Wall Street ended lower on Friday as investors assessed economic data and awaited a potential 50-basis point interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve at its policy meeting next week, while apparel company Lululemon slumped following a disappointing profit forecast.

U.S. producer prices rose slightly more than expected in November amid a jump in the costs of services, but the trend is moderating, with annual inflation at the factory gate posting its smallest increase in 1-1/2 years, data showed.

“Today’s data shows that inflation is coming down, but it’s lingering and is stickier than most assume,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Troy, Michigan.
However, in December, consumer sentiment improved, while inflation expectations eased to a 15-month low, a University of Michigan survey showed.

Futures trades suggest a 77% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by 50 basis points next week, with a 23% chance of a 75-basis point hike, with those odds little changed after Friday’s economic data.

Consumer prices data for November, due Tuesday, will provide fresh clues on the central bank’s monetary tightening plans.

Lululemon Athletica Inc (LULU.O) tumbled almost 13% after the Canadian athletic apparel maker forecast lower-than-expected holiday-quarter revenue and profit.

Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) gained 3.1% after Wells Fargo upgraded the video streaming giant to “overweight” from “equal weight”.

The S&P 500 declined 0.73% to end the session at 3,934.38 points.

The Nasdaq declined 0.70% to 11,004.62 points, while Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.90% to 33,476.46 points.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, 10 declined, led lower by energy (.SPNY), down 2.33%, followed by a 1.28% loss in health care (.SPXHC).

The energy index recorded a seventh straight session of losses, its longest losing streak since December 2018, as oil prices looked set for weekly losses on recession concerns.

Wall Street’s main indexes have fallen this week after logging two straight weekly gains. Weighing heavily on investors are fears of a potential recession next year due to extended the central bank’s rate hikes.

For the week, the S&P 500 dropped 3.4%, the Dow lost 2.8% and the Nasdaq shed 4%.

U.S. stocks ended a recent run of losses on Thursday after data showed initial jobless claims rose modestly last week.

Broadcom Inc (AVGO.O) jumped 2.6% after the chipmaker forecast current-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates.

Boeing Co climbed 0.3% after Reuters report the plane maker plans to announce a deal with United Airlines (UAL.O) for orders of 787 Dreamliner next week.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 (.AD.SPX) by a 3.3-to-one ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 5 new highs and 1 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 54 new highs and 213 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 9.9 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 10.9 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to revive a federal law that makes it a criminal offense to encourage illegal immigration after it was struck down by a lower court as a violation of free speech rights.

The justices took up the administration’s appeal of a February ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidating the law for infringing on rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

The 9th Circuit’s ruling threw out part of the conviction of a California man, Helaman Hansen, who had been prosecuted under the law.

The dispute is similar to one that the Supreme Court heard, but did not resolve, in 2020.

The federal government accused Hansen of deceiving undocumented immigrants between 2012 and 2016 by promising them that they could gain U.S. citizenship through an “adult adoption” program operated by his Sacramento-based business, Americans Helping America Chamber of Commerce.

The government said Hansen persuaded at least 471 people to join his program, charging them each up to $10,000 even though he “knew that the adult adoptions that he touted would not lead to U.S. citizenship.”

Hansen was convicted in 2017 of violating provisions of the federal law that bars inducing or encouraging noncitizens “to come to, enter, or reside” in the United States illegally, as well as mail fraud and wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

On appeal, the 9th Circuit in February ruled that the encouragement law is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and criminalizes even commonplace speech that is protected by the First Amendment, such as telling undocumented immigrants, “I encourage you to reside in the United States,” or advising them about available social services.

The 9th Circuit upheld Hansen’s other convictions and ordered that he be resentenced.

Biden’s administration urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, faulting the appeals court for invalidating an “important tool for combating activities that exacerbate unlawful immigration.”

The case will be heard during the court’s current term, with a ruling due by June 2023.

TC Energy (TRP.TO) said on Friday it is evaluating plans to return its Keystone pipeline to service after it leaked 14,000 barrels of oil into a Kansas creek, the largest crude spill in the United States in nearly a decade.

TC Energy on Wednesday evening shut down the key artery that flows 622,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day (bpd) to various parts of the United States after the Calgary-based company detected the leak.

Crews in Kansas continued clean-up efforts on Friday from the breach, the cause of which remained unknown. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it expects oil removal activities to extend into next week.

