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BREAKING NEWS BRIEF
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Image Source: NBC News
The head of a northern California school board and several of her fellow trustees were caught making disparaging remarks about district parents during a Zoom meeting that was accidentally broadcast to the public. President Lisa Brizendine is heard making critical comments. “They want to pick on us because they want their babysitters back.”
Superintendent Greg Hetrick touted a new technology in a fellow district that curtailed public comments at precisely three minutes, after which others chimed in that “we need that” and “good idea.” Trustee Kim Beede is heard voicing her own opinions before discovering that the meeting was open to the public. The meeting was then switched to private.
Brizendine resigned her position late Thursday, and Hetrick apologized for his statement, “Last night at the Oakley Union Elementary School District Regular Board Meeting there were unfortunate and truly inappropriate comments made that were heard by many. These comments are not typical, and more importantly, they are not what the community should expect from our school district.”
A petition calling for the resignation of the trustees had gained over 5,000 signatures.
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HOW MUCH HAVE YOU BEEN MISSING OUT ON?
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YOUR MORNING MARKET UPDATE
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In an interview earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that investors should be extra careful in certain sectors of the stock market, though she was kind of cryptic about which sectors, exactly, she was describing.
“Well, partly we’re in a very low interest rate environment, and while valuations are very high, in a world of very low interest rates, price-earnings, tight multiples tend to be high. That said there, you know, may be sectors … where we should be very careful,” she said.
“I think it’s important to make sure that it is not used as a vehicle for illicit transactions and that there’s investor protection,” she said of the cryptocurrency. “And so regulating institutions that deal in Bitcoin, making sure that they adhere to their regulatory responsibilities, I think is certainly important.”
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More Market Updates
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WEEKEND WEATHER UPDATE
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Image Source: Weather.com
An active winter weather pattern will continue into next week, but the good news is that the next system is not expected to be a major winter storm.
Then the next system will push into the central U.S. by Sunday. This low-pressure system will track eastward across the Midwest into the Northeast early next week.
Unlike other recent systems, this next one isn’t expected to strengthen into a major winter storm and milder conditions will result in snow being confined to areas farther north, with rain to the south.
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BUDGETING AND SAVING
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The Venmo mobile payments app will be looking very different this year as it starts to add expansions in budgeting, saving, and crypto. PayPal, Venmo’s parent company, will also be working to integrate its $4 billion Honey acquisition into the mix.
Other changes to Venmo make the app sound as if it’s becoming more of a neobank competitor.
For example, PayPal said it will work with its financial industry partners this year to introduce features like budgeting and saving tools as well as bill pay options inside PayPal — additions that are common to modern-day mobile banking apps.
Venmo has been rapidly expanding beyond being just a payments app. In recent months, it has launched its first credit card, which will be 100% rolled out by month-end, as well as QR codes for in-store shopping, business profiles, and cash-checking features that arrived just in time to handle customers’ stimulus checks.
As Venmo’s new features roll out, PayPal expects the app’s usage and payment volume to grow.
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More Budgeting And Saving Tips
3 money habits from the pandemic era to continue using even after it ends
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WORLD NEWS
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Image Source: Public Intelligence
The Biden administration is conducting a formal review of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The prison was established by former President George W. Bush in 2002 to house foreign terror suspects following 9/11.
Nearly 800 men have been held at Gitmo, but only seven have actually been convicted of their crimes.
President Biden intends to close the prison by the end of his first term in 2024, reviving an Obama-era goal that never came to fruition. This also goes against an executive order to keep the detention center open indefinitely signed by Trump in 2018.
Rumors and concerns of abuse and inhumane treatment have surrounded the facility since its inception.
Now the question is: where will the current prisoners be sent and what will become of the detention center?
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Stay Informed,
Rex Jackson
P.S. Know someone who’d love the Brief Updates? Be sure to send them to this link so they can get signed up: BriefUpdates.com
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