Cordoned-off roads, a sweltering courtroom and numerous delays marked Sam Bankman-Fried’s first in-person public appearance since his crypto company collapsed.

The Bahamas courtroom hearing, conducted over the course of six hours, saw Bankman-Fried, dressed in a suit rather than his typical t-shirt attire, seeking bail to dispute his extradition to the U.S. He was ultimately refused and faces possible extradition to the United States.

It was a stunning fall from grace for the crypto boss, once estimated by Forbes as worth as much as $26.5 billion.

“I’m not waiving,” Bankman-Fried said when asked if he would seek to waive his right to an extradition hearing.

It was a rare comment in a hearing that was largely taken up with lawyers discussing process. In another comment, Bankman-Fried referred to the night of his arrest as “hectic.”

There was high anticipation ahead of the appearance by Bankman-Fried, who has done numerous media interviews since his firm collapsed but not been widely seen in public.

The day started with Bankman-Fried ushered into court away from the main entrance and photographers and reporters who crowded to get a shot.

Bahamas Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson-Pratt contributed witty asides that often left the courtroom chuckling, once quipping “I wasn’t born yesterday” at the defense counsel’s interpretation of the law.

Ferguson-Pratt’s repeatedly forgetting the defendant’s last name led to laughter.

“Samuel,” she said before trailing off, with the once-billionaire crypto magnate reminding her of his name: “Bankman-Fried.”

People in the courtroom fanned themselves to keep cool in the tropical heat as sun shone through the windows.

The hearing was adjourned twice, once to consult about the court’s jurisdiction to grant bail, and again in the afternoon.

It also included an extensive discussion of Bankman-Fried’s medication, which his lawyer said was for conditions including depression, insomnia and attention deficit disorder.

At the start of the proceedings, Bankman-Fried asked to change an Emsam patch, a medical strip applied to the skin that is used to treat adult depression. He asked to briefly leave the court room to take the medication.

Bankman-Fried acknowledged that he had not taken his medications with him when he was arrested, which he attributed to having had a “hectic night”.

His parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, at times seemed frustrated with the arguments made by the prosecution, which described him as a flight risk.

Bankman-Fried’s defense counsel pointed out that Bankman-Fried had spent weeks in The Bahamas after his business collapsed without attempting to leave the country.

At the end of the hearing, his head lowered, he hugged his parents. A van outside the court waited to take him away.

A week after China began dismantling its tough ‘zero-COVID’ controls, the World Health Organization warned of “very tough” times ahead and state media reported some seriously ill patients at hospitals in Beijing, raising fears of a wave of infections.

China last Wednesday announced sweeping changes to testing and quarantine rules, aligning with a world that has largely reopened, after historic protests against mass lockdowns that caused mental strain for millions but kept the virus in check.

The elation that met those changes has quickly faded amid mounting signs that China may pay a price for shielding a population that lacks “herd immunity” and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

“It’s always very difficult for any country coming out of a situation where you’ve had very, very tight controls,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, adding that China faced a “very tough and difficult time.”

The WHO typically refrains from commenting on individual countries’ policies, although agency Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did say in May that China’s previous COVID regime was not sustainable.

Official COVID case counts in China have been trending lower in recent weeks, but that has coincided with a drop in testing and is increasingly at odds with the situation on the ground, analysts say.

There were 50 severe and critical cases in hospitals in Beijing, most of whom have underlying health conditions, state news agency Xinhua reported late Tuesday. Such numbers are small considering China’s 1.4 billion population, but there are growing fears that hospitals could soon become flooded with cases.

Amid the uncertainty, Chinese leaders have reportedly delayed a key economic policy meeting, which had been set to map out much-needed stimulus for the world’s second largest economy.

A Bloomberg News report on Tuesday night, citing people familiar with the matter, said the meeting had been delayed and there was no timetable for rescheduling.

Policy insiders and business analysts said the leadership was expected to map out further stimulus steps and discuss growth targets in the annual three-day session.

Economists estimate that China’s growth has slowed to around 3% this year, far below the official target of around 5.5%, marking one of the worst performances in almost half a century.

The International Monetary Fund warned in November of a possible downgrade to China’s GDP. It’s chief Kristalina Georgieva said that was now “very likely” after a recent COVID-19 surge, AFP news agency reported on Tuesday.

