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Some Republicans who once scolded about fiscal austerity are now embracing government spending, underlining that the public supports more generous relief.

— NYT: Top Stories

 

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to be treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, collected more than $7 million in speaking fees in 2019 and 2020 from major financial firms and tech giants including Citi, Goldman Sachs and Google, according to disclosure forms filed as part of her nomination.

Yellen’s was one of three financial disclosures filed by Biden transition officials that were made public on Thursday by the Office of Government Ethics. In a separate filing, Yellen listed firms and banks where she had received speaking fees and said she intended to “seek written authorization” from ethics officials to “participate personally and substantially” in matters involving them.

Yellen was the Federal Reserve chair from 2014 to 2018. Her term was not renewed by President Donald Trump.

Her selection by Biden to lead the Treasury Department has been cheered by progressive Democrats, who support Yellen’s work as a labor economist who has long prioritized combating economic inequality. Since her nomination was announced, Yellen has pledged to work to combat systemic racism and climate change.

But receiving steep payments from Wall Street bankers and other powerful corporations could become an issue as her nomination works its way through a closely divided and potentially contentious Senate. Hillary Clinton faced criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party while running for president in 2016 for having received past, lucrative speaking fees at Wall Street firms.

Also released Thursday were disclosure forms from Biden’s choice to be secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who detailed advising clients including Bank of America and Facebook as part of a consulting firm he co-founded. Avril Haines, Biden’s choice to be national intelligence director, disclosed being a consultant at the same firm, WestExec Advisors.

— Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to dismiss a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican that seeks to give Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the Wednesday session and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College this month cemented Biden’s 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump’s campaign to challenge the results have failed.

The suit names Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week’s proceedings, as the defendant and asks the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserts that the vice president “may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.”

The Justice Department is representing Pence in a case that aims to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a court filing in Texas on Wednesday, the department said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona “have sued the wrong defendant” — if, in fact, any of those suing actually have “a judicially cognizable claim.”

“It is the role prescribed for the Senate and the House of Republicans in the Electoral Count Act to which plaintiffs object, not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken. … A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction.”

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a range of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president’s claims about the 2020 election. He resigned from his post last week.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all has been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

— Associated Press

Before the year comes to an end, celebrities are sharing with Fox News what they’ve learned over the past 12 months and what they are looking forward to in 2021. 

 

— FOX News

 

When the sun sets on the 2020 film box office, it’ll be difficult to look at the numbers as anything but disastrous.

After five consecutive years of North American revenues exceeding $11 billion, this year they’re expected to cap out at an almost 40-year low of around $2.3 billion. That’ll be down 80% from last year according to data firm Comscore. Globally, where markets have been able to recover more fully, ticket sales will likely end up somewhere between $11 and $12 billion. Last year, that total hit $42.5 billion. But of course, 2020 is a year with a big asterisk.

“It’s a year like no other,” said Jim Orr, president of domestic theatrical distribution for Universal Pictures. “We’ve never seen this little business in this industry.”

Outside of January and February, it’s impossible to judge the year’s box office by pre-pandemic standards. Box office, in aggregate, is fairly predictable in a normal year. But when the theaters shut down March 20, that “all went out the window,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst with Comscore. “The unpredictability became the constant.”

Most North American theaters weren’t open for six months straight through the summer season, which typically accounts for around 40% of the year’s profits. For the past two years, the summer movie season has netted over $4.3 billion. This year it brought in $176.5 million, much of that from drive-in theaters.

“The drive-in became the hero of the summer,” Dergarabedian said.

When indoor theaters did start to reopen in late August and early September, it was at limited capacity and with limited product. Currently, about 35% of theaters are open in the U.S. and some of the biggest markets, including New York and Los Angeles, remain closed. Although there have been a steady stream of new releases, the blockbuster tentpoles have been few and far between. Some went to streaming services, others became premium digital rentals, but most simply retreated into 2021 and beyond.

Perhaps there is no more telling fact than that 2020 was the first time in over a decade without a Marvel movie. The Walt Disney Co.’s superhero factory has for the past two years topped the year-end charts with “ Avengers: Endgame ” and “Black Panther,” and has regularly had two or more films in the top 10.

Unsurprisingly, the 2020 top 10 is a little chaotic and comprised mostly of films from the first two months of the year. Sony’s Will Smith sequel “ Bad Boys for Life ” has stayed in first place in North America since its January release with $206.3 million. Globally it’s in second place to the Chinese film “The Eight Hundred” — the first time that the top worldwide film originated outside of Hollywood. The only post-shutdown films to crack the top 10 are Christopher Nolan’s “ Tenet,” in eighth place with $57.2 million and the animated family sequel “ The Croods: A New Age,” which was released at Thanksgiving and has earned $30.8 million so far to put it in 10th place.

And at least 15 films in the top 100 were retro releases, including “Hocus Pocus,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

“The silver lining for movie theaters is even though people had unlimited options at home, people still sought out the movie theater,” Dergarabedian said. “People have a desire to go outside the home and be entertained. That desire hasn’t changed but the ability to do that was profoundly limited.”

It’s even changed the way opening weekends, once a reliable indicator of a film’s long-term prospects, are judged and it might remain that way for a while.

“The instant gratification that we used to be able to deliver on Sunday mornings after opening on a Friday? It’s probably not going to happen again for quite some time,” Orr said.

Theaters have embraced enhanced safety protocols and experimented with different ways to get people back into seats, including private theater rentals, but attendance throughout the fall and winter remained limited.

“People go to movie theaters to escape. If you’re going to a movie theater where you have to wear a mask and you have to sit apart and you have to be hyper conscious of your surroundings, that is not how the theatrical experience is supposed to work,” said John Sloss, principal at the media advisory firm Cinetic. “To judge this year at all in terms of theater attendance, I think is doing a disservice overall to what’s really going on.”

Moviegoing in 2020 is the story of an industry that employs some 150,000 fighting to stay afloat until normalcy returns, which everyone expects will happen even if it’s not in the near future. Small movie theater owners will get a bit of a lifeline from the pandemic relief package.

But effects on the businesses have been staggering and it may be a while before the full impact is known, although there have been some historic developments and compromises. Some innovations have been well-received, like Universal’s landmark agreement with various exhibitors to shorten the theatrical window from 90 days to as little as 17 days in some cases. Others, like Warner Bros.’ decision to release all of its 2021 films on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously, have not.

It’s no secret that streaming services, whether subscription or on demand, filled a huge gap for film fans looking for new content. While at-home options will continue to compete with theaters for consumer eyes and dollars, few believe that they are a death-knell for theaters. By and large, studios are not looking to abandon the theatrical model, even if some priorities have shifted to streaming.

“I do think there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel,” Orr said. “As vaccinations continue to roll out, I am 100% convinced that people will come running back into theaters when it’s possible in their area. The model is not going away.”

Disney CEO Bob Chapek noted at the company’s recent investor day that they made $13 billion at the box office in 2019.

“That’s not something to sneeze at,” Chapek said.

This past weekend, “Wonder Woman 1984,” which was available to stream on HBO Max for free, also collected $16.7 million from 2,100 North American theaters. That number would have been a disaster before. For the pandemic? It’s a record.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

— Associated Press

Banks have the power to decide whether to let overdrawn customers gain access to the stimulus money being deposited into their accounts, but they have taken different approaches.

— NYT: Top Stories

It brought joy — and revenue. But the full cost will never be tallied.

— NYT: Top Stories