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Fifty years ago, Liberal MPs chose Malcolm Fraser as their leader. Eight months later, he led them into power in extraordinary – some might say reprehensible – circumstances. He governed for seven and a half years, and remains our fourth-longest serving prime minister.
This year marks some awkward anniversaries for the Liberal Party. But this particular one is awkward for multiple reasons. There is the ruthlessness of Fraser’s quest for power, within and beyond the party itself. There is also the ambivalence of the current Liberal generation towards the memory of one of the party’s more electorally successful leaders.
After Fraser’s time in power, he and his party embarked on very different journeys that still shape our politics today.
How Fraser became leader
Australian politics was pretty febrile in March 1975. The Whitlam government, narrowly re-elected in 1974, was increasingly unpopular. Inflation ran at 17.7% in the 12 months to March, and unemployment was at a post-war high of nearly 5%.
Billy Snedden, Liberal leader from December 1972, was poorly placed to capitalise on these conditions. He had surprised many in 1974 with his strategy to block the government’s budget in the Senate and force an early election.
But having run a tight race, Snedden lost credibility with his post-election claim that he was “not defeated” but merely “did not win enough seats to form a government”. He won a leadership spill in November 1974 but not convincingly enough to prevent another one later on.
Billy Snedden (left), pictured here with Andrew Peacock, was unable to capitalise on the weaknesses of the Whitlam Labor government. Wikicommons
Fraser, who in 1971 sternly (and famously) warned that “life wasn’t meant to be easy”, was the obvious alternative. He was a well-known frontbencher and a former senior minister. His role in the downfall of Liberal prime minister John Gorton meant he had many enemies. But as the Governor-General explained to Queen Elizabeth II in one of his confidential letters, Fraser had “a reputation of being strong, intelligent, aggressive and tough-minded”.
Fraser studiously befriended new MPs whose loyalties were malleable, and used his portfolio (after the 1974 election, this was industrial relations) to win friends among his other colleagues.
According to one profile, he hired a public relations firm to help him solve his “image problems” and to counteract personal criticisms from his internal rival and fellow Victorian, Andrew Peacock.
Fraser sought to keep a clean image while his supporters, armed with the latest opinion polls, ran a backgrounding campaign described by Liberal MP Jim Forbes as “devious, unscrupulous and utterly contemptible”.
The crunch came in March. On March 14, Peacock, who hoped to flush Fraser out, dramatically called for a special party meeting to vote on the leadership question. At a Victorian Liberal state council meeting in Bendigo that weekend, Fraser and Peacock canvassed their supporters, while Snedden gave a speech blaming his woes on the media and the Labor Party. According to The Age, a group of MPs met in Toorak that night to shore up their own positions for the week ahead.
Under pressure on Monday morning, Snedden announced a party room meeting for Friday to settle the issue. Fraser confirmed his candidacy the next day. During four days of campaigning in which MPs pressured each other and party operatives worried openly about fundraising capacity, Snedden’s chances seemed to improve. Fraser’s supporters grew increasingly nervous and Peacock prepared to stand if Snedden lost the spill motion. The latter need not have bothered. In the end, it was Snedden who stood against Fraser and lost by a margin of ten votes.
In search of strong leaders
The Liberal Party has a special need for strong leaders. Gerard Henderson once diagnosed the party with a “Messiah complex”, while the political psychologist Graham Little argued that strong leaders gave parties a veneer of philosophy that could “whet the edge of political combat”. As Frank Bongiorno has more recently put it, strong leaders are those who provide their followers “structure, order and discipline” as well as “stark moral alternatives”.
The collective psychology of the Liberal Party worked in Fraser’s favour in March 1975. There were philosophical differences between the two candidates – Snedden later told his biographer that these contests were always driven by the “difference between conservatives and liberals” – but the vote really was about the styles of leadership they offered. As first-time MP John Howard recalled in his memoir, Fraser “sounded strong and looked like a winner”.
Fraser played the role forcefully for eight years, easily seeing off a challenge from Peacock in the final year of his government. Howard certainly fit the bill for much of his second stint as leader, and especially from 2001 onward. These men offered their followers a combination of ideological doctrine and hard-edged political pragmatism.
In the 1980s and post-2007, the party amassed an impressive history of leadership spills in their search for a strong leader. The current leader, Peter Dutton, made a spectacular contribution with his first leadership bid in August 2018. He eventually won the prize in 2022, not necessarily because he had the strongest claim to be a strong leader, but largely due to the lack of “viable alternatives”. That has made his position awkward at times, not least following the historic Aston by-election defeat in 2023.
Worlds Apart
Over time, Fraser became a trenchant critic of his former party, which hardly knew what to do with him. He failed in a bid for the party’s federal presidency in the 1990s, and was openly critical of its approach to race, asylum seekers and climate policy under Howard. He resigned his life membership shortly after Tony Abbott was elected leader in December 2009.
When Fraser died in March 2015, Abbott and his treasurer Joe Hockey led the awkward parliamentary tributes celebrating the life of a “genuine liberal”, while immigration minister Peter Dutton sat silently.
Dutton has played a key role in distancing the party from aspects of the Fraser legacy. Fraser abhorred racism, and his embrace of multiculturalism marks him out as different from several of his successors.
In 2016, Dutton controversially said that Fraser’s decision to resettle migrants fleeing civil war in Lebanon had been “a mistake”. He claims to have since apologised, but only to one senior member of the Lebanese community.
Fraser’s approach to Indigenous policy was also streets apart from that of Dutton. In the early 1980s Fraser’s government, on the advice of the National Aboriginal Council, considered a Makarrata commission to begin acknowledging the history of “Aboriginal occupation” and identifying areas for “increased Aboriginal involvement” in decision-making.
In 2024, Dutton ruled out a Makarrata commission, promising instead a more paternalistic approach to Indigenous affairs.
In 2008, Fraser attended the Apology to the Stolen Generations while Dutton, a senior Liberal MP at the time, boycotted it. (He has since apologised for this.) During the 2023 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Fraser’s former ministers for Aboriginal affairs supported the “yes” campaign. Dutton was its chief opponent.
When he died, Fraser was reported to be working on a platform for a new political party that would advocate for a Republic, a treaty with First Nations people, “a more independent foreign policy and a post-carbon economy”. In his book Independents’ Day, journalist Brook Turner suggests that some of the individuals who spoke with Fraser then are now at the forefront of the campaigns supporting community independent candidates.
This year, Dutton hopes to win back some of those seats from these independent MPs. The coming contest may indicate that the memory of Fraser’s version of liberalism still has a place in Australia’s politics.
Dr Joshua Black is a former Palace Letters Fellow at the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University, and a member of the University of Melbourne’s Malcolm Fraser Reference Group.
Every generation thinks they had it tough, but evidence suggests young Australians today might have a case for saying they’ve drawn the short straw.
Compared with young adults two or three decades ago, today’s 18–35-year-olds may earn more, but they also grapple with soaring living costs, rising education expenses, precarious employment and mounting debt.
How does this compare to what life was like for young Australians at the turn of the century?
Increasing education, decreasing payoffs
University participation has risen, but so has student debt. It’s now far beyond what was intended when HECS was introduced as a supposedly fair, income-contingent loan system.
Indexation has outpaced wages, so much so that today’s 20-somethings carry debts that are more than $10,000 higher in real terms than their counterparts two decades ago.
The Morrison government’s 2021 fee hikes only exacerbated the crisis, with some degrees nearly doubling in cost, leaving students with an even greater debt burden.
University fees have increased over the past 25 years. Shutterstock
Yet the financial return on education is increasingly uncertain.
Credential inflation has reshaped the job market, with even low-wage positions now expecting a university degree.
The widespread belief that a degree guarantees better pay is driving more students into higher education, yet there are many graduates saddled with debt and working in roles unrelated to their qualifications.
In 1996, 28.5% of 21–25-year-olds found themselves in mismatched jobs.
By 2019, that figure had climbed to 33% just among 25-year-olds.
Salaries aren’t keeping up. Since 1996, graduate wages have risen by a factor of just 2.5, while student contributions have jumped between 1.7- and 6.2-fold. This leaves today’s graduates with debt that consumes a larger share of their income than ever before.
The dwindling dream of home ownership
Housing affordability has collapsed over the years.
Twenty-five years ago, the average house cost nine years’ worth of the average household income.
Now, it’s about 16.5 years.
In 2001, property prices rose 1.3 times faster than incomes. Since then, they’ve surged at 2.3 times the rate.
This is fuelled partly by tax incentive policies – for example, the Howard government’s 1999 capital gains tax changes – and, more recently, the COVID pandemic.
Soaring prices have deepened the intergenerational housing wealth gap, reducing the home purchase opportunity for young people. While the First Home Owner Grant, introduced in 2000, provides some support, saving for a deposit remains a years-long struggle.
For many young Australians, intergenerational wealth is now the key to home ownership. Inheritance is becoming nearly as important as employment.
Since 2002, the total value of wealth transfers has more than doubled in real terms, with larger inheritances expected for younger generations due to rising parental wealth and fewer siblings.
But parental wealth is far more unequally distributed than income – shaped by education and region.
Therefore, inheritocracy is set to deepen economic inequality within today’s youth cohort.
But this isn’t just about the ultra-wealthy passing down mansions. Most inheritances involve an ordinary home or proceeds from its sale.
Housing, once central to middle-class stability, now determines who can build wealth and who will struggle financially for life.
Mounting mental health pressures
Meanwhile, Australians today are borrowing more than ever. Default risk is rising fastest among under-30s as soaring interest rates, rent hikes, and cost-of-living pressures squeeze finances.
It’s then no surprise Gen Z is more concerned about finances than any other generation.
Financial stress is taking a heavy toll on young people’s mental health. Between 2007 and 2022, the prevalence of mental health disorders among young Australians surged by nearly 50%.
The burden of disease from non-fatal conditions – measured in years of healthy life lost – has risen 7% since 2003. This is largely due to mental health disorders and substance abuse, which disproportionately affect young people.
Growing up Indigenous
At the deepest end of these struggles are Indigenous youth, who face far greater challenges than their non-Indigenous peers.
Across nearly every measure – education, employment, health and incarceration – outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people remain significantly worse.
While today’s Indigenous youth have achieved better outcomes compared to previous generations – 39% of Indigenous Australians aged 20+ had completed Year 12 in 2021, up from 19.4% in 2001 – these gains still lag behind non-Indigenous youth.
Systemic barriers, institutional racism and intergenerational trauma continue to limit fair access to opportunities. This compounds inequalities and contributes to higher rates of mental ill-health, stress and suicide among Indigenous youth.
The changing politics of being young
Undoubtedly, a continued period of instability and psychological distress in formative years is also shaping the youngest generation’s political attitudes and behaviours.
With fewer assets to conserve compared to their parents or grandparents, they are more likely to lean more to the left politically, and this won’t change with age.
Yet, they remain engaged, thanks in part to compulsory voting, but are also abandoning party loyalties.
Australian Election Study data shows 18–30-year-olds were more interested in politics in 2022 than in 1998 (67% vs 63%). At the same time, they were more likely to change votes during campaigns (43% vs 30%) and less likely to consistently vote for the same party (28% vs 40%).
Their right-wing identification has nearly halved since 1998, with the youth vote increasingly favouring left-wing parties (75% vs 61%).
However, younger Australians’ diverse digital news habits add to their political unpredictability. With 60% of Gen Z relying short-form videos, podcasts, and social media platforms for news in 2024, they are increasingly exposed to fragmented, algorithm-driven content.
This shift, coupled with rising concerns about misinformation, contributes to their volatility as voters.
Overall, young Australians are coming of age in an era where hard work no longer guarantees security. How Australia adapts to this shifting economic and political reality will shape the country’s future for decades to come.
This piece is part of a series on how Australia has changed since the year 2000. You can read other pieces in the series here.
Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren
March 20, 2025
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who would oversee Medicare as CMS head, appears to have avoided paying over $400,000 in Medicare taxes over past three tax years
“If you are unwilling to pay your legal and fair share of taxes into Medicare, there is little reason to believe you will be a good steward of the program for the tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities who rely on it.”