In the three years since the pandemic erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, China’s has reported just 5,235 COVID-related deaths – a tiny fraction of its population, and extremely low by global standards.

Its last fatalities were reported on Dec. 3, before the country started the loosening of curbs.

China’s National Health Commission on Wednesday said it would stop reporting new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections as many no longer participate in testing, making it hard to accurately tally the total count.

The NHC also said it would roll out the second COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for high-risk groups and elderly people over 60 years old.

Long queues outside fever clinics, buildings attached to hospitals that screen for infectious diseases in mainland China, have been a common sight in Beijing and other cities in recent days.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees China’s COVID efforts, called for more fever clinics to be set up and better protection for vulnerable people during an inspection of Beijing’s healthcare facilities, Xinhua reported.

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Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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Hebrew Israelite groups have been making headlines thanks to Kanye West, Kyrie Irving and their antisemitism controversies. News outlets and advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League have published primers describing the groups, which vary widely in their origins, beliefs, and practices. But few of these explainers are shaped by Black scholars who study these movements or by Hebrew Israelites themselves. 

That’s why we decided to delve deeply into the subject with two Black experts: Bruce Haynes, a professor of sociology at the University of California Davis, and author of The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America; and Walter Isaac, a faculty member at the University of Tennessee Knoxville who has written extensively on Afro-Jewish Studies, including a seminal article in Blackwell’s A Companion to African-American Studies. Isaac is a practicing Hebrew Israelite and was ordained as a universalist rabbi through the online Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute in 2016. 

Below, they answer some critical questions about Israelites’ backgrounds and beliefs, and reflect on public misconceptions.

Robin Washington:  There are many myths and misconceptions about Hebrew Israelites. Where do you think they come from?

Bruce Haynes: The media and internet are major sources of confusion and misinformation.

Walter Isaac: They come from the writings of various scholars, most of whom didn’t grow up in an Israelite family or weren’t practicing members of any Israelite community. And so our stories are not the stories they tell.  My story is not their story.

What’s wrong with the phrase “Black Hebrew Israelites”?

Haynes: “Black Hebrew Israelite” is a term that conflates many different groups that hold wildly different beliefs and practices. Some adhere to rabbinic practices and some may believe that white-skinned Jews are impostors or say that all Black people are really Jews. Also, not all members are Black. Many are Latinx and some are white.

Isaac: Racializing African Hebrews has a very problematic history. As far back as the late 1600s, Europeans accused our ancestors of heresy, criminality and ritual impurity by labeling us “Black Jews,” “Mulatto Jews,” “Joden kleurlingen” (or “Jews of color”), etc. The “Black Israelite” label shows up at least a century ago, and it’s used by white scholars such as Ruth Landes, Howard Brotz and Israel Gerber, who portrayed nonwhite Jews as psychologically compromised. The stereotype has remained ever since. 

Bruce Haynes Courtesy of Bruce Haynes

Haynes: Also, Black religious bodies generally use geographic places in their names, not race. Examples are the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, New York’s Abyssinian Baptist Church and Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, which has Israelite roots. 

When were Hebrew Israelite congregations founded?

Haynes: It depends what you mean by “Hebrew Israelite.” Some of the people who today identify as Hebrew Israelite have Jewish roots that date back to slavery in the Caribbean and South America. A few Hebrew Israelites have roots in Ethiopia. Some enslaved Africans who had been converted to Christianity but who strongly identified with Moses and the Exodus story’s promise of redemption from slavery may have also chosen to embrace Hebraic practices. 

I’ve read that Hebrew Israelites began with the founding of the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 in Lawrence, Kansas. Is that right?

Isaac: No, not at all. Our communities are diverse and some trace themselves back to African Hebrew communities that are thousands of years old. But if you are asking when the earliest such American communities began, then I would say our communities began the moment African Hebrews arrived in the hemisphere – probably in the 1600s. 

Not all members are Black. Many are Latinx and some are white.

How many Hebrew Israelites are there?

Haynes: A recent study that’s been quoted in the media said that 4% of African Americans identify as Hebrew Israelite. However, that study had a margin of error of 3.6%. Looking further back, the 2007 Religious Landscape Study conducted by Pew found that less than .05% of respondents self-identified as members of “Hebrew Israelite” communities. That means more African Americans self-identified as either Mormon, Rastafarian or a part of Conservative Judaism than as Hebrew Israelite.

