News

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5776986

> From the article below (more in the comments): > > ---- > > >! > > > >Games Workshop, the creators of Warhammer, have found themselves at the center of a drama that even Tzeentch might envy. But this time, it’s not about rule changes, lore retcons, or miniature prices—it’s about money. A good chunk of shareholders, like BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity, recently raised their proverbial pitchforks over executive pay raises that could rival the vaults of the Imperial Palace. Let’s break down exactly why Games Workshop’s AGM (Annual General Meeting) looks to have turned into an intense session of “Who’s getting paid too much?” > > > >What Sparked the Shareholder Backlash? > > > >Imagine you’re a loyal shareholder. You love the company; you love the lore (or maybe just the dividends.) Then you notice your favorite game’s CEO, Kevin Rountree, is now earning close to three times what he made just four years ago. Not bad, right? Unlike last year’s hefty payout, there’s no new massive surprise dividend this year to sweeten the deal for you. For nearly 25% of the shareholders, this may have felt like a power move from the board while their wallets stayed the same. > > > >Summary of the 2024 AGM Voting Results > > > >At the 2024 AGM, shareholders were given the chance to vote on resolutions, including two particularly spicy ones, Resolutions 10 and 11. The problem? We don’t actually know what they were about specifically (because nothing’s ever that simple). However, when almost a quarter of your shareholders object to something, you might want to pay attention. The board said they’d “check in” on the matter in about six months. Sounds like a long cooldown, doesn’t it? > > > >Let’s face it—when people see the phrase “executive pay hike,” it tends to stir feelings. And when that increase more than doubles the salary of key figures in the company (not to mention even higher jumps for non-executive directors), shareholders begin to question the fairness of the power balance. > > > >The Role of Major Institutional Investors (Fidelity, Vanguard, BlackRock) > > > >Financial titans. Fidelity, Vanguard, BlackRock—names that could almost be mistaken for rival factions in a new Warhammer expansion. These big players control vast chunks of shares, and they’re not the type to be amused by excessive pay hikes without corresponding gains. When institutions this large feel their investments aren’t being properly managed, even Space Marines couldn’t save you from the incoming pushback. > > > >Kevin Rountree’s Salary: A Significant Jump Since 2020 > > > >! > > > >Speaking of big moves on the battlefield, Kevin Rountree has been leveling up faster than an overfed Tyranid. Back in 2020, Rountree’s base salary was around £700,000. By 2024, he’s knocking on the door of £2 million annually. That’s quite the pay rise—especially when you add another £2 million in stock at his disposal. It’s the kind of reward you’d expect after single-handedly slaying a dragon (or managing a tabletop empire). But in the eyes of some, this rate of salary increase may seem like a special character in the rulebook getting too many overpowered abilities at once. > > > >CEO Compensation Tripled in 4 Years > > > >Rountree’s income has tripled in four short years. That’s right—threefold in the time it takes for a typical Warhammer edition to come and go. When you see a leap like that, eyebrows tend to raise faster than the point costs in a new codex. While Games Workshop has undoubtedly been successful, some shareholders might be wondering if it’s necessary for the CEO’s pay to inflate quite so aggressively, especially when dividends don’t seem to be flying in as frequently as some would hope. > > > >Rountree’s £2 million package includes his base salary, bonuses, and a little something extra in stock awards. Bonuses doubled between 2020 and 2021 when the latest remuneration policy was given the green light. With his base salary and bonuses alone, the man is pulling in enough to buy more than a few Battleforces every year (and maybe even have some extra for Forgeworld minis). > > > >Impact of the Remuneration Policy Approved in 2021 > > > >That brings us to the 2021 remuneration policy—the mystical document that opened the vaults of the empire for Rountree and the board of directors. This policy essentially sets the guidelines for how executives get paid, and once approved, it led to significant salary increases. While it clearly worked for some (looking at you, Rountree), a growing group of shareholders seem to be questioning if it went too far. Perhaps the salary buffs have become a little unbalanced, and like any game, a rebalance might be in order. > > > >Board Member Pay Raises: The Source of Shareholder Concern?

hr-6090 will make criticizing isreal illegal including the protests. it’s already passed the the house and biden has signaled his support for it. i wonder why this isn’t on lemmy already since it’s been a thing for a month so far.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/15208513

> archive.org link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/9854180

> COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio State University police and the Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested about three dozen people Thursday night for staging a pro-Palestine encampment on campus – carrying out what is likely the highest number of protest-related arrests there since the Vietnam War.  > > After hours of peaceful protest on the South Oval behind the Ohio Union, dozens of officers clad in riot gear descended on the crowd, handcuffing protesters and carrying them to Franklin County sheriff’s buses parked nearby. Several protesters were arrested earlier in the day for pitching tents on campus, but police watched for hours – occasionally issuing threats of arrest – when hundreds of protesters returned in the evening.

Washington Post copypasta:

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000 pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.

The development underscores that while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war’s conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.” Some Democrats, including allies of President Biden, say the U.S. government has a responsibility to withhold weapons in the absence of an Israeli commitment to limit civilian casualties during a planned operation in Rafah, a final Hamas stronghold, and ease restrictions on humanitarian aid into the enclave, which is on the brink of famine.