Text of Letter (PDF)
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, slammed Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Trump’s nominee for the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), for his reported Medicare tax avoidance following his confirmation hearing last week. As head of CMS, Dr. Oz would oversee Medicare — the same agency he has potentially defunded by reportedly avoiding hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare and Social Security taxes in the past few years.
“If you are unwilling to pay your legal and fair share of taxes into Medicare, there is little reason to believe you will be a good steward of the program for the tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities who rely on it,” wrote the lawmakers.
A recent review of Dr. Oz’s financial records by Senate Finance Committee staff revealed that he appeared to have avoided over $400,000 in Medicare taxes over the past three tax years by improperly claiming “limited partner” status in his own company, which provided him with an exemption from the Medicare tax. When approached by the Finance Committee and offered the chance to amend his tax returns to bring them in line with the positions of the IRS, Treasury Department, and the Tax Court, Dr. Oz refused.
“Medicare is funded by the tax contributions of millions of hardworking Americans. Yet, you misused a tax loophole to avoid paying your fair share,” wrote the lawmakers.
Medicare provides vital and lifesaving services for nearly 70 million Americans. As nearly all Americans eventually enroll in Medicare, nearly all working Americans are required to pay a portion of their income in Medicare tax. For the vast majority of Americans who receive a paycheck from their employer, this contribution is automatically removed from their paychecks. But for wealthy individuals like Dr. Oz who receive income from partnerships, they pay Medicare taxes by appropriately documenting and designating income and paying the required 3.8% of their income in accordance with federal law. It appears that Dr. Oz failed to do so.
The lawmakers requested that Dr. Oz answer a series of questions regarding this apparent tax avoidance prior to any Senate Finance Committee vote on his nomination, including whether he will commit to paying the IRS the full amount of taxes he has seemingly avoided, whether he will commit to making his tax filings from the last five years public, and whether or not he believes that Americans have the right to refuse to pay their Medicare taxes as required by federal law.
Senator Warren has scrutinized Dr. Oz through his confirmation process for his conflicts of interest and his anti-abortion views:
In March 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Dr. Oz ahead of his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing, demanding answers to questions about his plan to eliminate Traditional Medicare, his serious conflicts of interest, his dangerous anti-abortion views, and more.
In March 2025, Senator Warren wrote to Dr. Oz, criticizing his serious conflicts of interest and asking him to make a series of commitments to mitigate them.
In February 2025, Senator Warren and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) criticized Dr. Oz’s hostile anti-abortion record. As CMS Administrator, Dr. Oz would be in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage, exercising broad authority over reproductive health care access.
In December 2024, Following his nomination, Senator Warren pressed the nominee on his advocacy to eliminate Traditional Medicare and his deep financial ties to private health insurers that would benefit from that move.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren
March 20, 2025
“Your lack of transparency and action during this de facto funding freeze is unacceptable.”
“[M]any researchers in Massachusetts and beyond who depend on the NIH to keep their critical and lifesaving work moving forward deserve answers.”
Text of Letter (PDF)
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Acting Director Dr. Matthew Memoli and Director Nominee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, demanding answers for the NIH funding cuts that are causing “ongoing chaos” and harm to research institutions across Massachusetts. Although the Trump administration’s initial funding pause was blocked by a federal judge, new information obtained by Sen. Warren’s staff indicates that continued cuts and disruptions to research funding are still having a devastating impact on research institutions in Massachusetts and beyond.
“Neither of you appear to have answers about what is going on at this agency, nor a willingness to resolve these problems. But the situation at the NIH remains dire, and it is imperative that you provide clarity immediately,” wrote Senator Warren.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s vote to be confirmed as NIH Director is expected to be on the Senate floor next week. The NIH plays a critical role in funding scientific and medical research across the country, and is particularly important in Massachusetts, where innovative research fuels the local economy and powers life-saving breakthroughs.
On February 12, Senator Warren wrote to Acting Director Memoli about the chaos and confusion caused by funding pauses at the NIH and the impacts of these disruptions at Massachusetts research institutions. Dr. Memoli failed to answer questions about what caused the funding cuts and when operations would resume.
In the meantime, the situation at the NIH has only worsened. Days after she sent her letter, the NIH terminated more than 1,000 workers. According to reports, NIH is expecting to cut up to 5,000 workers, which would account for a quarter of the current workforce. Top Massachusetts research universities like Harvard, MIT and UMass have since announced hiring freezes and pauses or reductions in graduate student admissions. The NIH also abruptly cancelled a decades-long internship program that historically supported more than 1,000 college students in summer research programs to develop skills for careers in the biomedical sciences.
“The Trump Administration’s disruption of billions of dollars of funding for basic scientific and medical research will have a devastating long-term impact on the nation’s technological and scientific breakthroughs that have created miraculous cures for deadly diseases and health problems, and led to trillions of dollars in economic growth,” continued Senator Warren.
Earlier this month, Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee for NIH Director, testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). When asked about grant freezes and pauses, he failed to provide basic answers about the current situation, refusing to acknowledge the extent of the devastating impacts of the disruptions or take a clear position.
“As the Acting Director and Director Nominee of this agency, it is important that you provide clarity to Congress and the American public during this crisis,” concluded Senator Warren.
Senator Warren urged the directors to end the funding freeze and cuts to grant expenditures, and demanded answers to her specific questions by April 2.
Canada is in a housing crisis – demand has gone up, supply has not kept pace, and prices are too high. The new government of Canada is taking immediate action to address this crisis.
Prime Minister Carney today announced that the Government of Canada will eliminate the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for first-time homebuyers on homes at or under $1 million. This tax cut will save Canadians up to $50,000 – allowing more young people and families to enter the housing market and realize the dream of homeownership. By eliminating the GST, Canadians will face lower upfront housing costs and keep more money in their pocket. Eliminating the GST will also have a dynamic effect on increasing supply – spurring the construction of new homes across the country.
The Prime Minister is laser-focused on lowering costs and will continue to present serious solutions to ensure Canadians are better off. The Government of Canada will confront the housing crisis head-on and build the strongest economy in the G7.
Quote
“Our government is laser-focused on lowering costs for Canadians and making homeownership a reality. Eliminating the GST will save first-time homebuyers up to $50,000 and spur housing construction across the country. We will announce a series of new measures to increase housing supply shortly. It’s time for focused action to solve the housing crisis, and it’s time to build a Canada you can afford.” — The Rt. Hon. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada
Proposal would see the establishment of an R&D hub focused on battery technologies
March 20, 2025 – Ottawa, Ontario
The Government of Canada recognizes the critical role batteries and battery components play in the global movement toward a net-zero economy. As the world shifts to electric vehicles and cutting-edge technologies, the demand for batteries is surging, and Canada has a unique opportunity to capitalize on this demand by fostering strategic investments.
Today, the Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to building Canada’s clean energy future by announcing her support for Siemens Canada’s proposal to establish a Global AI Manufacturing Technologies R&D Centre for Battery Production in Canada. This centre will focus on pioneering research and development aimed at advancing battery efficiency and production methods, ensuring Canada remains competitive in the race to lead the clean energy revolution.
By supporting this initiative, the Government of Canada is positioning the country as a global leader in the battery industry and reinforcing its commitment to building a robust national ecosystem. This project will foster collaboration between academia, industry leaders and researchers to accelerate battery innovations, solidifying Canada’s role as a key player in the green economy.
This announcement is a significant step in the government’s strategy to strengthen Canada’s position in the global supply chain, reduce emissions and build a clean, competitive economy that delivers good jobs and lasting prosperity for Canadians. The Government of Canada is sending a clear message: We are committed to a cleaner, more resilient future, and we will take bold action to ensure Canada thrives in a low-carbon world.
Source: France-Diplomatie – Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development
Published on March 20, 2025
Statement by M. Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, in Berlin (excerpts) (March 18, 2025)
Check against delivery)
Thank you very much, Chancellor, cher Olaf. (…)
I’d like to return to a few points – first of all, to congratulate you on the Bundestag’s historic vote, which is good news for Germany and good news for Europe. It’s good news because it will enable us to do more for defence and investments, and we need that. Secondly, to get back to the issue of Ukraine, we’re continuing to support the Ukrainian army in its war of resistance against the Russian aggression, and we’re right to be doing so. We’re also in the process of raising funding that we’re fully committed to. I’m thinking of the European share of the G7 loan, and the €18 billion of revenues from frozen Russian assets to finance military support in particular. And it’s important to continue lending support at this time, when Russia has been stepping up the conflicts in recent days and again in recent hours, and continue standing by the Ukrainian people and their defence.
You’re aware of what our position is. We were upholding peace, I would say, before the first day, because both of us did everything together in February 2022 to prevent a further operation after the annexation of Crimea and the initial, partial annexation of the Donbas that followed the operations of 2014. And so we’ve always been on the side of peace. In this regard, we mustn’t give in to any sort of inversion of values or discourse. That’s the historic role of Germany and France together and of Europe as a whole alongside the Ukrainians. The latest discussions are a step in the right direction, and indeed we want a solid, lasting settlement for Ukraine and for security in Europe.
And in this regard, thanks to the work with the United Kingdom and Germany we have, I believe, done some useful work to persuade President Zelenskyy, and I believe he made a very good decision to have the courage to take a peace initiative with President Trump by agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire. The Chancellor has reported on the discussions we had before that conference. The first stages are being put in place, but the goal must remain the same: to have a measurable, verifiable ceasefire that is fully complied with, and to begin detailed, full peace talks that will allow for a solid, lasting peace and the guarantees that go with it. That’s still our aim. And obviously it’s inconceivable without the Ukrainians being around the table. That’s what we’ve also steadfastly argued for.
In addition to Ukraine, on defence, tomorrow the Commission will present its White Paper, and there again our shared desire is to speed up the implementation of the plan we validated at the Council a few days ago, roll out the speediest and most efficient processes in order to have joint programmes, and basically continue defending ourselves, defending ourselves better, increasing our collective deterrence capabilities, and doing so by developing more equipment and capabilities in Europe – which means joint research, joint programmes, more simplicity and more speed. But this European added value which tends towards the strategic autonomy we both uphold is absolutely critical for us. It’s what we launched together in March 2022 with the so-called Versailles agenda, following the Russian aggression.
We’re now in the implementation and action phase for issues of defence, production, joint procurement, simplification, standardization, and the release of available funding by the European Investment Bank and our national budgetary capabilities. On the issue of the economy – and the one doesn’t go without the other, because there’s no strategic autonomy in terms of defence and security unless Europe is also strongly competitive –, together we built in Meseberg a road map which is strategic for us, which remains totally valid as the Chancellor pointed out, which also, to a great extent, inspired the Commission’s guidelines, and which is also being rolled out, precisely with necessary reforms for simplification. And in this regard, the decisions at the end of February are a step in the right direction: regulatory simplification, lightening the burden, support for industry, clean tech, artificial intelligence, defending the plans for the automotive industry and for steel presented in recent days to our European manufacturers, and for the chemical industry of course, which all go in the same direction, which are support measures in the face of the world’s deregulation, measures of simplification, measures for greater competitiveness.
In addition to simplification, strengthening the single market, defence policies and safeguarding clauses, we obviously built a historic agreement in Meseberg on the union of capital markets, with the desire in fact for European savings to fully finance major European innovation and investment projects. On each of these points we’re working together.
And the Chancellor’s been very comprehensive – I don’t want to paraphrase him here – but I wanted to come back to these few points before this summit, which will essentially be about Ukraine, the implementation of our defence strategy and competitiveness. So we’ll meet again the day after tomorrow to continue this work, and certainly in the coming days and weeks, to continue not only this work for Europe but also this joint action alongside Ukraine for the sovereignty of our Ukrainian friends and the defence and security of all us Europeans. (…)./.
Inland Revenue recently opened consultation on rule changes that would include taxing business income unrelated to a charity’s charitable purpose. The consultation period runs until the end of this month.
But overhauling the tax rules could undermine the sustainability of some charities, making it harder for them to continue their work.
Our ongoing research looks into the economic contribution of the sector and, in particular, focuses on religious charities. The total value of the services provided by these charities in 2018 alone was NZ$6.1 billion – the equivalent of around 3% of annual government expenditure.
Other studies have shown the substantial contributions charities make to education, sports, the arts, the environment and other activities that don’t get enough support from the government.