Walter Isaac, holding Torah, is congratulated by Rabbi Monte Sugarman as he becomes the 100th rabbi ordained by the Jewish Spiritual Leadership Institute in 2016. Courtesy of Walter Isaac

Isaac: As for surveys, public admission as a Hebrew Israelite is a poor way to measure our population. In the current environment, I think few people will admit to being Hebrew Israelite if they know others associate it with criminality. Plus, several Israelite denominations headquartered in the United States have many more affiliated congregations in Africa.  It’s probably better to count the congregations. I have visited at least 70 or 80, and I am aware of at least 100 more. 

Some of the groups around today have Christ in their name, like Israel United in Christ, which staged a march to New York’s Barclays Center recently. How can they be Jewish if they worship Jesus?

Isaac: Not all do, and worship is probably not the right word. Adherents of African American religions often use the same words as Europeans while meaning something different. 

There’s a world of difference, for example, between the “Holy Spirit” of European Christianity and the “Holy Ghost” in Afro-Christian congregations. Also, in our communities, the deification of Jesus is usually rejected and “Christ” often means something very different from “Jesus.” The two are not necessarily the same. 

To acknowledge that there were Black Jews in Africa in antiquity, or that some Africans became Jewish as a result of the transatlantic slave trade in places like Suriname is not antisemitic.

Why do they call themselves Hebrews instead of Jews?

Isaac: Historically, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the terms “Hebrew” and “Israelite” were more commonly used in reference to Jewish communities in general. Think of the old UAHC acronym for Reform Judaism. It stood for “Union of American Hebrew Congregations.” The term “Jewish” grew in popularity in the 20th century.

Haynes: Clearly at some point people started using biblical language to negotiate race. When Black and interracial congregations formed, they used the nomenclature that was prevalent at the time, and that was the term Hebrew.

So why do they believe that Blacks are the original Jews?

Haynes: First of all, to suggest that among the ancient Hebrews there were Africans is not in itself antisemitic. To acknowledge that there were Black Jews in Africa in antiquity, or that some Africans became Jewish as a result of the transatlantic slave trade in places like Suriname is not antisemitic. The notion that Jewish traders and military garrisons crisscrossed Central, Southern and West Africa, not just Ethiopia, is pretty well-documented. So clearly some of these people are not just fantasizing about Jewish ancestors.

Isaac: I agree. When African Americans say Black people are the original Jews, the only thing we’re doing is reminding everyone of the dangers of whitewashing history. It’s as if to say to the Western world, “Black lives matter even in Jewish history.” 

Haynes: Also, if some of this ancestry is over-accentuated, then welcome to the human race. What group or nation doesn’t idealize their heroic forebears?

Why do some claim that white Jews are impostors?

Haynes: Not speaking about all, but when you consider that even the most mainstream of Israelites faced constant rejection by the Askenazi community in the 20th century – the Commandment Keeper’s Rabbi Wentworth Matthew was repeatedly rejected admission to the New York Board of Rabbis – it’s easy to see how bitter seeds may have been sown. And that was a rabbinic-practicing group that was open to dialogue. More radical or Afrocentric groups may have adopted an anti-white stance out of these kinds of bitter experiences, leading to a confirmation bias when their actions led to further rejection.

Isaac: You could ask why do some European Jewish people claim that we are impostors? This tradition of white Jews and Black Jews playing tit-for-tat and “talking smack” to each other goes back at least to the mid-1700s when you start seeing Black synagogues being set up, such as in colonial-era Suriname. 

There is an entire area of Jewish law dealing with the treatment of non-Jewish slaves. Our communities started their own congregations because they believed that no real, authentic Judaism could possibly endorse slavery and racial segregation. 

Why do some Hebrew Israelites appear so angry?

Isaac: They’re angry at American racism in general and Jewish racism in particular. The street harassment practiced by some Hebrew Israelite men is wrong, abusive and counterproductive. But that’s another reason why the racial stereotype “Black Hebrew Israelites” should be done away with. It feeds the anger, rather than lessening it. 

