had paid out 1.1 billion pounds to female workers but still had a current liability of 650-750 million pounds, which was accruing at a rate of 5 million pounds to 14 million pounds each month.

The city now anticipates an 87 million pound deficit for the fiscal year 2023-24.

”The Council lacks the resources to fund the equal pay expenditure and currently has no other way of satisfying this commitment.

The notice implies that “all new spending, with the exception of protecting vulnerable people and statutory services, must cease immediately,” according to a statement from Birmingham City Council.

equal pay claims against the council birmingham

The present bankruptcy has been in the works for several years. According to the BBC, these claims stretch back to 2012, when a group of 170 women, including teaching assistants, cleaners, and catering employees, obtained the right to pursue equal pay claims against the council in the Supreme Court. They argued that the council did not give them with the same benefits and remuneration as males doing comparable employment.

According to the Independent, the council has also blamed its financial difficulties on the costs of a new cloud-based IT system by Oracle and years of funding cuts by successive Tory governments.

The IT system was scheduled to cost 19 million pounds, but after three years of delays and issues following installation, it is now anticipated to cost 100 million pounds.

Furthermore, the crisis is being blamed on inflation, increased demand for adult social care, and ”severe decreases” in income from company taxes.

Deputy Council Leader Sharon Thompson told CNN, ”Local government is confronting a perfect storm.

This council, like councils around the country, is facing unprecedented financial pressures, ranging from massive increases in adult social care need and severe decreases in business rates income to the impact of rampant inflation.”

The government had already allocated additional cash for the council, amounting to approximately 10% of its total budget, but ”it is for locally elected councils to handle their own budgets,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson Max Blain told reporters on September 5.

The cosmopolitan city, the largest in central England, held the Commonwealth Games last year and will host the European Athletics Championships in 2026.

However, a former Birmingham City Council adviser told the BBC that hosting the Commonwealth Games was one of the reasons for the city’s bankruptcy.

UK's Labour Run Birmingham City Declares Bankruptcy

Birmingham’s Section 114 bankruptcy notifications explained

A city council issues a Section 114 notice when it fears its income will not be sufficient to cover its expenditures. In recent years, Thurrock, Croydon, Slough, Woking, and Northamptonshire have all given Section 114 notifications.

A Section 114 notice is a notice issued in the context of local government finances in the United Kingdom under Section 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of a local authority issues this notification when the authority is in danger of failing to set a balanced budget. This is what it entails:

Background: In the United Kingdom, local governments are obligated by law to create a balanced budget for each fiscal year. This implies they must ensure that their predicted income equals or exceeds their intended spending.

Part 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988: This part of the law requires the CFO to issue a Section 114 notice if, in their professional judgement, the authority will be unable to prepare a balanced budget. This usually occurs when there is a large gap between predicted income and intended expenditure.

Implications: The issuance of a Section 114 notice has major consequences for the local government. It essentially signifies that the government is in a financial crisis and must move quickly to address the deficit. The notice restricts the authority’s spending, and no additional expenditures can be committed without the explicit consent of the CFO.

Obligation: The notice emphasises the local authority’s leadership’s obligation, including council members and senior officers, to take corrective actions to bring the budget back into balance. This could include reducing services, introducing efficiency measures, or looking for new revenue streams.

Reporting: The authority must notify the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government of the Section 114 notice, which may give extra assistance or involvement depending on the severity of the financial problem.

Timeline: The Section 114 notice is in effect until the CFO is satisfied that the authority has the ability to adopt a balanced budget. Once the CFO is sure that the appropriate efforts have been made to remedy the financial issues, the notice can be lifted.

It is vital to remember that the issuance of a Section 114 notice is a significant event that demonstrates the local authority’s substantial financial difficulties. It’s a system for assuring appropriate financial management and preventing local governments from incurring unsustainable debts.

To protect key services, the notice means that everything but essential spending will be halted.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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