Making a profit
There are more than 29,000 registered charities in New Zealand. To register as one, an entity must meet strict legal criteria entrenched in the Charities Act 2005.
Charities have to fall within one of four legally-recognised charitable purposes: relief of poverty, advancement of education, advancement of religion, and any other purposes beneficial to the community.
The government recognises the high bar charities have to meet by giving some tax exemptions. This allows the charities to focus on providing benefits to communities rather than having to divert funds to the government. The exemptions are on both passive income (stocks, for example) as well as business income.
But the issue is not as simple as certain criticisms might imply.
Charities need to sustain themselves over time – particularly as donations fluctuate. Untaxed profits from charity-linked businesses allow them to do this, and changing the rules could undermine future cash flow for these groups.
This argument should not be overstated. Removing the exemption won’t completely wipe out a charity’s profits. But it takes a portion of income that would then need to be covered by an increase in donations.
The Inland Revenue discussion paper also only offers examples of businesses in the primary industry (farming, for example) and manufacturing sectors. But it is silent about the financial and services sectors. It appears charities’ income from interest or financial assets will still be exempt.
This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Holding assets such as a portfolio of stocks or bonds can improve charities’ ability to plan for the long term. But the tax rules should remain consistent between financial assets and non-financial assets, such as a farm or business.
The Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, the manufacturer of Weet-Bix, Marmite and other well known grocery items, is wholly owned by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and doesn’t pay income tax. Adam Constanza/Shutterstock
Will the gains be worth the cost?
To better balance the contribution of charities to wider society with efforts to mak tax rules fair, there are a few points the government needs to consider.
Firstly, society benefits from having a wide variety of charities. Allowing them to build a stable financial base allows them to grow and continue to do their work.
There will always be gaps in what the government is able to provide. It’s arguably more efficient to address unmet need with charities than by leaving it to individuals to find donations themselves.
Charities should be able to structure themselves in ways that make them less dependent on donations.
The government needs to also consider what it would cost to overhaul the current tax rules when it comes to charities. Administrative costs for everyone could end up being greater than the revenue gained.
Finally, the impact of the proposed changes would extend beyond religious organisations to include gaming trusts, universities and asset-holding charities that provide significant funding for sports, arts, cultural and welfare organisations.
Having public consultation on Inland Revenue’s proposed changes is a good start, but it is just that.
More needs to be done to understand the implications for communities should tax changes occur – and what could be lost if charities are substantially less sustainable. So, if the government delivers a plan, let’s read and evaluate the small print.
The authors thank Steven Moe, Partner at Parryfield Lawyers, for his significant help and mahi in contributing to this article.
Juliet Chevalier-Watts receives funding from The Wilberforce Foundation and the InterChurch Bureau.
Over four decades I have served as a volunteer and trustee for a range of development, educational, health and religious charities.
A soundstage facility purchased by Screen Nova Scotia with support from the Province will expand opportunities for the thriving film industry.
The government has invested $8 million towards the soundstage – a large, sound-proofed building used for filming – which will increase the industry’s capacity and allow productions to continue year round.
“Film and television production is booming in our province. We’re committed to fuelling that success, which creates high-value jobs and drives economic growth,” said Premier Tim Houston. “By investing in the right infrastructure, we will help unlock the full potential of our film industry and show the world what Nova Scotia has to offer.”
The Mount Uniacke facility has multiple buildings to support various production needs, including two clear-span soundstages and space to support long-term growth. It will be ready to accommodate productions later this year.
Quotes:
“Our community is thrilled to welcome this world-class production facility right in our backyard. Films provide us with entertainment, but they also create jobs and bring a boost to local businesses.” — Brad Johns, MLA for Sackville-Uniacke, on behalf of Dave Ritcey, Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage
“This is a pivotal moment in the post-2015 film industry era. Over the past 10 years, the film industry has not only rebuilt but has now re-established its position as a key player in boosting our economy. Today’s announcement is a vital part of our growth potential. A soundstage will anchor our industry for the future – providing a year-round home for productions, attracting business, creating jobs and playing a critical role in developing our workforce to grow the industry.” — Laura Mackenzie, Executive Director, Screen Nova Scotia
**Quick Facts:##
the Province has invested $77 million in the Nova Scotia Film and Television Production Incentive Fund for 2024-25, generating more than $160 million so far in production spending
Nova Scotia approved 88 productions in 2024-25
**Additional Resources:##
Screen Nova Scotia: https://screennovascotia.com
Other than cropping, Province of Nova Scotia photos are not to be altered in any way.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., March 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NorthEast Community Bancorp, Inc. (the “Company”) (Nasdaq: NECB) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per common share. The dividend will be paid on or about May 6, 2025 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 7, 2025.
“We are pleased to increase our quarterly dividend to shareholders,” said Kenneth A. Martinek, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. “The payment of dividends continues to represent one part of our long-term commitment to enhancing shareholder value.”
About NorthEast Community Bancorp, Inc.
NorthEast Community Bancorp, headquartered at 325 Hamilton Avenue, White Plains, New York 10601, is the holding company for NorthEast Community Bank, which conducts business through its eleven branch offices located in Bronx, New York, Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan Counties in New York and Essex, Middlesex, and Norfolk Counties in Massachusetts and three loan production offices located in New City, New York, White Plains, New York, and Danvers, Massachusetts. For more information about NorthEast Community Bancorp and NorthEast Community Bank, please visit www.necb.com.
Cautionary Note About Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding anticipated future events and can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They often include words such as “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” and “intend” or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” or “may.” These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the Company’s management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements as a result of numerous factors. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results include, but are not limited to, changes in market interest rates, regional and national economic conditions (including higher inflation and its impact on regional and national economic conditions), legislative and regulatory changes, monetary and fiscal policies of the United States government, including policies of the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board, the quality and composition of the loan or investment portfolios, demand for loan products, decreases in deposit levels necessitating increased borrowing to fund loans and securities, competition, demand for financial services in NorthEast Community Bank’s market area, changes in the real estate market values in NorthEast Community Bank’s market area, the impact of failures or disruptions in or breaches of the Company’s operational or security systems, data or infrastructure, or those of third parties, including as a result of cyberattacks or campaigns, and changes in relevant accounting principles and guidelines. Additionally, other risks and uncertainties may be described in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), which are available through the SEC’s website located at www.sec.gov. These risks and uncertainties should be considered in evaluating any forward-looking statements and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, the Company does not undertake, and specifically disclaims any obligation, to release publicly the result of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of the statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.
New York State currently receives $2 billion in federal funding to support school meal programs. Governor Hochul’s proposal would build on that support to ensure that every student in the state has access to a healthy breakfast and lunch at school. By eliminating any financial requirements to receive this benefit, New York State will level the playing field and give parents back the money they would be spending.
Offering free school meals is a proven and effective way to help keep kids in school and able to focus in the classroom. Additionally, free school meals are estimated to save families $165 per child in grocery spending each month and have been shown to support learning, boost test scores, and improve attendance and classroom behavior.
The FY25 Enacted Budget included $180 million to help incentivize eligible schools to participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, allowing all students in participating schools to eat breakfast and lunch at no charge regardless of their families’ income. The Governor’s 2025 State of the State initiative requires all school districts, charter schools, and nonpublic schools that participate in the national school lunch and breakfast program to provide free breakfast and lunch meals to all students regardless of their families’ income, thereby reducing costs for families and ensuring that no student goes hungry at school. Under this initiative, the State will pay the student’s share of costs for all meals served to students not already receiving free meals, expanding eligibility for free meals to nearly 300,000 additional students.
As the federal government takes a hammer to vital food assistance programs, we’re stepping up to the plate by filling the plates of those who need it most.”
Governor Kathy Hochul
Assemblymember Gabriella A. Romero said, “Having free breakfast and lunch available for kids means they’re able to stay in school and have a better time in the classroom. Every student should have the chance to have a healthy, filling meal at school, without income cutoffs. We’ve seen the incredible impact free school meals have – they improve attendance and classroom behavior, help raise test scores, and support overall learning, all while saving families around $165 per child on groceries. Expanding the program so that every student is eligible means every school in our state can help keep kids fed, full, and focused.”
Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy said, “The impact of food insecurity on a student’s physical and mental health cannot be overstated. Hungry children struggle to focus, learn, and fully participate in school. No child should ever worry about where their next meal is coming from. By providing free breakfast and lunch, we ensure that students from all backgrounds have equal opportunity to thrive. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Governor Hochul for her commitment to this critical issue.”
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said, “Research shows that receiving free or reduced priced meals in our school has direct correlation with reductions in obesity, insecurity, absenteeism, and poor health. Children learn more effectively, have reduced stress and social isolation, and have a better quality of life. I am honored to stand with the Governor as she fights for our families in the City of Albany and across the state.”
Albany City School District Superintendent Joseph Hochreiter said, “We are grateful to Governor Hochul for advocating for free meals at school for every student in New York, especially during these incredibly unsettling times with education funding under attack at the federal level. Hunger is a tremendous obstacle to student success, and Governor Hochul’s plan to remove that obstacle across our state is the right thing to do for our future.”
New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person said, “School meals are more than just a lifeline for families facing food insecurity—they are a fundamental investment in the health, well-being, and success of every child in our state. No student should ever have to battle hunger in the classroom. NYSUT stands with Gov. Hochul in this fight to make sure every child, in every school, gets the meals they need to seize the opportunities they deserve.”
New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher said, “New York Farm Bureau heartily supports universal school meals. For many schoolchildren in New York, the meals they eat at school can sometimes be the only meals they eat. Food availability and accessibility are high priorities for NYFB, and that means we also support the 30% New York State Initiative. This program is a win-win for schools and farms alike, as it incentivizes schools to spend at least 30% of their lunch budget on food produced in New York.”
Eagle Point Elementary School Principal Jared Fox said, “The research on this critically important topic is irrefutable — and aligned with our daily experiences here at Eagle Point Elementary School — children do better at school when they have access to free breakfast and lunch at school. They have better attendance, are focused and more alert, and generally happier and less anxious. It would be devastating to our school community to lose the federal funding that has sustained these programs for many years, and we thank Governor Hochul for stepping in to assure that that will not be a concern for educators and families in New York.”
HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Dommonick T. Chatman, age 49, of York, Pennsylvania, was indicted on twenty counts of bank fraud and one count of destroying records in a federal investigation.
According to Acting United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, the indictment alleges that Chatman either submitted or caused to be submitted false and fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications and supporting documentation in order to obtain funds for his clients and kickback payments to himself.
The PPP program was created by the March 2020 CARES Act, as part of the United States government’s efforts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public’s health and economic well-being. The PPP program was designed to help small businesses facing financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic. PPP funds were offered in forgivable loans, provided that certain criteria are met, including use of the funds for employee payroll, mortgage interest, lease, and utilities expenses.
According to the indictment, Chatman operated a business located in York, PA, known as The Chatman Group, LLC, through which he offered tax-preparation services. It is alleged that Chatman discussed the PPP and funds available through the PPP with existing and prospective clients of his company. If the clients decided to move forward with PPP loan applications, Chatman prepared a PPP loan application for and on behalf of a client or directed an employee of The Chatman Group to prepare an application using information that he provided. Chatman then knowingly inserted false and fraudulent information into clients’ applications and supporting documentation. For example, several loan applications were supported by a Schedule C—an official IRS tax form for the reporting of business income by a sole proprietor—claiming over $100,000 in gross receipts when, in reality, the taxpayer either did not file a Schedule C for the corresponding tax year or filed a Schedule C reporting gross receipts of less than $15,000.
A financial institution, including at times an unnamed financial institution headquartered in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, then approved such loans in reliance on the documentation submitted to it.
The indictment contains twenty individual charges of bank fraud, each of which is based on an allegedly false and fraudulent PPP loan application filed during March and April 2021. Most of the applications were for a requested amount of approximately $20,833, which was the maximum possible amount for a sole proprietor with no employees.
The indictment also alleges that in November and December 2022, after being contacted and interviewed by members of federal law enforcement, Chatman knowingly destroyed records—including electronically stored PPP loan applications of clients and a hard copy list of PPP loan applications of clients—with the intent to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma is prosecuting the case.