Secular Jewish institutions must pivot by teaching that both those African Americans who embrace their Israelite heritage and European Americans of Jewish ancestry have valid claims, as do Black people who follow the European rabbinic tradition.

Haynes: Mutual respect definitely has to be a part of the conversation moving forward. But I agree with you. Regardless of belief, it’s never appropriate to accost passersby on the street corner and attack their identity. One can believe whatever they want so long as it doesn’t harm others. But it’s usually the most vocal public performers who wind up getting the most attention.

Bruce, you’ve written and spoken about Hatzaad Harishon, the effort by largely white congregations in New York in the 1960s to reach out to Israelite communities. It died in the early 1970s and is often described as a failure. Was it?

Haynes: That depends on how you’re measuring success. If the goal was to convert Israelites to rabbinic Judaism, then maybe it did fall short. But even then, what’s the measure of success? Christian missionaries don’t get anywhere near a 100% conversion rate. 

A few of the Israelites from those meetings did choose to convert, some even to Orthodoxy. And relationships were formed following Hatzaad Harishon’s program that took groups of Black kids to Israel, years before Birthright.

OK, so there are many different types of Hebrew Israelites who believe many different things. What do you say to one that is unquestionably antisemitic? Or to someone who denies the Holocaust?

Isaac: Interesting. Few people ask me about how I respond to white Jews who are “unquestionably racist.” But so be it. 

I honestly don’t think I would have anything to say to someone so ignorant as to deny the Holocaust, except the following: I am a proud, born-and-raised, lifelong Hebrew Israelite rabbi from a family spanning at least seven generations in North America alone. Some of my extended family survived the Holocaust in Europe. And from their own mouths, they told me that some of my other relatives did not. 

Editor’s note: The Forward avoids use of the term “Black Hebrew Israelites” out of concern that it inappropriately conflates hate groups with organizations and individuals who condemn their actions, and to avoid any confusion between these movements and Black Jews generally. It is also important to note that Israelite groups are not exclusively Black.

We will use the specific names of groups whenever possible, such as the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem or Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation. As we do in all our coverage, we will strive to refer to sources and subjects the way they refer to themselves.

The post Hebrew Israelites: Facts, myths and reflections appeared first on The Forward.

With Democrats on the brink of losing unilateral control of the federal government, progressives are pushing their party’s leaders to boost funding for the agency that helps guard workers’ rights to organize.

“We need to get this done this Congress, between now and December 31st, because I’m not going to sit here and pretend that a Republican-controlled Congress is going to put this at the top of the docket,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York said at a news conference on Tuesday in front of the Capitol.

The effort to secure a relatively modest budget increase for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) comes at a fraught moment for the labor movement. Earlier this month, President Biden, who promised to be the most pro-union President in American history, signed a bill blocking a strike of rail workers who were threatening to walk off the job over having no paid sick leave. For some labor leaders, boosting the agency’s funding would be a sign Democrats aren’t taking the movement’s support for granted.

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“The fact that we have to have a press conference and draw attention to this issue shows what’s fundamentally wrong,” says Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, whose members held pro-union signs as lawmakers spoke outside the Capitol. “The Democratic Party is not in touch with its roots.”

It’s illegal to retaliate against workers for starting or joining a union. The NLRB is responsible for holding employers who violate labor law accountable and help parties in labor disputes reach settlements. But resolving complaints has often been slow, a situation that labor activists say deters efforts to organize workers.

Read more: The Standoff Between Workers and Their Bosses Is Set To Heat Up in 2023

“If that takes months, and sometimes years, to be resolved, the chilling effect is not just the employer at that point,” says Jimmy Williams, co-chair of the Worker Power Coalition. “It’s the government as well that’s holding them back.”

Williams and other labor advocates argue that the cause of the delays is the NLRB’s lack of funding, which has been capped at just below $275 million since 2014. Thanks to inflation, that money has had to stretch farther and farther. Between 2006 and 2019, the number of full-time staff at the agency dropped by almost 31%. The NLRB warned last month that absent an increase in funding, it would be forced to furlough employees.

As congressional leaders haggle over spending bills that could surpass $1.5 trillion, labor activists are asking for a drop in the bucket. The agency has requested nearly $320 million in funding. Progressive lawmakers and union organizers are pushing for $368 million.