“We’re beginning to get a better sense of the clean up efforts that will need to be undertaken in the longer-term,” said Kellen Ashford, spokesperson for the EPA Region 7, which includes Kansas.

TC Energy was expected to restart flows on the segment of the pipeline extending to Patoka, Illinois, Bloomberg News reported earlier, citing sources. The company also planned to restart additional sections as soon as Dec. 20, Bloomberg reported. Reuters has not verified those details.

This is the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the pipeline since it first opened in 2010. A previous Keystone spill had caused the pipeline to remain shut for about two weeks.

TC Energy remained on site with around 100 workers leading the clean-up and containment efforts, and the EPA was providing oversight and monitoring, Ashford said. TC is responsible for determining the cause of the leak.

A corrective action order from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) to TC on Thursday said the company shut the pipeline down seven minutes after receiving a leak detection alarm. The affected segment, 36 inches (91 cm) in diameter, was Keystone’s Phase 2 extension to Cushing, Oklahoma, built in 2011.

Washington County, a rural area of about 5,500 people, is about 200 miles (320 km) northwest of Kansas City.

The oil spill has not threatened the local water supply or forced local residents to evacuate, Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Randy Hubbard told Reuters. Workers quickly set up a containment area to restrict oil that had spilled into a creek from flowing downstream.

“There is no human consumption drinking water that would come out of this,” Hubbard said.

Livestock producers in the area have been notified and have taken their own corrective measure to protect their animals, he added.

The EPA is the main federal agency that oversees inland oil spills. If the EPA finds TC Energy liable for the spill, the company would be responsible for the cost of cleanup and repairing any harm to the environment, as well as potential civil and criminal penalties.

Pipeline operators are typically held accountable for breaches by the EPA through the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the related Oil Pollution Act, among others, according to Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College Law School.

Those federal acts restrict the discharge of pollutants such as oil into waterways and hold pipeline operators responsible for the costs associated with containment, cleanup and damages from spills.

The outage on the largest oil pipeline to the United States from Canada could affect inventories at the key Cushing storage hub and cut crude supplies to two oil refining centers, analysts said.

A lengthy shutdown of the pipeline could also lead to Canadian crude getting bottlenecked in Alberta, and drive prices at the Hardisty storage hub lower, although price reaction on Friday was muted.

Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark Canadian heavy grade, for December delivery last traded at a discount of $27.70 per barrel to the U.S crude futures benchmark, according to a Calgary-based broker. On Thursday, December WCS traded as low as $33.50 under U.S. crude, before settling at around a $28.45 discount.

PHMSA has to approve the restart of the line. Even once the pipeline starts operating again, the affected area will have to flow at reduced rates pending PHMSA approval.

“The real impact could come if Keystone faces any pressure restrictions from PHMSA, even after the pipeline is allowed to resume operations,” said Ryan Saxton, head of oil data at Wood Mackenzie.

Antisemitic hate crimes rose yet again in the United States’ most populous county in 2021, according to a new report published earlier this week.

The annual Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations Hate Crime report showed that 81 crimes targeted Jews last year, up from 76 in 2020.

Among religious groups, Jews were by far the most targeted. Of the reported 111 hate crimes based on religion in 2021, 74% were committed against Jews.

The next most targeted religious group was Catholics, who were the victims of 20 hate crimes. Another 10 were committed against Muslims.

The report noted that the number of hate crimes is likely underreported, since many people don’t come forward for fear of retaliation, linguistic or cultural isolation, unfamiliarity with the justice system or negative experiences with law enforcement.

Jeffrey Abrams, director of the Los Angeles branch of the Anti-Defamation League — one of the groups involved in compiling the report’s data — called the increase in antisemitic acts “startling” and said there’s reason to believe the uptick continued into 2022.

Given preliminary data, “we’re expecting another record-setting year,” he said.

While statistics for 2022 are not yet available, the city of Los Angeles was the site of several notable antisemitic events over the past year. In October alone, a group flew banners over a highway stating “Kanye West was right about the Jews,” a reference to the torrent of anti-Jewish statements and social media posts in recent weeks from the rapper, who is now known as Ye, and several billboards were vandalized with stickers bearing antisemitic slogans.

Longer trendlines

Total hate crimes rose from 641 reported incidents in 2020 to 786 in 2021, the most since 2002.The report noted that hate crimes hit reported lows in 2013 followed by a gradual increase, but shot up dramatically in the lead-up to the 2020 election. But the 2020 edition of the report, which covered the pandemic shutdown that kept many Americans indoors, showed antisemitic incidents actually declined from the previous year.