The maximum penalty under federal law for bank fraud is 30 years of imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine. The maximum penalty for destruction of records in a federal investigation is 20 years of imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine. A sentence following a finding of guilt is imposed by the Judge after consideration of the applicable federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
Indictments are only allegations. All persons charged are presumed to be innocent unless and until found guilty in court.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
SCOR SE announces the availability of its 2024 Universal Registration Document
The 2024 Universal Registration Document of SCOR SE (“SCOR” or the “Company”) prepared in ESEF format (European Single Electronic Format) was filed with the French Autorité des marchés financiers (“AMF”) on Thursday 20 March 2025 under number D.25-0124.
Hard copies of the 2024 Universal Registration Document are also available at SCOR’s headquarters, located at the following address:
SCOR SE 5, avenue Kléber 75795 Paris Cedex 16 France
The 2024 Universal Registration Document includes the following information:
the 2024 annual financial report including the report of the board of directors on corporate governance and the information on sustainability matters;
the description of the share buyback program; and
the reports of the statutory auditors and certification report regarding sustainability.
*
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SCOR, a leading global reinsurer
As a leading global reinsurer, SCOR offers its clients a diversified and innovative range of reinsurance and insurance solutions and services to control and manage risk. Applying “The Art & Science of Risk”, SCOR uses its industry-recognized expertise and cutting-edge financial solutions to serve its clients and contribute to the welfare and resilience of society.
The Group generated premiums of EUR 20.1 billion in 2024 and serves clients in more than 150 countries from its 37 offices worldwide.
All content published by the SCOR group since January 1, 2024, is certified with Wiztrust. You can check the authenticity of this content at wiztrust.com.
General
The 2024 universal registration document filed on 20 March 2025, under number D.25-0124 with the AMF is available on SCOR’s website www.scor.com.
Figures presented throughout the 2024 universal registration document may not add up precisely to the totals in the tables and texts. Percentages and percent changes are calculated on complete figures (including decimals); therefore, this universal registration document might contain immaterial differences in sums and percentages due to rounding. Unless otherwise specified, the sources for the business ranking and market positions are internal.
Forward-looking statements
The 2024 universal registration document includes forward-looking statements, assumptions, and information about SCOR’s financial condition, results, business, strategy, plans and objectives, including in relation to SCOR’s current or future projects.
These statements are sometimes identified by the use of the future tense or conditional mode, or terms such as “estimate”, “believe”, “anticipate”, “expect”, “have the objective”, “intend to”, “plan”, “result in”, “should” and other similar expressions.
It should be noted that the achievement of these objectives, forward-looking statements, assumptions and information is dependent on circumstances and facts that may or may not arise in the future.
No guarantee can be given regarding the achievement of these forward-looking statements, assumptions and information. These forward-looking statements, assumptions and information are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements, assumptions and information (including on objectives) may be impacted by known or unknown risks, identified or unidentified uncertainties and other factors that may significantly alter the future results, performance and accomplishments planned or expected by SCOR.
In particular, it should be noted that the full impact of the economical and geopolitical risks on SCOR’s business and results cannot be accurately assessed.
Therefore, any assessments, any assumptions and, more generally, any figures presented in this universal registration document will necessarily be estimates based on evolving analyses, and encompass a wide range of theoretical hypotheses, which are highly evolutive.
Information regarding risks and uncertainties that may affect SCOR’s business are included in the 2024 universal registration document.
In addition, such forward-looking statements, assumptions and information are not “profit forecasts” within the meaning of Article 1 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/980.
SCOR has no intention and does not undertake to complete, update, revise or change these forward-looking statements, assumptions and information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Financial information
The Group’s financial information contained in this universal registration document is prepared on the basis of IFRS and interpretations issued and approved by the European Union.
Unless otherwise specified, prior-year balance sheet, income statement items and ratios have not been reclassified.
The calculation of financial ratios (such as return on invested assets, regular income yield, return on equity and combined ratio) is detailed in the 2024 universal registration document, notably in section 1.3.9.
The financial results for the full year 2024 included in this universal registration document have been audited by SCOR’s statutory auditors. Unless otherwise specified, all figures are presented in Euros.
Any figures or financial results for a period subsequent to December 31, 2024 should not be taken as a forecast of the expected financials for these periods.
The solvency ratio is not audited by SCOR’s statutory auditors. The Group solvency final results are to be filed to supervisory authorities by April 2025 and may differ from the estimates expressed or implied in this universal registration document.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adrian York, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Music Performance, University of Westminster
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since 1970 you will be aware of the five-day Glastonbury festival held every June (apart from “fallow” years to rest the land and the organisers), near Pilton in Somerset. Glastonbury is as much a pillar of the English summer as tennis at Wimbledon or opera at Glyndebourne.
It’s a white, middle-class rite of passage and an easy win for people wishing peer approval and the cultural capital that comes with the price of a ticket. It’s expensive and exclusive and the booking policy reflects its audience.
This year’s headliners include indie pop-rock darlings The 1975, angry girl supreme Olivia Rodrigo, old-school superstar Neil Young with his band the Chrome Hearts, with family favourite Rod Stewart filling the Sunday teatime “legend” slot.
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Other acts filling the 100-plus stages include Brat popster Charli XCX, English hip-hopper Loyle Carner, original bad boys The Prodigy (without original frontman Keith Flint, RIP) plus Raye, Doechii, Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams, and old pros Alanis Morissette, En Vogue and Gary Numan.
With tickets costing £378.50 for Glastonbury 2025, are the 210,000 attendees getting value for money?
A Reddit thread titled “Glastonbury 2025 lineup, thoughts?”, gives a flavour of some commonly aired opinions. Disappointed customer praf973 “tried to get tickets but was unsuccessful. I’m not bitter, but the line up isn’t really looking that great.” Another commenter, Whilst-I-was-forced, declared: “Nothing to get excited about. It’s gone too commercial and sterile.”
Ok_Handle_3530 gave a different perspective: “This line-up looks … great, people are too hard to please.” ShankSpencer opined, “There are no good line-ups any more. No one young listens to bands any more, so there are no headline acts.”
The exceptionally popular festival sold out in 35 minutes this year even before the artists had been announced, raising the question: has Glastonbury become a victim of its own success?
Last year there were issues with overcrowding at some of the smaller stages creating issues for fans wanting to see acts such as the Sugababes. Some sets were even being stopped early because of crowd surges.
But what’s really behind these complaints about the lineup and are they justified? There’s been a changing of the guard as the veteran generation of performers from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s step back from performing because they have retired, are too ill or have died.
There doesn’t seem to be enough credible stadium acts from the 1990s onwards to fill their shoes, leading to a lack of enthusiasm for the current offerings. The new generation of acts have an opportunity to impress, but many of them don’t have the volume of hits that legacy acts such as Elton John or Paul McCartney provide – nor the cross-generational appeal.
There is also a growing sense that the cultural importance of the rock band is fading. Gen Z has far more in the way of distractions than previous generations with myriad forms of social media and digital entertainment. With so much competition for their attention, the tribal allegiances that bands used to command may feel dated and irrelevant to many younger people.
On their single Guys, one of this year’s headliners, The 1975 trill: “The moment that we started a band was the best thing that ever happened.” Perhaps lead singer Matty Healy’s love affair with the mythology of rock’n’roll is no longer widely shared.
Glastonbury has also been criticised for a lack of diversity. Clubbing magazine Mixmag made the point that in 2023, “the number of male acts playing this year’s Glastonbury Festival is nearly double that of female acts”.
Similarly, the festival’s lineup and audience are predominantly white and fail to adequately reflect the British music industry. Though there have been a few black bands and artists headlining over the years, it wasn’t until 2019 that the first solo black British performer headlined on the Pyramid stage, with an unforgettable set from London rapper Stormzy in a black Union Jack stab vest designed by Banksy.
For Glastonbury to move with the times, a more diverse booking policy is needed to widen the audience demographic and the festival’s appeal. Despite having enjoyed the event, mixed-heritage music journalist and academic Jenessa Williams noted: “I was still left with the feeling that certain punters saw black artists as a mockable novelty, a by-product to tolerate rather than truly a piece of the event’s heart and soul.”
And then there’s the issue of cost. According to a 2024 report, two-thirds of UK adults feel that music festivals are becoming too expensive. Popular music artists have had to pivot towards live events for income generation because of the poor returns from streaming compared to selling albums.
So are major tours and larger festivals such as Glastonbury sucking revenue out of the music economy? Research shows that while big high-profile event tours are making millions, at the other end of the spectrum grassroots venues – where new talent is incubated – are buckling under a lack of support and the prohibitive costs of running their operations.
Glastonbury won’t be making an appearance in 2026, the next fallow year for rest and recovery. This will create an opportunity for organiser Emily Eavis to reflect on some of the more problematical issues the festival faces, from diversity in the audience and artists, to the sustainability of the talent pipeline.
Maybe the last word should go to American rapper Azealia Banks commenting on this year’s festival lineup: “Glastonbury is kinda cooked.”
Adrian York does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Canadians are once again being forced to confront the country’s economic vulnerabilities. While the pandemic underscored the economic importance of place and social connections, economic aggression from the U.S. highlights the need for greater local autonomy.
Canada needs a new approach to economic development. Yet, as the government searches for solutions to bolster “Team Canada,” policymakers risk falling back on the same tired strategies: corporate bailouts, tax breaks for big business and top-down stimulus.
This played out during the pandemic. Policies favoured large corporations, leaving small businesses and workers struggling, despite their critical role in economic resilience. This time, Canada needs to do things differently.
A renewed approach to economic development
For Canada to build a more resilient economy, it must strengthen its communities by securing local assets, democratizing the economy and ensuring wealth circulates within communities rather than being extracted by distant, corporate interests.
A promising solution lies in community wealth building, a local-first approach to building the economy that emerged in the early 2000s. This approach offers a tonic to current economic policies that concentrate wealth into the hands of a small group of individuals, leaving communities vulnerable.
By prioritizing more inclusive and democratic ownership, investment and decision-making, community wealth building empowers communities to take control of their economic future. The strategy moves away from the current extractive economy, which prioritizes the exploitation of land, resources and people, toward one that builds wealth from the ground up.
5 pillars of community wealth building
The Democracy Collaborative’s community wealth-building framework offers five pillars for building strong local economies. These include progressive procurement, locally rooted finance, inclusive and democratic enterprise, fair work and the just use of land.
Many communities across Canada and globally are experimenting with one or more of these pillars. For example, social purpose organizations are experimenting with locally rooted financial instruments that flow profits back into their mission.
In Canada, community bonds allow social purpose organizations to raise capital from their community members to finance projects that benefit communities, such as affordable and green housing and regenerative food systems, among many others.
When locally rooted finance is combined with just use of land, and inclusive and democratic ownership, these initiatives can ensure wealth-generating assets — land, housing, infrastructure and businesses — stay in the communities so more people benefit from economic development.
Strengthening local economies
Canada has a history of inclusive and democratic enterprise, with many co-operatives and social enterprises owned by charities and non-profits. Now, Canadian businesses also have the option of transferring ownership to employee ownership trusts.
The diversity of ownership options challenges the false choice often presented when local businesses face closure: either shut down or be “saved” by an extractive investor.
Despite these positive developments, many community wealth building projects in Canada continue to exist as one-offs and sit on the margins of mainstream economic development policy. Local projects challenge the status quo and, as community-led projects, can struggle with governance and access to financing.
The federal government, non-profits and businesses all have the opportunity to shape a more resilient economic future for Canada by putting local businesses and local ownership first. But to transform local economies, action is needed across all five community wealth building pillars.
Through our research on community bonds, community wealth building in mid-sized cities and community ownership, we have suggestions for how Canadian governments and businesses can help communities understand what strategies work, and how they can adapt and scale them as needed.
This work is everyone’s business
Real progress in this area requires action from all levels of government, as well as from policymakers, businesses and community leaders.
As experience from Scotland and the U.S. shows, ground-up initiatives must be met with government support in the form of innovative policies, action and investments.
In practical terms, this means aligning government procurement policies and partnerships with local initiatives for new businesses, introducing legislation that supports inclusive and democratic ownership, and building wealth from local assets rather than importing it.
Local governments should commit to embedding community wealth building into their economic development planning. This is not a stretch, as many already support local business and entrepreneurship. The key is expanding on these efforts.