“If we can invest almost a trillion dollars in our military, we can take care of our workers,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York. “We are not upholding the ideals of our Constitution if we do not take care of our workers. We’re faking the funk, we are frauds.”

“What the hell are we doing here if we are not taking care of working-class people?” Bowman asked.

Biden’s decision to block a rail strike earlier this month came after Democrats in Congress failed to find the votes to address the issue at the center of the labor dispute: a lack of paid sick days. While many labor leaders blamed Republicans for putting Biden and the Democrats in a difficult position, others were frustrated that Democrats undermined rail workers over fear of how a strike would affect the economy.

“If we say that we’re going to stand with workers, we have to stand with all workers,” says Erica England, an organizer with Unemployed Workers United who attended Tuesday’s press conference in support of increased NLRB funding.

The clock is ticking down for Democrats and Republicans to fund the government. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, announced late Tuesday that she and leading Senate negotiators had agreed on a topline framework for funding the government through the current fiscal year. Now, it’s up to the appropriations committees to hash out the details.

As lawmakers work to wrap up those delicate negotiations, progressives’ push is complicated by the fact that Democrats can’t pass an omnibus without the support of at least ten Republican senators, most of whom are unlikely to back increased NLRB funding. At Tuesday’s press conference, Rep. Ro Khanna of California said that funding the NLRB needed to be “the highest priority in the omnibus budget,” but it’s unclear whether even negotiators from his own party were treating the issue the same way.

Asked if he would vote against an omnibus bill that didn’t fully fund the agency, Rep. Andy Levin of MIchigan didn’t rule it out, saying that progressives would have to see the full package before they could make such a decision.

Come January, legislative victories like a fully-funded NLRB will be all but impossible, and labor’s strategy will shift toward getting lawmakers on the record through key votes and gearing up for 2024.

“We’re not going to have the support in the United States House of Representatives with Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker,” Williams says. “But we certainly know we can go to 71% of Americans that support unions and try to push a real movement.”

There’s a very real risk of a recession in the next year, which means it would seem like a bad time to send a letter to your boss, saying you think you deserve more respect.

But that’s exactly what Jorie Moss, 34, and a group of professional singers did last week when they asked the Philadelphia Orchestra Association to recognize them as a union so they could negotiate a contract.

A few years ago, it might have been daunting to try and organize a union at an arts organization during a time of economic uncertainty, says Moss, a member of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, which performs a few times a year with the Philadelphia Orchestra. But then, says Moss, who is involved in the organizing effort, the pandemic happened. “The time that we all had to sit in our rooms and think about what we’ve done—I’m talking about the pandemic—gave us a chance to reflect on the fact that these are conditions that we don’t have to stand for, we should be treated better, and we deserve to ask for it,” says Moss, 34.

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It’s been more than a year and a half since waves of labor unrest started sweeping through the country. Thousands of workers have walked off the job for better conditions, and long shot campaigns—like organizing workers at Starbucks coffee shops—have snowballed, leading to a surge of union elections.

Now, the strong labor market that emboldened workers is softening. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7% in November—it had gone as low as 3.5%—–and high-profile tech and media companies have recently cut their payrolls through steep layoffs. But that doesn’t mean workers are losing the upper hand, says Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the MIT Sloan School for Management. If anything, the current economic conditions mean labor strife may accelerate next year.

“I expect what we’ll see is more conflict, more strikes, and more contract rejections,” Kochan says. Workers are still focused on companies’ profits during boom years, he notes, while companies are starting to trim costs to prepare for an economic downturn. “It’s that difference in expectations,” he says, “that creates a higher probability of conflicts and strikes.”

Indeed, workers have staged some of the highest-profile walkouts as economic news has become more grim. A few days after media outlets including CNN and BuzzFeed laid off hundreds of workers, more than 1,100 reporters and editors at the New York Times walked out to protest a lack of progress in contract negotiations. Just after big companies like PepsiCo and Amazon announced white-collar layoffs, about 78,000 pilots, flight attendants, technicians and aircraft dispatchers who work at United Airlines announced on Dec. 7 that their unions had banded together to negotiate because they had “more than earned our fair share of the profits we create.” (In November, 94% of United pilots rejected a tentative agreement with the airline.)