Abrams warned against trying to pin the rise’s cause on any single person or event but said, broadly speaking, that antisemitism tends to rise in times of social and economic unrest — a trend exacerbated in recent years by social media as well as the emergence of vocally antisemitic celebrities and internet influencers.

Over half the crimes against religious groups involved vandalism or intimidation, while 30% involved simple or aggravated assault. The report noted that because many of the crimes against religious groups were incidents like spray-painted swastikas, arrests were relatively rare because it is difficult to catch perpetrators.

Despite the rise in antisemitic crimes, the report showed the number of incidents involving white supremacist symbols or slogans fell from 119 to 96. Jews were the group most often targeted in those cases.

The report also included two incidents in which groups evoked the name of former President Donald Trump: one in which a Black woman was physically assaulted and called slurs by a group of Trump supporters chanting “White lives matter” and one in which a man attacked a street vendor.

In 2020, Trump’s name was invoked in seven reported hate crimes.

Despite the grim picture, Abrams said there was still cause for optimism.

“I think the reason for hope is that there are more people with good grace than there are people spreading hatred,” he said. “And what is also happening in this frightening time is that people are using their voice.”

The Commission on Human Relations did not reply to a request for comment.

The post Report shows more hate crimes against Los Angeles Jews appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Before becoming one of the most iconic vocal performers of her time, appearing in Broadway shows such as “Rent” and “Wicked” and voicing Queen Elsa in “Frozen,” Idina Menzel got her start singing as a teenager on the wedding and bar and bat mitzvah circuit near where she grew up on Long Island and other parts of the New York area.

“It was everything to me, formatively,” Menzel told JTA in an interview, of her early singing experiences. “I believe… that that had a lot to do with my education in music and genres, but also as a performer. I was so young when I did it… I would lie about my age, I would be 15 or 16 years old and I’d dress all mature and go in in high heels. I would usually be the only woman in a group of six guys.” 

In the new documentary “Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage,” which had its world premiere in mid-November at the DOC NYC film festival and lands on Disney+ on Friday, Menzel discusses those experiences, even returning to the main venue where she used to perform at weddings and bar mitzvahs (the Inn at Fox Hollow in Woodbury, New York). The film also shows Menzel in Pittsburgh in the immediate aftermath of the Tree of Life massacre and shows her sharing her thoughts on it as a Jewish person. 

The film, directed by Anne McCabe, follows Menzel’s 2018 arena tour, along with Josh Groban, which culminated in Menzel fulfilling her lifelong dream of headlining Madison Square Garden. It combines concerts with intimate behind-the-scenes moments, as well as archival footage from Menzel’s early life and throughout her career. 

“When I heard that the tour was going to culminate at Madison Square Garden, I realized that it was a dream come true — it was a place that I’d always wanted to play, growing up on Long Island, and living in New York City, at NYU and beyond that,” Menzel said. “The fact that I was going to be playing there was a big deal, and I wanted to film it, no matter what I did with the footage, I know I just wanted to document it for myself, so I could take that in and really just appreciate the moment.” 

As is often the case with documentaries, the film evolved a bit from its original purpose. 

“In the process of filming it… it revealed itself in a different way. It became not just a tour documentary going city to city, but more about motherhood, and how we balance trying to pursue our passion and our dreams and also being there for our family,” she said. “That was a welcome surprise in the process.” 

The documentary shows Menzel with her then-preteen son — from her previous marriage to Taye Diggs — and her husband, actor Aaron Lohr, while going through the process of in vitro fertilization. 

The tour that the film follows arrived in Pittsburgh about two weeks after the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre, and Menzel is shown singing the “Rent” number “No Day But Today” to a crowd at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena. (Menzel more recently wrote and performed a song called “A Tree of Life,” which was featured in the closing credits of a recent HBO documentary about the tragedy and its aftermath.)

In that part of the film, Menzel wears a shirt with a Jewish star that says “Stronger Than Hate.” 

“That show was all about tolerance,” Menzel says of “Rent” in the film, while on stage in Pittsburgh. “It was about love, it was about community… I’m sitting here in this beautiful city, a Jewish girl from Long Island. I thought about how we light candles in the Jewish religion, sort of choosing light over darkness, choosing love over bigotry.” 