At the federal level, policy innovations like community right-to-buy legislation and related supports could give workers and communities the time, financing and expertise to compete with extractive investors and retain wealth and assets.
By investing in community wealth building, governments can help shift economic power, build Canada’s economic resilience and ensure communities have agency in shaping their economic futures.
Audrey Jamal receives funding from the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Heather Hachigian receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and has received funding from the Vancouver Foundation to support research related to this article.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Barbara Leckie, Professor, English and the Institute for the Comparative Study of Literature, Art, and Culture; Academic Director, Re.Climate: Centre for Climate Communication and Public Engagement, Carleton University
In recent years, the idea of “common sense” has again catapulted to prominence in the conservative political landscape.
As a professor in climate and environmental humanities, I’m interested in examining how this return to common sense tends to focus attention away from climate action.
Common sense is the domain of the obvious, the self-evident and what goes without saying. “Hot things can burn you,” for example, is the maxim with which historian Sophia Rosenfeld opens her political history of common sense.
The history of common sense
Attaching common sense to conservative political positions in Canada is not new. The phrase revives Ontario Premier Mike Harris’s “Common Sense Revolution” in the 1990s.
But common sense also has a longer conservative legacy. In the U.S., as American historian Larry Glickman illustrates, the phrase was deployed in the 1930s to challenge the perceived turn to social aid associated with New Deal policies. Prior to Trump, it has been used by Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin and so-called Tea Party Republicans.
Common sense as a political strategy, however, was not always aligned with a free market economy. Rosenfeld traces its history from the Greeks and 17th-century and 18-century writers through to 20th-century thinkers like German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt.
As Rosenfeld notes, common sense has long had two contrasting emphases: an inquiry position that questions prevailing norms and a conservative position that doubles down on prevailing norms.
This pamphlet energized readers across all political spectrums to support the principles of equality, liberty and freedom of expression that we now associate with democracy at large.
Thomas Paine’s pamphlet energized readers to support principles of equality, liberty and freedom of expression. (Wikipedia)
The conservative position, by contrast, emerges when these same values threatened religious belief and the free market. In this version, expertise is discounted and the people’s everyday experience is privileged.
Historically, this position has given rise to a populism that accordingly also discredits education, debate and other pillars of democratic practice. As Rosenfeld demonstrates, the history of common sense shows that common sense has been mobilized both to support democracy and to undermine it.
Common sense encompasses the world of everyday things like temperature and know-how, and it describes a deeper world that defines how we understand each other and live together in that everyday world. Its ability to toggle between these two domains is part of what gives it its force.
What ‘everyone knows’
Most of the time, common sense operates quietly because it is assumed to be tacit knowledge — what everyone knows. In times of crisis, however, common sense comes out of the shadows.
It is no surprise, then, to see common sense entering public discourse in Canada when the country is beset by multiple crises: the existential threat posed by climate change, economic inequality and racism, to name only a few. Common sense, in this context, emerges as a call to return to when things were “normal.” It is the comfort food of thinking.
For many people, there is solace in turning to what is familiar and seemingly obvious. For many others, there is not.
“Free enterprise” and the market economy was also, as Glickman argues, the platform that Republicans polished into common sense. And it is, arguably, the platform that produced the very issues that most endanger us now, from climate change to economic inequality.
Free-market common sense does not help us here. A neoliberal economy in which profits are more important than people and the planet does not help us here. What does, then?
Hot things can burn you. The hot things we confront now are not stove tops or flames, but global temperature increases. Leaders, it seems, tend to deploy “common sense” as an excuse to look away from the hot things that matter. Common sense, in its everyday meaning, would suggest that we look at them.
Common sense works best rhetorically when it’s not questioned. The history of common sense suggests that now is the time to question it.
Source: United States Senator for Kansas Roger Marshall
Wichita –In honor of National Agriculture Day on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas) visited Tractor Supply in Eureka, Flickner Innovation Farm in Moundridge, and Cargill Innovation Center in Wichita. After touring the sites and discussing issues impacting the agriculture industry with staff, researchers, and farmers, Senator Marshall released the following statement.
“National Agriculture Day serves as a platform to recognize the amazing contributions of our farmers and ranchers who work tirelessly to keep America supplied with nutritious food and critically important resources like biofuels,” said Senator Marshall. “The United States has the safest, most affordable, and most available real food supply on earth — and it’s not even close. I will always fight to advance Kansas’ agricultural priorities, support our farmers and ranchers, and strengthen our food supply.”
Highlights from the visits include:
Tractor Supply
At the Tractor Supply location in Eureka, Senator Marshall met with staff and discussed the company’s initiatives, including expanding access to rural broadband. Tractor Supply is the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the United States.
Flickner Innovation Farm
At Flickner Innovation Farm, topics of discussion included new irrigation technologies and the NASA Farm Innovation Ambassador Team program. Additionally, Senator Marshall, scientists, and farmers discussed Flickner’s research into fertilizer application systems, the use of lime on soil, and groundwater nitrate levels.
Flickner Innovation Farm is a working farm and research hub that focuses on testing and implementing innovative agricultural technologies and practices to improve soil health, water conservation, and overall sustainability in farming.
Cargill Innovation Center
At Cargill Innovation Center in Wichita, Senator Marshall toured the 75,000-square-foot facility that features state-of-the-art labs, a USDA-inspected pilot plant, and more. While there, Senator Marshall and Cargill staff discussed the company’s food safety innovations, product consistency testing, and the center’s role in supporting the global food industry.
Cargill is a global, privately held American multinational food corporation and agribusiness company, founded in 1865, that provides food, agricultural, financial, and industrial products and services worldwide.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (c)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT—The FBI Salt Lake City Division is now accepting nominations for the 2025 Citizens Academy through April 18, 2025.
The Citizens Academy is a six to eight week class that gives business, religious, civic, and community leaders an inside look at the FBI, with a goal of creating partnerships to better understand and protect the communities we serve.
Classes will meet Wednesday evenings for six weeks, starting August 6, 2025. Topics may include terrorism, cyber-enabled crime, public corruption, civil rights, and financial crimes, among others. Participants will also get a hands-on experience in evidence collection. The session culminates on September 13, 2025, with a “range day” at the FBI’s shooting range.
Attendees must be at least 21 years of age, live and/or work in Utah and consent to a limited background check.
Jacksonville, Florida – U.S. District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger has sentenced Jacksonville residents Travis Morgan Slaughter and Tripp Charles Slaughter to 41 months and 21 months in federal prison, respectively, for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud related to Jacksonville roofing businesses they operated. The Slaughters pled guilty on November 25, 2024.
As part of their sentence, the court entered an order of forfeiture against Travis Slaughter in the amount of $2,780,947.56 and against Tripp Slaughter in the amount $416,799.66, which were proceeds traceable to the mail and wire fraud offenses. The court also ordered Travis Slaughter to pay restitution in the amount of $6,768,612.32 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for payroll tax losses, $2,780,947.56 to two insurance companies for unpaid workers’ compensation insurance premiums, and $271,217.39 to the same two companies for two paid workers’ compensation claims. The court ordered Tripp Slaughter to pay restitution of $623,269.64 to the IRS for payroll tax losses, $416,799.66 to an insurance company for unpaid workers’ compensation insurance premiums, and $137,778.39 to the same company for a paid workers’ compensation claim.
According to court documents, beginning in 2007, Travis Slaughter operated a roofing business in Jacksonville, first under the name Great White Construction and then under the name Florida Roofing Experts. In January 2020, the business began operating under the name 5 Star Roofing Services, which Tripp Slaughter incorporated. Although the name changed, each business operated in the same manner, banked at the same financial institutions, and employed the same employees.
The company contracted with professional employer organizations (PEOs) to prepare payroll checks for employees, after making deductions for payroll taxes, and to file payroll tax returns and forward tax payments to governmental authorities. However, the company did not provide the PEOs with information about all the hours worked by, or all the wages due to, its employees. Instead, the company also paid the employees directly, with separate checks drawn on company bank accounts, and did not deduct payroll taxes from these checks. By paying employees with “split checks”—one from the PEO and one from the company—the company avoided paying the full amount of payroll taxes due to the IRS. For the period of October 2015 through June 2020, the company paid a total of approximately $23,079,680 in wages that were not reported to the IRS. The payroll taxes due to the IRS on this amount total approximately $4,292,429. The PEOs also secured workers’ compensation insurance coverage for the company. The premiums charged by the workers’ compensation insurers were based on the total amount of payroll that the company reported to the PEOs. If the company had reported the actual amount of payroll, the insurers would have charged additional premiums totaling approximately $2,780,947.
In addition to causing the company to underreport their payroll to the IRS, the Slaughters also underreported their personal income to the IRS. For the tax years 2014 through 2019, the unpaid taxes due on Travis Slaughter’s unreported income totaled approximately $2,467,183. For the tax years 2015 through 2019, the unpaid taxes due on Tripp Slaughter’s unreported income totaled approximately $263,614.
“The actions of these two defendants represent a blatant disregard for U.S. law and our financial systems. Despite operating successful construction businesses that generated millions of dollars in wealth, their greed drove them to lie and cheat for years,” said Special Agent in Charge Ron Loecker, of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Tampa Field Office. “Their scheme to evade millions of dollars in taxes not only undermined the integrity of our tax system but also created an unfair advantage in which law-abiding competitors cannot compete for bids. Our job is to make sure dishonest offenders like these two face the consequences of their criminal activities.”
“The Slaughters defrauded insurance companies of millions in workers’ compensation insurance premiums and will be responsible for financial restitution for the loss of insurance premiums and death and injury claims,” said ICE HSI Tampa, Jacksonville office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Hemker. “As part of this criminal enterprise, they also exploited the labor of hundreds of illegal aliens.”
This case was investigated by Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General, and the Florida Department of Financial Services. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Arnold B. Corsmeier. The asset forfeiture is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer M. Harrington.
SILICON VALLEY, Calif., March 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Meriwest Credit Union proudly announces its recognition as “Best in Silicon Valley 2025” by the Mercury News Readers’ Choice Awards. This accolade highlights Meriwest’s continuing commitment to making a meaningful impact in the lives of its members and the greater community.
Meriwest continues to build on its reputation as a trusted financial partner in Silicon Valley by taking bold steps to support the community. Among these, Meriwest team members hosted financial literacy workshops that provided essential knowledge for financial success to over 8,600 residents. Meriwest also actively engaged in nearly 550 events to promote financial education and support while aiding 23 local nonprofit organizations.
Meriwest’s dedication reaches beyond community outreach, fostering an inclusive environment for employees and members alike. In 2024, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times named Meriwest a “Best Place to Work,” for a 5th year in a row, an honor reflecting its workplace culture.
“At Meriwest, our actions speak louder than words,” said Lisa Pesta, President and CEO of Meriwest Credit Union. “Being named a Best in Silicon Valley 2025 winner is a testament to our team’s passion for enhancing financial well-being and building a stronger community. We’re honored to serve Silicon Valley and remain committed to a future where everyone prospers.”
With a legacy of innovation and service since 1961, Meriwest Credit Union continues to lead the way in financial empowerment. Join us on this journey toward a brighter, more secure tomorrow—Because We’re YouSM.
About Meriwest Credit Union
Founded in San Jose, California in 1961, Meriwest Credit Union, ($2.1B in assets) is one of Silicon Valley’s most established financial institutions. Dedicated to delivering advice-based, personal, convenient, and innovative financial services to over 80,000 families and businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Pima County, Arizona, Meriwest offers a wide array of personal banking, business services, and wealth advisory services. Meriwest has been voted one of the ‘Best Credit Unions in Silicon Valley’ in the Mercury News’ Annual ‘Readers’ Choice Awards’ and a “Best Place to Work” by the Silicon Valley Business Journal 2020 through 2024. More information can be found at www.meriwest.com.