Read More: Some Companies Will Do Just About Anything to Stop Workers From Unionizing

Though companies are jettisoning workers, the job market is still extremely strong, which may be giving workers more confidence. There were 10.3 million jobs open in October, government data show; between 2000 and 2020, by contrast, there were, on average, about 4.6 million job openings in October. Around 58% of Americans said they thought they’d be able to find a new job if they lost their current one, the highest rate since Feb. 2020, according to the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations, released Dec. 12.

Isabela Burrows, 20, has pushed for changes like higher wages, more consistent scheduling, and better standards for pet care at her employer, PetSmart. She knows that her activism with the labor group United for Respect isn’t making her bosses happy, but she isn’t too worried. Her brother died suddenly last year and PetSmart told her there was no time for grieving at work, she says.

“Caring about what PetSmart may or may not do – I don’t have the mental capacity for it,” she says. If she gets laid off, she says, “I’ll go find another job, there’s plenty.”

The series of organizing campaigns at airports, coffee shops, newsrooms and warehouses has had a bigger impact than just establishing small bargaining units, many of which have not been able to secure contracts with employers. That labor action appears to have energized workers at long-established unions who had given up big concessions in past economic downturns. Members of both the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, both of whom agreed to two-tier wage structures before the pandemic, have chosen more militant leaders in recent elections, for example.

“There’s been a sense among members and among labor in general that we’ve had this pattern of unions making concessions in downturns to help employers weather the storm, and then workers don’t benefit when we get to the next period of growth,” says Todd Vachon, a labor professor at Rutgers.

What’s different now than in past downturns is the changing demographics that are leaving employers short-staffed. Baby Boomers who had stayed in the workforce until the pandemic have left en masse in recent years, while the immigration rate slowed in 2020 and has not recovered. Between 2026 and 2036, the U.S. will see its workforce shrink by 3.2%, which means “workers will have more power to demand changes,” according to a recent report on workplace trends by economists from Indeed and Glassdoor.

The changes that many workers want seem to revolve around more than just wages. Moss, the choir member, says that she and other workers have no predictability for when they’ll be asked to work and how much they’ll earn from one season to another. Lack of control over their schedule—specifically inability to take sick days when they needed them— was also what motivated four freight rail unions in November to vote down a contract brokered with their employers.

Read More: He Came Out of Nowhere and Humbled Amazon. Could Chris Smalls Be the Future of Labor?

That’s also a point of contention among many UPS drivers, like Antoine Andrews, who has worked for UPS for 26 years. Andrews, a Teamster who drives a package truck in Brooklyn, says he’s sick of getting “harassed” by managers for not finishing his route quickly enough. When he started working at UPS, he says, fellow drivers told him that theirs was a job with a start time but not a finish time—they’d be home whenever all the packages were delivered. The pandemic helped him realize that workers in other fields didn’t sacrifice their family time for their jobs.

“We want to be able to balance work and enjoy our families,” he says. “There are people employed with UPS who didn’t have the opportunity to see their kids grow up.”

Many of these issues will come to a head in 2023 as big union contracts expire. The United Auto Workers will be seeking a new contract with the Big Three—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the group that now runs Chrysler. The Writer’s Guild, which represents many working TV and film writers, has a current contract that expires next May. And the largest private-sector collective bargaining contract in the country, between the Teamsters and UPS, expires on July 31.

The Teamsters’ negotiations, which cover more than 240,000 UPS workers, may shed light on whether labor will be able to keep the upper hand going into a recession. UPS is facing pressure to cut costs as the economy slows, while workers like Andrews say they’re willing to go on strike to get what they think they deserve.

In Nov. 2021, the Teamsters elected a new leader, Sean O’Brien, who beat out a successor hand-picked by James P. Hoffa, who had run the Teamsters for 24 years. O’Brien, who took office in March, has said repeatedly that he’s not afraid to lead workers into a strike if contract negotiations don’t lead to improved conditions for drivers.

The last UPS strike, in 1997, was widely seen as a victory for workers, says Joseph McCartin, a professor of labor history at Georgetown University. Now, the stakes are even higher. Since 1979, he says, workers have gotten more productive but their compensation has not kept pace as investors push public companies for more efficiencies.

Labor hasn’t won many battles since the day that President Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers for striking in 1981. What happens between UPS and the Teamsters in 2023 “is going to help set the tone for other things,” he says. “This is going to be a key standoff for organized labor in the private sector economy in 2023.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is facing an eight-count federal indictment that could see him sentenced to up to 115 years in prison if he is convicted and given the maximum sentence.

That the 30-year-old, who was the public face of the crypto industry, is at risk of spending the rest of his life in prison underscores the seriousness of the charges levied against him by prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

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“My sense is he’s going to face some pretty serious time here,” says Nick Akerman, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted white-collar crime for the Southern District of New York.

Akerman predicts a 10-year sentence, if not significantly more—but that it could vary based on the details revealed later in the investigation. Akerman is not involved in the case, but his assessment is based on the allegations in the public indictment.

Bankman-Fried faces charges of: wire fraud on customers and lenders, conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud, one count of money laundering, one count related to campaign finance laws.

A conviction for a single count of wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to federal statute.

The federal case, unsealed on Tuesday, alleges that Bankman-Fried duped both customers and investors to funnel billions of dollars into his other ventures, including his trading firm, Alameda Research, and that he was heavily responsible for FTX’s collapse.

Bankman-Fried resigned from his position at FTX in November when the company filed for bankruptcy protection. Lawyers have estimated that the company owes money to more than one million people and organizations. Its top 50 creditors alone are owed $3.1 billion.

Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges Bankman-Fried misled investors and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also charged him with fraud.

Bankman-Fried has said in public statements, including in congressional testimony he was planning to give Tuesday—the day after his arrest—that he was unaware of the extent of the problems and that he did not mean to commingle customer funds with Alemeda’s investments.

Akerman says the scale of the alleged crime—a multibillion-dollar fraud committed against customers and lenders across multiple years—will contribute to the length of any prison sentence Bankman-Fried gets if prosecutors can prove their case.

Akerman explains that Tuesday’s indictment was fairly “bare bones,” but that there will probably be a superseding indictment in the future that will name co-conspirators and further details. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ackerman predicts. “There’s a lot of people involved in this thing.”

Bankman-Fried is, of course, deemed innocent unless he is convicted. And there are signs he is already preparing a robust legal defense. His parents, both law professors at Stanford University, have been with Bankman-Fried since November and attended his initial hearing Tuesday in the Bahamas.

Asian stocks rose on Wednesday, bonds were firm and the dollar nursed losses after data showed U.S. consumer prices barely rose in November, stoking hopes that inflation has peaked and interest rate increases will slow and eventually stop in 2023.

Nervousness about policymakers’ next moves, though, kept the mood in check ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting later in the day and central bank meetings in Britain and Europe on Thursday. Investors are also turning watchful on China’s reopening.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 0.6%. Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.7%.

Overnight Wall Street surged, before paring gains to leave the S&P 500 (.SPX) up 0.7% at the close. The dollar, which is falling from 20-year highs as U.S. interest rate expectations retreat, dropped broadly and sharply, while bonds rallied.

“Equities whittled their gains in the session,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore, as investors chewed over some of the details in the inflation data and turned their focus to the Fed decision due at 1900 GMT.

“I suspect it was a bit of ‘hang on, guys,’ – next up is the (Fed) and maybe we want to take some profit and keep our positions trim.”

The U.S. consumer price index increased 0.1% last month, 0.2 percentage points slower than economists expected, and in the 12 months through November, headline CPI climbed 7.1% – its slowest pace in about a year.

The S&P 500 was up nearly 2.8% at one stage, while the Nasdaq (.IXIC) rose as much as 3.8% before closing 1% higher. S&P 500 futures rose about 0.2% in Asia.

The yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries fell 11 basis points overnight and was steady at 3.4975% in early Asia trade. Two-year yields , which track short-term interest rate expectations, fell 17.4 bps.

The U.S. dollar fell 1.5% against the yen after the inflation data and was steady at 135.58 yen in Asia. The U.S. dollar index fell to a six-month low of 103.57, before steadying at 104.01. It is down more than 9% from a two-decade high made in September.

Futures pricing shows markets expect the Fed will slow the pace of hikes, but still raise its Funds rate target range by 50 bps to between 4.25% and 4.5% later on Thursday.