“The Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview. “We need to back up what we say with what we do.”

The Israeli government declined to comment on the authorizations.

Four Hamas battalions remain in Rafah, say U.S. and Israeli officials. More than 1.2 million Palestinians have sought shelter there after being forced from their homes during Israel’s extensive bombing campaign over the past five months. Biden suggested that a scorched-earth invasion of the city along Gaza’s border with Egypt would cross a “red line” for him.

Biden requested that Netanyahu send a team of security officials to Washington this week to listen to U.S. proposals for limiting the bloodshed. Netanyahu canceled the visit after the United States refused to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages, but which did not condemn Hamas.

Israeli officials have not allayed U.S. concerns about the impending operation in Rafah, but they agreed to reschedule the meeting in Washington, the White House said.

The increasingly public spat has not dissuaded Biden from rushing weapons and military equipment into the conflict. Last week, the State Department authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said. The case was approved by Congress in 2008, so the department was not required to provide a new notification to lawmakers. The MK84 and MK82 bombs authorized this week for transfer also were approved by Congress years ago but had not yet been fulfilled.

Washington’s marginalization on the world stage over its support for Israel has rankled some Democrats in Congress, some of whom have called for more transparency in arms transfers and raised questions about whether the authorization of older unfilled cases is an effort to avoid new notifications to Congress, which could face scrutiny. When asked about the transfers, a State Department official said that “fulfilling an authorization from one notification to Congress can result in dozens of individual Foreign Military Sales cases across the decades-long life-cycle of the congressional notification.”

“As a matter of practicality, major procurements, like Israel’s F-35 program for example, are often broken out into several cases over many years,” the official added. The 2,000 pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used anymore by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.

Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp Oct. 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a “disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes.” Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.

Israeli officials deny that their military campaign has been indiscriminate and say civilian casualties are the fault of Hamas for embedding its fighters among the population in Gaza.

Biden’s decision to continue the flow of weapons to Israel has been strongly supported by powerful pro-Israel interest groups in Washington, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is spending tens of millions of dollars this election cycle to unseat Democrats it views as insufficiently pro-Israel.

AIPAC, alongside congressional Republicans and several Democrats, oppose any conditions on U.S. military assistance to Israel. “The U.S. can protect civilians, on both sides of the conflict, by continuing to ensure Israel receives as much U.S. assistance as is needed, as expeditiously as possible, to keep its stockpiles full of lifesaving munitions,” Reps. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) and Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Michael Makovsky, a fellow at the pro-Israel Washington Institute think tank, wrote in a recent column. “Doing so is also morally right and in the U.S. interest.”

Biden’s recurring approvals of weapons transfers are an “abrogation of moral responsibility, and an assault on the rule of law as we know it, at both the domestic and international levels,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official involved in arms transfers who resigned in protest of Biden’s Gaza policy.

“This is a policymaking process that is fundamentally broken, and which makes everyone from policymaking officials to defense manufacturers to the U.S. taxpayer complicit in Israel’s war crimes,” he said. The Post’s reporting on the new weapons authorizations follows a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week in which he requested that the Biden administration expedite a range of weaponry.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday that Israeli officials have been asking for weapons they consider important “in pretty much every meeting” he has been in with them.

Israel has “not received everything they’ve asked for,” Brown said. The United States has withheld some, he said, either due to capacity limits or because U.S. officials were not willing at the time. Brown did not identify the weapons.

Hours later, the Pentagon clarified Brown’s remarks, highlighting the issue’s sensitivity. Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, a spokesman for the general, said there has been no change in policy and that the United States assesses its stockpiles as it provides aid to partners. “The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas,” Dorsey said.

Advocates of the policy inside the administration say behind-the-scenes discussions with the Israelis have succeeded in delaying the country’s Rafah operation, which they now don’t expect to happen until May. But at least part of that delay is due to Israel’s military operations in Khan Younis taking longer than anticipated. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, since the war began in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took at least 250 hostage.

Any increase in fighting in Rafah, a key transit point for humanitarian aid, risks exacerbating conditions across the enclave that the United Nations and aid groups say is suffering from chronic shortages of food, water and medicine. A massive influx of aid trucks is required to remedy the situation, but U.S. officials say Israel has imposed onerous restrictions on deliveries, which are deeply unpopular inside Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government.

The Biden administration does not see that its words and actions are in conflict with respect to weapons transfers, Van Hollen said.

“They do not see the contradiction between sending more bombs to the Netanyahu government even as it is ignoring their demands with respect to Rafah and getting more humanitarian assistance to starving people,” he said. “If this is a partnership it needs to be a two-way street.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4117847

> Also done in conjunction with Verite News.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13657574

> Over the years news search engine of Google and Bing has become increasingly useless, where even quoting specific keywords of news I know exists yields no result and I am choked with unrelated trendy local news. > So, I am looking for a better news search engine (bonus if it also searches blogs and is able to differentiate as well).

A large vessel crashed into the bridge, catching on fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the Patapsco River.

Rules for thee, not for me.