Media Contact: Jeffrey Zane Meriwest Credit Union Public Relations 408-612-1484 jzane@meriwest.com
As part of an effort to provide greater clarity on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto assets,[1] the Division of Corporation Finance is providing its views[2] on certain activities on proof-of-work networks known as “mining.” Specifically, this statement addresses the mining of crypto assets that are intrinsically linked to the programmatic functioning of a public, permissionless network, and are used to participate in and/or earned for participating in such network’s consensus mechanism or otherwise used to maintain and/or earned for maintaining the technological operation and security of such network. We refer in this statement to these crypto assets as “Covered Crypto Assets”[3] and their mining on proof-of-work networks as “Protocol Mining.”[4]
Protocol Mining
Networks rely upon cryptography and economic mechanism design to eliminate the need for designated trusted intermediaries to verify network transactions and provide settlement assurances to users. The operation of each network is governed by an underlying software protocol, consisting of computer code, that programmatically enforces certain network rules, technical requirements, and rewards distributions. Each protocol incorporates a “consensus mechanism,” or method for enabling the distributed network of unrelated computers (known as “nodes”) that maintain the peer-to-peer network to agree on the “state,” or authoritative record of network address ownership balances, transactions, smart contract code, and other data, of the network. Public, permissionless networks allow anyone to participate in the network’s operation, including the validation of new transactions to the network in accordance with the network’s consensus mechanism.
Proof-of-work (“PoW”) is a consensus mechanism that incentivizes network transaction validation by rewarding network participants, called “miners,” who operate nodes adding computational resources to the network.[5] PoW involves validating transactions on a network and adding them in blocks to the distributed ledger. The “work” in PoW is the computational resources that miners contribute to validate transactions and add new blocks to the network. Miners do not have to own the network’s Covered Crypto Asset to validate transactions.
Miners use computers to solve complex mathematical equations in the form of cryptographic puzzles. Miners compete with their peers to solve these puzzles, and the first miner to solve a puzzle is tasked with accepting batches of transactions from other nodes and validating (or proposing) new blocks of transactions to the network. In exchange for providing validation services, miners earn “Rewards” in the form of newly “minted” or created Covered Crypto Assets that are delivered under the terms of the protocol.[6] In this way, PoW creates an incentive for miners to invest the resources necessary to add valid blocks to the network.
A miner providing validation services receives the Reward only after the other nodes in the network verify, through the protocol, that the solution is correct and valid. To this end, once a miner finds the correct solution, it broadcasts this information to other miners who can verify whether the miner properly solved the puzzle to receive the Reward. Once verified, all miners then add the new block to their own copies of the network. PoW is designed to secure the network by requiring miners to spend considerable time and computational resources to authenticate transactions. When the validation process functions in this way, it not only makes it less likely that someone would seek to undermine a network but also makes it less likely that miners could include altered transactions, such as those enabling the “double spending” of Covered Crypto Assets.[7]
In addition to self (or solo) mining, miners can join “mining pools,” which allow miners to combine their computational resources to increase their chances of successfully validating transactions and mining new blocks on the network. Mining pools have developed into various types, each with differing methods of operation and Reward distribution.[8] A pool operator typically is responsible for coordinating the miners’ computational resources, maintaining the pool’s mining hardware and software, overseeing the pool’s security measures to protect against theft and cyberattacks, and ensuring that the miners are paid their Rewards. In return, the pool operator charges a fee that is deducted from the miners’ share of the Rewards earned by the mining pool. Reward payouts vary among pools, although Rewards often are distributed across the mining pool in proportion to the amount of computational resources that each miner contributes to the pool. Miners have no obligation to stay in a pool and can choose to leave a pool at any time.
Division’s View on Protocol Mining Activities
It is the Division’s view that “Mining Activities” (defined in this statement) in connection with Protocol Mining, under the circumstances described in this statement, do not involve the offer and sale of securities within the meaning of Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”) and Section 3(a)(10) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”).[9] Accordingly, it is the Division’s view that participants in Mining Activities do not need to register transactions with the Commission under the Securities Act or fall within one of the Securities Act’s exemptions from registration in connection with these Mining Activities.
Protocol Mining Activities Covered by this Statement
The Division’s view pertains to the following Protocol Mining activities and transactions (“Mining Activities” and each a “Mining Activity”): (1) mining Covered Crypto Assets on a PoW network; and (2) the roles of mining pools and pool operators involved in the Protocol Mining process, including their roles in connection with the earning and distribution of Rewards. Only Mining Activities undertaken in connection with the following types of Protocol Mining are addressed in this statement.
Self (or Solo) Mining, which involves a miner mining Covered Crypto Assets using its own computational resources. The miner may work alone or together with others to operate a node and mine Covered Crypto Assets.
Mining Pool, which involves miners combining their computational resources with other miners to increase their chances of successfully validating transactions and mining new blocks on the network. Reward payments may flow from the network directly to the miners or indirectly to them through the pool operator.
Discussion
Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act and Section 3(a)(10) of the Exchange Act each defines the term “security” by providing a list of various financial instruments, including “stock,” “note,” and “bond.” Because a Covered Crypto Asset does not constitute any of the financial instruments that are specifically enumerated in the definition of “security,” we conduct our analysis of certain transactions involving Covered Crypto Assets in the context of Protocol Mining under the “investment contract” test set forth in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co.[10] The “Howey test” is used to analyze arrangements or instruments not listed in those statutory sections based on their “economic realities.”[11]
In evaluating the economic realities of a transaction, the test is whether there is an investment of money in an enterprise premised on a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.[12] Federal courts since Howey have explained that Howey’s “efforts of others” requirement is satisfied when “the efforts made by those other than the investor are the undeniably significant ones, those essential managerial efforts which affect the failure or success of the enterprise.”[13]
Self (or Solo) Mining
A miner’s Self (or Solo) Mining is not undertaken with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others. Rather, a miner contributes its own computational resources, which secure the network and enable the miner to earn Rewards issued by the network in accordance with its software protocol. To earn Rewards, the miner’s activities must comply with the rules of the protocol. By adding its computational resources to the network, the miner merely is engaging in an administrative or ministerial activity to secure the network, validate transactions and add new blocks, and receive Rewards. A miner’s expectation to receive Rewards is not derived from any third party’s managerial or entrepreneurial efforts upon which the network’s success depends. Instead, the expected financial incentive from the protocol is derived from the administrative or ministerial act of Protocol Mining performed by the miner. As such, Rewards are payments to the miner in exchange for services it provides to the network rather than profits derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.
Mining Pool
Likewise, when a miner combines its computational resources with other miners to increase their chances of successfully mining new blocks on the network, the miner has no expectation of profit derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others. By adding its own computational resources to a mining pool, the miner merely is engaging in an administrative or ministerial activity to secure the network, validate transactions and add new blocks, and receive Rewards. In addition, any expectation of profits that the miners have is not derived from the efforts of a third party, such as a pool operator. Even when participating in a mining pool, individual miners still perform the actual mining activity by contributing their computational power to solve the cryptographic puzzles for validation of new blocks. Moreover, whether a miner self (or solo) mines or mines as a member of a mining pool does not alter the nature of Protocol Mining for purposes of the Howey analysis. In either case, Protocol Mining, as described in this statement, remains an administrative or ministerial activity. Further, a pool operator’s activities in operating the mining pool using the combined computational resources of participating miners primarily are administrative or ministerial in nature. While some of the pool operator’s activities may benefit the group of miners, any such efforts are not sufficient to satisfy Howey’s “efforts of others” requirement because miners primarily are relying on the computational resources that they provide in conjunction with other members to the mining pool to earn profits. To this end, a miner does not join a mining pool based on the ability to earn profits passively from the activities of the pool operator.
For further information, please contact the Division’s Office of Chief Counsel by submitting a web-based request form at https://www.sec.gov/forms/corp_fin_interpretive.
[1] For purposes of this statement, a “crypto asset” is an asset that is generated, issued, and/or transferred using a blockchain or similar distributed ledger technology network (“crypto network”), including, but not limited to, assets known as “tokens,” “digital assets,” “virtual currencies,” and “coins,” and that relies on cryptographic protocols. In addition, for purposes of this statement, a “network” refers to a crypto network.
[2] This statement represents the views of the staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Division”). It is not a rule, regulation, guidance, or statement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”), and the Commission has neither approved nor disapproved its content. This statement, like all staff statements, has no legal force or effect: it does not alter or amend applicable law, and it creates no new or additional obligations for any person.
[3] This statement only addresses certain activities involving Covered Crypto Assets that do not have intrinsic economic properties or rights, such as generating a passive yield or conveying rights to future income, profits, or assets of a business enterprise.
[4] This statement only addresses transactions involving Covered Crypto Assets in connection with Protocol Mining and not other transactions involving Covered Crypto Assets.
[5] This statement addresses PoW generally rather than all of PoW’s variations or any specific PoW protocol.
[6] The protocol establishes rules on Rewards. Miners cannot change the Rewards they receive as the Reward structure is predetermined by the protocol.
[7] Double spending involves the same crypto assets being sent to two recipients and can occur when ledger entries are altered.
[8] For example, in a “pay-per-share” model, miners receive a payment for each valid share or block they contribute to the mining pool; regardless of whether the pool successfully mines a block; in a “peer-to-peer” model, the pool operator’s role is decentralized among pool members; and in a “proportional” model, miners receive Rewards proportional to the amount of work they contribute to successfully mine a block. There also may be hybrid pools that offer a combination of different operational and payout methods.
[9] The Division’s view is not dispositive as to whether any specific Mining Activity (defined in this statement) involves the offer and sale of a security. A definitive determination requires analyzing the facts relating to the specific Mining Activity. Where facts vary from those presented in this statement – such as the way in which pool members may be compensated, how miners or other persons may participate in mining pools, or the activities conducted by pool operators – the Division’s view as to whether the specific Mining Activity involves the offer and sale of a security may be different.
[10] 328 U.S. 293 (1946).
[11] See Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681, 689 (1985), in which the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that the proper test for determining whether a particular instrument that is not clearly within the definition of “stock” as set forth in Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act, or that otherwise is of an unusual nature, is the economic realities test set forth in Howey. In analyzing whether an instrument is a security, “form should be disregarded for substance,” Tcherepnin v. Knight, 389 U.S. 332, 336 (1967), “and the emphasis should be on economic realities underlying a transaction, and not on the name appended thereto.” United Housing Found., Inc. v. Forman, 421 U.S. 837, 849 (1975).
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Massimo D’Angelo, Research Associate in the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs, Loughborough University
The Turkish judiciary has finally succeeded in sidelining Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, at the fourth attempt. On the morning of March 19, the 53-year-old posted a video on social media announcing that police had arrived at his home to arrest him on charges of corruption, aiding a terrorist organisation and organised crime.
“Hundreds of police are at my door”, he said in a voice message. “This immoral and tyrannical approach will undoubtedly be overturned by the will and resilience of our people”.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has consistently excelled at positioning himself on the international stage, adeptly seizing opportunities left by others and turning them to his advantage. He has demonstrated this once again by orchestrating the arrest of İmamoğlu, his main political rival.
With global events bolstering his leverage over the west, Erdoğan is well placed to act with impunity, knowing that his strategic importance will likely shield him from serious repercussions.
The judiciary’s first attempt to remove İmamoğlu through legal means came in 2019, shortly after he won the Istanbul mayoral election by a narrow margin (around 13,000 votes). Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) contested the results, citing irregularities.
Under intense pressure from the government, the Supreme Electoral Council annulled the vote and ordered a rerun. İmamoğlu not only retained, but significantly increased his lead. He secured victory over the AKP’s candidate, Binali Yıldırım, by more than 800,000 votes.
Then, in 2022, İmamoğlu was sentenced to two years in prison for having called two public officials “fools” three years earlier. Ultimately, he was not arrested. But the sentence severely undermined his presidential ambitions, prompting him to forgo running for the presidency the following year.
The third attempt occurred just days ago, when the government revoked the validity of İmamoğlu’s academic degree on bureaucratic grounds. Turkey’s political future looks to be entering a new and more precarious phase.
İmamoğlu was born in Akçaabat, a district of Trabzon province on north-east Turkey’s Black Sea coast. He graduated in economics at Istanbul University and worked as a construction entrepreneur before entering politics.
He is married with three children and, like Erdoğan, is passionate about football. In his youth, he was both a footballer and the managing director of his hometown’s football club, Trabzonspor.
In 2024, İmamoğlu was reelected as mayor of Istanbul. Over the past six years, he has become a highly prominent political figure and, given the city’s size and his broad popularity, he has often been regarded as a natural candidate for the Turkish presidency.