Much of the focus then falls on the “dot plot” chart of committee members projections about future rate movements, and the tone chairman Jerome Powell strikes in his press conference.

“There are now clear signs that inflation is softening, but it is still at elevated level,” said Tareck Horchani, head of dealing, Prime Brokerage, at Maybank Securities in Singapore.

“The market wants to know if the Fed will change their stance on the dot plot,” he said, with the median projection in September being for a peak in the Fed funds rate of around 4.6% next year.

Elsewhere in currency markets, the Australian dollar hit a three-month high of $0.6893 after the inflation data, before retreating a little bit to sit at $0.6829.

The euro , sterling and New Zealand dollar hit six month highs, and the euro last sat at $1.0637.

Oil was carried 1% higher with the broader mood, before trimming gains a bit in Asia with Brent futures last at $80.22 a barrel and U.S. crude at $75.02 a barrel.

Bitcoin got a bounce overnight, but was unable to hold onto gains above $18,000.

Cryptocurrency markets have been unmoved, but transfixed, by the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was accused by U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday of misappropriating billions of dollars in customer funds.

A new lawsuit has accused Meta Platforms (META.O) of enabling violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia to flourish on Facebook, inflaming the country’s bloody civil war.

The lawsuit, filed in Kenya on Tuesday, was brought by two Ethiopian researchers and Kenyan rights group the Katiba Institute. It alleges Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified violent posts in Ethiopia, including several that preceded the murder of the father of one of the researchers.

The lawsuit also said the company failed to exercise reasonable care in training its algorithms to identify dangerous posts and in hiring staff to police content for the languages covered by its regional moderation hub in Nairobi.

Meta spokesperson Erin McPike said that hate speech and incitement to violence were against the rules of Facebook and Instagram.

“We invest heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content,” McPike added. “We employ staff with local knowledge and expertise and continue to develop our capabilities to catch violating content in the most widely spoken languages in” Ethiopia.

Meta’s independent Oversight Board last year recommended a review of how Facebook and Instagram have been used to spread content that heightens the risk of violence in Ethiopia.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to order Meta to take emergency steps to demote violent content, increase moderation staff in Nairobi and create restitution funds of about $2 billion for victims of violence incited on Facebook.

The lawsuit described Facebook posts published in October 2021 that used ethnic slurs to refer to the father of plaintiff Abrham Meareg. The posts shared the elder man’s address and called for his death. Abrham Mearag reported them to Facebook, but the company declined to remove them promptly or in some cases at all, the lawsuit alleged.

The case carries echoes of accusations Meta has faced for years involving atrocities stoked on its platforms, including in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Cambodia. The company has acknowledged being “too slow” to act in Myanmar and other conflicts.

Thousands have died and millions have been displaced in the conflict that erupted in 2020 between the Ethiopian government and rebellious forces from the northern Tigray region.

Time Magazine chose Volodymyr Zelenskyy as their person of the year. I happen to think it was an excellent choice. Zelenskyy will go down in history as one of the great leaders. He most definitely deserved to be chosen.

There were many nominees. But I’d like to talk about someone who needs more attention for their greatness. Actually, it is a whole group of people. The women of the Democratic party There are millions of women across the United States.

Even now, as I write this, some of those women are with their families. Others are at work. All over are women attorneys and doctors and teachers and nurses. Others are enjoying some peace, perhaps walking quietly along white-sand shorelines or laughing in the outdoors as they make snowmen with their children and enjoy the sweetness of the day.

And many of these women voted. It is said that 72 percent of women aged 18-29 voted for Democrats. They showed up to crush the “red wave” that republicans thought had been gathering and usher in a new wave of soaring blue.

These women came out because they’re smart — they’re powerful, and they’re angry. And women were part of what saved us. They are a HUGE part of what saved America. We must give them their due.

Minority women showed up. College women showed up. All over the country, the doors of homes opened, and out stepped women — beautiful, glorious, heroic women who showed they were unafraid and they were ready, willing, and oh so able to step up for their country. They protested with their votes the hard and sharp turn to the right that the GOP had made. They voted for their independence — for their autonomy and for their freedoms.

So let’s celebrate this mystical, beautiful thing — this turning out of American women who gave a big “up up yours” to the GOP. They proudly and forcefully took back our country and, in doing so, showed women are something to reckon with.

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