“That particular concert is now tragically defined but what had happened in Pittsburgh, and I felt like I couldn’t ignore that, and I felt like that song was the right song for the moment, and that there was any way I could use my music to help heel then I wanted to do it,” she told JTA. 

The documentary also looks back at Menzel’s entire career, from breaking through in the original production of “Rent” in the mid-1990s (the “which way to the stage” subtitle, as “Rent”-heads will know, is a reference to what was Menzel’s very first line in that musical), to an ill-fated run at a pop career, to her second big musical smash, “Wicked,” which landed on Broadway in 2003. Viewers also get the story of the “Frozen” phenomenon and its Menzel-performed torch song “Let it Go,” as well as other notable episodes — such as the time John Travolta mispronounced her name at the Oscars in 2014. (Menzel finds the whole thing hilarious.) 

The COVID-19 pandemic was not the only obstacle in getting the documentary, which was mostly filmed four years ago, to the finish line. Menzel said in a post-screening Q&A at DOC NYC that because the documentary ended up on Disney+ and she is the voice of Queen Elsa, some curse words had to be taken out, as did a scene where she clutches a bottle of wine. 

“I lost the funding at one point, and so I bought [the film] back,” Menzel said. “I wanted to find people that really believed in it and were going to creatively do right by it. I gambled on myself, which I try to do, and try to make a point of it. I’m just so happy that it’s come to fruition.” 

The singer has spoken often about her admiration for another prominent Jewish singer and actress, Barbra Streisand. In her JTA interview, she praised the way Streisand “embraces her Judaism.” In the film, Menzel sings “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from “Funny Girl, the 1968 movie version that starred Streisand. 

“I love her because she’s her. There’s no one else like her, and always aspired to be her unique true self. She didn’t change herself for anyone else. I also feel like, from a vocalist’s perspective, her talent is insurmountable. The way she sings, it feels like it’s just coming directly from her soul, it feels effortless. The way she tells the story through her singing, that I don’t think anyone else has.” 

Menzel’s career is about to come full circle, with another bar/bat mitzvah-related performance: she is set to co-star in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” a Netflix movie adapted from the young adult novel by Fiona Rosenbloom and directed by Sammi Cohen. The film will reunite Menzel with Adam Sandler, who played her husband in 2019’s “Uncut Gems” and will do so again in the new movie. (Menzel also brought up her character’s bat mitzvah in that very Jewish-themed film by the Safdie brothers.)

“We were much more dysfunctional in that movie,” Menzel said of “Uncut Gems”. 

“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” does not have a release date but is expected to arrive sometime in 2023. For now, she’s reveling in the documentary. 

“It was just such a joy because I got to look back on it… I got to see myself as a little girl again,” Menzel said. “How I always believed in myself, even more so than maybe I do now. There was no one who was going to tell me that I wasn’t going to live my dream one day. I believed that I had something to offer the world, and so it was really emotional for me to see.” 

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Documentary traces Idina Menzel’s rise from bat mitzvah performer to Broadway icon appeared first on The Forward.

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on dozens of people and entities over alleged rights abuses, including Russia’s Central Election Commission, Iranian officials and Chinese nationals.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it imposed sanctions on Li Zhenyu and Zhuo Xinrong, both Chinese nationals, and 10 entities linked to the two, including Nasdaq-listed Pingtan Marine Enterprise (PME) (PME.O), over what Washington says are human rights abuses tied to China-based illegal fishing.

The designation of PME marks the first time the U.S. has imposed sanctions on an entity listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

PME, its founder Zhuo, and another of the sanctioned companies, Dalian Ocean Fishing Co, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Washington also targeted 157 China-flagged fishing vessels linked to the sanctioned entities, it said.

President Joe Biden in June signed a national security memorandum to fight illegal fishing, part of pledged efforts to help countries combat alleged violations by fishing fleets, including those of China.

Countries around the world chafe at China’s fishing practices, arguing its vessels often violate their 200-nautical-mile (370-km) exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and cause environmental damage and economic losses.

Rights advocates say illegal fishing can be tied to other illicit activities, such as human trafficking and forced labor, due to weak enforcement across international jurisdictions.

“These designations demonstrate how seriously we take the problem of illicit fishing and our commitment to holding the perpetrators of serious human rights abuses to account,” the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement.

China says it is a responsible fishing country that has been cooperating internationally to clamp down on illegal fishing, and that it fishes in relevant EEZs according to bilateral agreements.

The country’s embassy in Washington condemned the United States for “pointing fingers at other countries and imposing unilateral sanctions under the pretext of human rights.”

“The U.S. is in no position to impose unwarranted sanctions on other countries or act as a world policeman,” embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said.

The Treasury issued a general license authorizing U.S. persons to engage in certain transactions related to debt or equity of PME until March 9.

The stock closed Thursday at 65.7 cents a share and was subject to a trading halt on Friday following Treasury’s sanctions announcement.

PME’s market value is less than $60 million, making it a small stock, and there was no indication the move to sanction the company had a wide impact on Friday trading.

In separate action, the Treasury also designated 40 individuals and entities connected to alleged human rights abuse or corruption across nine countries, including Russia, China and Iran.

Washington imposed sanctions on Russia’s Central Election Commission, accusing it of helping to oversee and monitor what the United States said are “sham referendums” held in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine, as well as 15 of its members.

The Treasury also took action against four people it accused of being directly involved in Russia’s filtration operations. The State Department designated two Russian nationals over alleged human rights abuse against Ukrainian civilians.

Russia has been accused of numerous war crimes since its invasion of Ukraine in February, including by operating a system of so-called filtration camps to move Ukrainians in occupied areas into Russia.

Russia has denied the allegations and accused Ukraine and its backers in the West of a smear campaign.

The Treasury also slapped sanctions on two Chinese officials it accused of serious human rights abuses in China’s Tibet region: Wu Yingjie, the Chinese Communist Party chief in Tibet between 2016 and 2021, and Zhang Hongbo, a senior public security official in the region.

Chinese authorities have been accused of harsh policies to quell ethnic dissent and control religious activities in Tibet – accusations that China dismisses.

Friday’s action also imposed sanctions on Iranian officials over the crackdown on protesters, North Korea’s Ministry of State Security Border Guard General Bureau and Alpha Conde, the former president of Guinea, as well as other people and entities in El Salvador, the Philippines, Mali and Guatemala.

Russia’s embassy in Washington and Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the actions.

Friday’s move freezes any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

Wall Street ended lower on Friday as investors assessed economic data and awaited a potential 50-basis point interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve at its policy meeting next week, while apparel company Lululemon slumped following a disappointing profit forecast.

U.S. producer prices rose slightly more than expected in November amid a jump in the costs of services, but the trend is moderating, with annual inflation at the factory gate posting its smallest increase in 1-1/2 years, data showed.

“Today’s data shows that inflation is coming down, but it’s lingering and is stickier than most assume,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Troy, Michigan.
However, in December, consumer sentiment improved, while inflation expectations eased to a 15-month low, a University of Michigan survey showed.

Futures trades suggest a 77% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by 50 basis points next week, with a 23% chance of a 75-basis point hike, with those odds little changed after Friday’s economic data.

Consumer prices data for November, due Tuesday, will provide fresh clues on the central bank’s monetary tightening plans.

Lululemon Athletica Inc (LULU.O) tumbled almost 13% after the Canadian athletic apparel maker forecast lower-than-expected holiday-quarter revenue and profit.

Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) gained 3.1% after Wells Fargo upgraded the video streaming giant to “overweight” from “equal weight”.

The S&P 500 declined 0.73% to end the session at 3,934.38 points.

The Nasdaq declined 0.70% to 11,004.62 points, while Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.90% to 33,476.46 points.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, 10 declined, led lower by energy (.SPNY), down 2.33%, followed by a 1.28% loss in health care (.SPXHC).

The energy index recorded a seventh straight session of losses, its longest losing streak since December 2018, as oil prices looked set for weekly losses on recession concerns.

Wall Street’s main indexes have fallen this week after logging two straight weekly gains. Weighing heavily on investors are fears of a potential recession next year due to extended the central bank’s rate hikes.

For the week, the S&P 500 dropped 3.4%, the Dow lost 2.8% and the Nasdaq shed 4%.

U.S. stocks ended a recent run of losses on Thursday after data showed initial jobless claims rose modestly last week.

Broadcom Inc (AVGO.O) jumped 2.6% after the chipmaker forecast current-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates.

Boeing Co climbed 0.3% after Reuters report the plane maker plans to announce a deal with United Airlines (UAL.O) for orders of 787 Dreamliner next week.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 (.AD.SPX) by a 3.3-to-one ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 5 new highs and 1 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 54 new highs and 213 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 9.9 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 10.9 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

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