Many expected him to run as the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate in the 2023 presidential election. But the party chose its leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, instead.
This decision was partly driven by internal power struggles between the party’s old guard and newer leadership. However, the insult lawsuit against İmamoğlu alarmed many within the CHP, who feared that a potential arrest during the campaign would plunge the contest into chaos.
Kılıçdaroğlu is less popular than İmamoğlu, and is from an older generation of opposition politicians who have repeatedly failed to challenge Erdoğan effectively. He ultimately lost to Erdoğan in the second round of voting.
Despite state-led media campaigns to discredit İmamoğlu, his popularity has continued to rise. As a leading CHP figure, he was the frontrunner in the party’s primaries scheduled for March 23, ahead of the 2028 presidential elections. The arrest of İmamoğlu is widely seen as Erdoğan’s latest attempt to obstruct his candidacy.
A pattern of political suppression
Along with İmamoğlu, Turkish authorities have detained 87 people as part of an investigation into alleged terrorism and organised crime in Istanbul.
Prosecutors accuse İmamoğlu of leading a criminal organisation, engaging in bribery, extortion and bid rigging. The inquiry also links him to financial misconduct and alleged ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which the Turkish state categorises as a terrorist organisation.
This is not the first time prominent political leaders in Turkey have been arrested on such charges. İmamoğlu’s case closely mirrors that of Selahattin Demirtaş, a Kurdish politician and former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), who has been imprisoned since November 2016.
Demirtaş, who was arrested during Erdoğan’s crackdown on political opposition after an attempted coup in 2016, was charged with “terrorist propaganda” and “undermining state unity”. In elections the previous year, his presidential campaign had gained widespread support, allowing the HDP to surpass Turkey’s 10% electoral threshold for entering parliament for the first time.
Despite international calls for his release, including rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, Demirtaş remains incarcerated. In 2024, he was sentenced to a total of 42 years. Much like İmamoğlu today, his continued detention is widely regarded as politically motivated.
In their influential work, How Democracies Die, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that the willingness to curtail civil liberties, such as controlling the media and suppressing dissent, is typical of populist leaders determined to tighten their grip on power.
This latest crackdown is yet another episode in the continued erosion of democratic space in Turkey. However, Erdoğan currently operates in an unusually favourable global climate, with multiple strategic negotiations placing him centre stage.
Although he has not hesitated to sideline rivals in the past, this environment has shifted further in his favour. The US president, Donald Trump, has rarely opposed such actions or condemned the suppression of political rights in other countries. On several occasions, Trump has even demonstrated his willingness to subject the US justice system and his opponents to his own will.
The EU, distracted by internal conflicts and the Russian threat, also appears keen to keep Turkey onside. Turkey has Nato’s second-largest army and a Black Sea coastline, and is seeking to assume a key role in Europe’s security following Washington’s pivot away from the region. Across the Middle East, democracy often serves more as a bargaining chip than a genuine priority.
Erdoğan has recently launched a “new Kurdish process”, aimed at reconciling with the PKK. This makes İmamoğlu’s arrest all the more surprising. The move may be intended to distance Kurdish voters from the CHP.
Some citizens have attempted to protest the arrest despite a government ban on public gatherings. It remains to be seen how resilient the Turkish people will prove. Ultimately, Erdoğan’s success depends on the opposition’s ability to unite against him.
Massimo D’Angelo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Keir Starmer says the current benefits system is unsustainable, unfair and needs changing to avoid a wasted generation of young people who are not in education, employment or training (Neet).
The government is concerned about the rising number of young people aged 16 to 24 who are Neet, which in the quarter to December 2024 was estimated at 987,000 in the UK. This is 13.4% of all young people in this age group. The increase, from around 11% in the period prior to the start of the pandemic, is linked to long-term illness among the economically inactive.
About 40% of young people who are Neet are unemployed (not in work but looking for work) and the other 60% are inactive (not looking for work). Over the period of the pandemic, the number of young people with a mental health issue who are inactive because of long-term sickness has risen sharply.
This is clearly concerning, but it is not entirely new. The number of 16- to 34-year-olds with a mental health condition, who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness, increased from around 100,000 in 2013 to about 180,000 at the start of the pandemic. The figure is now over 250,000. This long-term trend is part of a wider increase in disability prevalence across the UK’s ageing population.
When discussing young people specifically, social policy experts such as myself use the label Neet, because “inactivity” also includes those in education and just using the youth unemployment rate does not capture the scale of the challenge.
Young people (and particularly lower-attaining young people) tend to become Neet when they make the transition from school to post-16 learning, and then from learning to work. But the lack of robust data on these transitions means we still don’t fully understand it.
When looked at historically, the current economic inactivity rate across age groups is not actually very high. The Neet rate among young people is a longstanding challenge, but it seems most responsive to the economic cycle – falling in good times and rising in bad. For instance, Neet rates for 18- to 24-year-olds last peaked in the period after the 2008 financial crisis.
What will help get young people into work?
The welfare reforms announced recently are aimed at addressing some of these long-term issues, specifically: restrictions to personal independence payment (PiP) eligibility and proposals to prevent under-22s from qualifying for incapacity benefits, the health element within universal credit.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, says these and other changes will save over £5 billion a year by the end of the decade. But this isn’t just about saving money. As the government has repeatedly said, it is also about getting young people into work.
But trying to save both money and a generation seems a tall order. Can we do both?
Reducing the level of benefits and limiting eligibility does save money and it will certainly force (rather than “help”) some people into work. But it is not an approach that will tackle the mental and physical health challenges this generation is facing.
In discussion of “what works”, we cannot ignore the need to increase employment opportunities for those who are most at risk of becoming Neet. Ideally, this will come from improved economic growth driven by investment. This boosts productivity, creates new jobs and, importantly, drives up the quality of jobs and wages.
However, UK productivity growth since the financial crisis has been weak, and when worse economic times come, we once again face the same challenge. Many young people, even if they are qualified to degree level, face barriers to progress. For instance, it is not easy to access many of the jobs that pay better wages, as they are in parts of the country where the cost of living is particularly high.
Liz Kendall announces welfare reforms that will affect disability benefits and introduce more work support. House of Commons/Flickr, CC BY-ND
It’s positive to see that the government is also investing in mental health support as part if its reforms, and that it has highlighted a number of evidence-based interventions. On mental health, for example, there is strong evidence that relatively light touch cognitive behavioural therapy and NHS Talking Therapies can improve employment outcomes.
The welfare reform package also contains £1 billion a year for employment support. Kendall suggests that this could be used for programmes such as Work Choice, a voluntary employment programme for people who have a disability that prevents them from working or puts them at risk of losing their job.
There is compelling evidence that those who took part in this programme before the pandemic experienced increased employment rates by between 11 and 12 percentage points. We also know that even short entry-level training for very low-skilled unemployed young people can have significant impacts, increasing employment rates by five percentage points.
The government’s programme for change is evidence-based and they are to be commended in recognising and beginning to tackle long-standing issues of Neet among young people. The announcements on welfare will help, but we still need to tackle the root causes of high Neet rates in the UK.
Growing the economy, together with the package of measures announced, will go some way to help. But some support needs to start even earlier. Young people who do not perform well in school have few education or employment options – this is the real tragedy of lost generations.
Peter Urwin has received funding from UK Research Councils, the Nuffield Foundation and government departments such as DWP and DfE to investigate the challenges that young people face in making the transition from education to employment.
McAllen, Texas – Today, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), joined by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas-15), hosted a roundtable and press conference in San Juan, Texas, to address challenges producers are facing in the Rio Grande Valley.
Sen. Cruz said, “I was proud to lead the effort in the U.S. Senate to secure this $280 million block grant, which is critical for Texas producers in the Rio Grande Valley, and to work with Secretary Rollins and President Trump in getting it across the finish line. Secretary Rollins is a champion of agriculture, and we are working together on the crisis facing Texas agriculture across the board, including holding Mexico accountable for its obligations under the 1944 Water Treaty.”
USDA Secretary Rollins said, “Farmers and ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley have worked for generations to feed communities across Texas, the U.S., and beyond. A lack of water has already ended sugarcane production in the Valley and is putting the future of citrus, cotton, and other crops at risk. Through this grant, USDA is expediting much-needed economic relief while we continue working with state leadership to push for long-term solutions that protect Texas producers.”
Sen. Cornyn said, “The Texas agriculture community helps feed, clothe, and fuel our entire country, and it is critical that they have the help and resources they need to keep their industry thriving. Today’s announcement of more than $280 million in emergency assistance is great news for South Texans, many of whom have been greatly impacted by Mexico’s failure to deliver water under the 1944 Water Treaty. I was proud to help lead the fight to secure this important funding alongside Senator Cruz, Congresswoman De La Cruz, and Senate Ag Committee Chairman Boozman, who joined me in the Rio Grande Valley last year to hear firsthand from farmers about the challenges they are facing. I will continue advocating for the needs of Texas farmers and ranchers in Washington, and with the help of the Trump administration, I look forward to seeing this industry continue to grow.”
Rep. De La Cruz said, “Farmers and ranchers are the backbone of our South Texas communities and economy. The funding deployment announced by Secretary Rollins today will provide critical relief for the South Texas agricultural industry after suffering tremendous losses due to drought conditions and the Government of Mexico’s refusal to comply with the 1944 Water Treaty. I am proud to work alongside the Administration to deploy this critical aid and deliver solutions for the families, businesses, and communities across the nation that rely on Texas agriculture to thrive.”
BACKGROUND
Sen. Cruz is a key defender of Texan producers:
Sen. Cruz championed a provision providing support for South Texas agricultural producers suffering from Mexico’s blatant failure to meet its obligations under the 1944 Treaty on Utilization of Waters of the Colorado, Tijuana, and Rio Grande Rivers. This funding will provide immediate relief for hardworking Texans.
Sen. Cruz introduced the Livestock Indemnity Program Enhancement Act to help Texas livestock producers recover from wildfires in the Texas Panhandle.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee,spearheaded the passage of legislation to streamline the permitting process for new and expanded bridges across the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Laredo, and Eagle Pass, Texas, into law. This victory was made possible by a bipartisan and bicameral coalition of Texas legislators dedicated to expanding Texas’s economy and enhancing our bilateral relationship with Mexico, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), and Monica de la Cruz (R-Texas).
Our parliament should not be supporting Elon Musk or his businesses.
More in Economy
Scottish Green MSP Mark Ruskell has called for the Scottish Parliament Pension Scheme to fully divest in Tesla and any other Elon Musk-owned companies that it has investments in.
This follows press reports revealing that, while the total has reduced over recent years, the scheme has holdings in Tesla via Baillie Gifford which controls the fund.
Speaking at Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body questions today, Mr Ruskell said:
“It is quite clear that Elon Musk has promoted extremism and misinformation.
“He is part of a Trump administration that has shown utter contempt for human rights across the world. He is a toxic individual, and that’s just one of the reasons why the value of shares in Tesla is collapsing right now, which will be impacting our pensions.
“I welcome the news that Baillie Gifford who runs our pension funds has been reducing their investment in Tesla. I would like to see total divestment from all Elon Musk’s companies as well.
“Will members reflect on the fact that the Scottish Parliament Pension Scheme is conducting its triannual review? The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body as an employer could and should encourage all members of the scheme to give feedback on these kinds of ethical issues.”
Colorado’s smart energy policies and programs that cut costs and pollution rank #7 on the ACEEE 2025 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard
STATEWIDE – Colorado is 7th in the nation for energy efficiency according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) 2025 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, which cited Colorado’s policies and programs that advance smart energy use and save Coloradans money.
“Colorado continues to raise the bar on advancing energy efficiency, expanding clean transportation, and strengthening sustainable building practices that save people and businesses money. As the nation’s leader in EV adoption, we’re focused on making smart investments to lower costs and build a cleaner future across Colorado,” said Gov. Polis.
Colorado is also among the “most improved” states since the last scorecard in 2022, jumping six spots in the rankings as a result of Governor Polis’ leadership to promote clean vehicles, reduce energy use in buildings, and adopt strong appliance efficiency standards.
“Our improvement in these rankings highlights Colorado’s national leadership in energy efficiency and clean energy,” said Colorado Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor. “We are committed to pursuing innovative strategies to achieve net-zero emissions in Colorado by 2050, while saving Coloradans money on energy costs, improving air quality, and creating new economic opportunities and good-paying jobs across the state.”
Colorado is taking an innovative sector-based approach to reduce emissions across the economy. ACEEE notes Colorado’s significant progress in the transportation sector, which has included adopting clean vehicle and truck standards that make more zero-emission vehicles available to Coloradans. The report also mentions Colorado’s appliance efficiency standards, building performance standards for large buildings, and first-in-the-nation clean heat standards for regulated gas utilities as key improvements.
In addition to the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, the ACEEE also ranked Colorado third in its 2023 State Transportation Electrification Scorecard. Colorado currently leads the nation in EV sales, with EVs making up 31.5% of new car sales in the last quarter of 2024.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adrian York, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Music Performance, University of Westminster
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since 1970 you will be aware of the five-day Glastonbury festival held every June (apart from “fallow” years to rest the land and the organisers), near Pilton in Somerset. Glastonbury is as much a pillar of the English summer as tennis at Wimbledon or opera at Glyndebourne.
It’s a white, middle-class rite of passage and an easy win for people wishing peer approval and the cultural capital that comes with the price of a ticket. It’s expensive and exclusive and the booking policy reflects its audience.
This year’s headliners include indie pop-rock darlings The 1975, angry girl supreme Olivia Rodrigo, old-school superstar Neil Young with his band the Chrome Hearts, with family favourite Rod Stewart filling the Sunday teatime “legend” slot.
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Other acts filling the 100-plus stages include Brat popster Charli XCX, English hip-hopper Loyle Carner, original bad boys The Prodigy (without original frontman Keith Flint, RIP) plus Raye, Doechii, Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams, and old pros Alanis Morissette, En Vogue and Gary Numan.
With tickets costing £378.50 for Glastonbury 2025, are the 210,000 attendees getting value for money?
A Reddit thread titled “Glastonbury 2025 lineup, thoughts?”, gives a flavour of some commonly aired opinions. Disappointed customer praf973 “tried to get tickets but was unsuccessful. I’m not bitter, but the line up isn’t really looking that great.” Another commenter, Whilst-I-was-forced, declared: “Nothing to get excited about. It’s gone too commercial and sterile.”
Ok_Handle_3530 gave a different perspective: “This line-up looks … great, people are too hard to please.” ShankSpencer opined, “There are no good line-ups any more. No one young listens to bands any more, so there are no headline acts.”
The exceptionally popular festival sold out in 35 minutes this year even before the artists had been announced, raising the question: has Glastonbury become a victim of its own success?
Last year there were issues with overcrowding at some of the smaller stages creating issues for fans wanting to see acts such as the Sugababes. Some sets were even being stopped early because of crowd surges.
But what’s really behind these complaints about the lineup and are they justified? There’s been a changing of the guard as the veteran generation of performers from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s step back from performing because they have retired, are too ill or have died.
There doesn’t seem to be enough credible stadium acts from the 1990s onwards to fill their shoes, leading to a lack of enthusiasm for the current offerings. The new generation of acts have an opportunity to impress, but many of them don’t have the volume of hits that legacy acts such as Elton John or Paul McCartney provide – nor the cross-generational appeal.
There is also a growing sense that the cultural importance of the rock band is fading. Gen Z has far more in the way of distractions than previous generations with myriad forms of social media and digital entertainment. With so much competition for their attention, the tribal allegiances that bands used to command may feel dated and irrelevant to many younger people.
On their single Guys, one of this year’s headliners, The 1975 trill: “The moment that we started a band was the best thing that ever happened.” Perhaps lead singer Matty Healy’s love affair with the mythology of rock’n’roll is no longer widely shared.
Glastonbury has also been criticised for a lack of diversity. Clubbing magazine Mixmag made the point that in 2023, “the number of male acts playing this year’s Glastonbury Festival is nearly double that of female acts”.
Similarly, the festival’s lineup and audience are predominantly white and fail to adequately reflect the British music industry. Though there have been a few black bands and artists headlining over the years, it wasn’t until 2019 that the first solo black British performer headlined on the Pyramid stage, with an unforgettable set from London rapper Stormzy in a black Union Jack stab vest designed by Banksy.
For Glastonbury to move with the times, a more diverse booking policy is needed to widen the audience demographic and the festival’s appeal. Despite having enjoyed the event, mixed-heritage music journalist and academic Jenessa Williams noted: “I was still left with the feeling that certain punters saw black artists as a mockable novelty, a by-product to tolerate rather than truly a piece of the event’s heart and soul.”
And then there’s the issue of cost. According to a 2024 report, two-thirds of UK adults feel that music festivals are becoming too expensive. Popular music artists have had to pivot towards live events for income generation because of the poor returns from streaming compared to selling albums.
So are major tours and larger festivals such as Glastonbury sucking revenue out of the music economy? Research shows that while big high-profile event tours are making millions, at the other end of the spectrum grassroots venues – where new talent is incubated – are buckling under a lack of support and the prohibitive costs of running their operations.
Glastonbury won’t be making an appearance in 2026, the next fallow year for rest and recovery. This will create an opportunity for organiser Emily Eavis to reflect on some of the more problematical issues the festival faces, from diversity in the audience and artists, to the sustainability of the talent pipeline.
Maybe the last word should go to American rapper Azealia Banks commenting on this year’s festival lineup: “Glastonbury is kinda cooked.”
Adrian York does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
overnor Kathy Hochul today announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the redevelopment of a state-owned site located at 1024 Fulton Street in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood. The approximately 12,800-square-foot lot, currently owned by the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), will be transformed into a vibrant, mixed-use, 100 percent affordable housing development. This project is part of Governor Hochul’s vision to address New York State’s housing crisis, which includes repurposing underutilized state-owned sites to provide much-needed affordable housing. The RFP follows an extensive community engagement process led by Empire State Development (ESD) in partnership with local elected officials to ensure the project meets neighborhood needs. Applicants can view the Request for Proposals document and submit a proposal to ESD by June 20 by 5 p.m. EST.
“After decades of sitting vacant, we’re breathing new life into this property and delivering what New Yorkers need most: affordable housing and community amenities,” Governor Hochul said. “This project represents our commitment to addressing the housing crisis while ensuring development reflects the priorities of local residents. By transforming underutilized state-owned property into vibrant, sustainable homes, we’re making good on our promise to create more affordable homes across New York State.”
From fall through winter 2024, ESD — in collaboration with Senator Jabari Brisport, Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest, Council Member Crystal Hudson, Attorney General Letitia James, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso — hosted a series of community visioning workshops to gather feedback on the future development of the site. Over 150 members of the community participated in this public process which culminated in a Community Visioning Report, summarizing key community needs and priorities.
The RFP outlines comprehensive development objectives that will maximize the site’s potential while creating lasting positive impact for the community. Proposals must demonstrate how they will implement the findings of the Community Visioning Report, deliver 100 percent affordable housing with rents capped at 100 percent of Area Median Income, and include a ground floor senior or intergenerational community center that responds directly to neighborhood needs identified through the public engagement process.
1024 Fulton has been vacant since 1997, when OCFS acquired it from the City of New York with the intent to develop a community center. Before its acquisition by OCFS, the property served as a Brooklyn Union Gas showroom in 1912 and later housed various manufacturing and commercial uses. Due to structural issues, the building has remained unused for nearly three decades. The building is located in a neighborhood ideal for transit-oriented development, within walking distance of several educational institutions and multiple subway and bus lines.
Empire State Development President, CEO, and Commissioner Hope Knight said, “This RFP represents ESD’s commitment to community-driven housing and economic development. By transforming this long-vacant property into affordable housing with a community facility, we’re creating both homes and opportunities for the Clinton Hill neighborhood. ESD is grateful to our city partners whose collaboration has been invaluable throughout this process. The extensive community engagement ensures this development will truly reflect local priorities and meet the community’s needs.”
New York State Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas said, “The redevelopment of 1024 Fulton Street illustrates the Governor’s commitment to using state- owned properties to create mixed use affordable housing in Brooklyn and across the state. Up to 100 households will benefit from affordable homes and a community center that will bring people of all ages together and add to the vibrancy of the Clinton Hill neighborhood. Repurposing vacant properties into stable, affordable places where people can live comfortably, raise their families, and make memories is good for residents and the entire community. We look forward to seeing 1024 Fulton Street come to life.”
New York State Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Dr. DaMia Harris-Madden said, “Affordable housing is not just a necessity – it’s the foundation for a stable life, where every family can thrive and build a sustainable future. OCFS is proud to support Governor Hochul’s innovative initiative to reconstruct underutilized and vacant properties, like 1024 Fulton Street, which will cultivate financial stability and promote pathways for New Yorkers to build connections within their communities.”
New York State Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy said, “This RFP is a significant step towards creating a multipurpose space that residents of Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood can call home and use as a meeting place. OGS remains committed to advancing Governor Hochul’s vision of repurposing underutilized state property to address community needs while increasing affordable housing supply, and we are proud to work with ESD on paving the way for this long-awaited project at 1024 Fulton Street.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James said, “Access to affordable housing is a basic human right. This new affordable housing development benefits all Brooklynites, especially our seniors, and ensures that those who want access to safe and affordable housing will have that opportunity. I thank Governor Hochul, Empire State Development, and my fellow elected officials for their efforts to work with local community members and transform this site into a facility that benefits the entire community.”
State Senator Jabari Brisportsaid, “For almost 30 years this publicly owned building has sat empty; I’m so proud of how our community has come together to change that. Through our collaboration with Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest and Empire State Development, our district was able to shape the future of this building. Together we’ve ensured it will provide the kind of affordable housing that limits gentrification and helps protect the stability of our vibrant community.”
Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest said, “1024 Fulton Street has been vacant for decades while Clinton Hill residents were displaced due to rapidly rising rents. I’m proud that my partners in government and I were able to begin the process of redeveloping this key site and ensure a 100 percent affordable development that is responsive to community needs. I look forward to continued collaboration with community members and the administration to ensure that this project can house the future residents of Clinton Hill for decades to come.”
New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson said, “I’m excited that we are finally one step closer to seeing this vacant and neglected state-owned property converted into much-needed affordable housing and community space for older adults. By issuing this RFP and centering 100 percent affordable housing and intergenerational space, it is clear ESD took community demands seriously and is focused on combatting our dual crises of housing affordability and failure to deeply invest in our older adults even though our city’s older adult population will jump fourth percent by 2040. I look forward to continuing to partner with ESD to bring this vital project to reality.”
Advancing Governor Hochul’s Comprehensive Housing Agenda The project builds on the Governor’s bold vision to expand the state’s housing supply through innovative measures such as the Pro-Housing Communities Program and Executive Order 30, which promote barrier-breaking solutions to spur much-needed development. As part of the FY25 Enacted Budget, Governor Hochul secured landmark agreements that include new tax incentives for Upstate communities, targeted relief to create additional housing in New York City, and a $500 million capital fund to develop up to 15,000 new homes on state-owned property. An additional $600 million in statewide funding and new protections for renters and homeowners underscore the Governor’s commitment to affordability and equity.
These efforts build upon the Governor’s FY23 five-year, $25 billion Housing Plan aimed at creating or preserving 100,000 affordable homes — including 10,000 with support services for vulnerable populations—and electrifying an additional 50,000 units. To date, more than 55,000 homes have been created or preserved under this initiative. The FY25 Enacted Budget also strengthened the Pro-Housing Community Program, making Pro Housing Certification a prerequisite for municipalities to access up to $650 million in discretionary funding. Currently, 290 communities have been certified, including New York City — reflecting a growing statewide commitment to addressing New York’s critical housing needs.
Share buyback programme as part of a free share allocation plan
Statement of treasury share transactions completed on 18 March 2025
(Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 on market abuse and Article 3(3) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 with regard to regulatory technical standards for the conditions applicable to buy-back programmes and stabilisation measures).
Name of issuer
Issuer identifier code
Day of transaction
Financial instrument identifier code
Total daily volume (number of shares)
Weighted average daily share acquisition price
Market
Crédit Agricole S.A.
969500TJ5KRTCJQWXH05
Tuesday 18 March 2025
FR0000045072
186838
16.748231
XPAR
Detailed information is available on the Crédit Agricole S.A. website at the following address:
