Jeff Bezos made a surprise appearance at a Washington Post editorial meeting on Thursday morning for the first time in over a year.

His attendance in person sparked fears among staff about the severity of upcoming layoffs by the newspaper, which he bought in 2013 with ambitions to drive it into the digital era.

In recent years the Washington Post has suffered dwindling ad revenue, a decline in site traffic, and a shortage of new subscribers. Last month, its publisher Fred Ryan announced that layoffs were coming in the new year.

Despite his suggestion the cuts would likely only affect a ‘single-digit percentage’ of its 2,500-person workforce, the news triggered a frenzy among staff, and the paper’s union membership grew.

Its union guild said it now has about 670 members, roughly 67 percent of those eligible, and that around 60 of those joined since the announcement in December.

The staff has been provided with little information about the layoffs and last month the Amazon CEO refused to comment on them, which meant his visit on Thursday only heightened panic.

‘[People] don’t know what to make of it,’ one journalist told The Daily Beast.

During the meeting, Bezos remained fairly tight-lipped, as he sat next to The Post’s top editor, Sally Buzbee in a glass-windowed office on the sixth floor of the paper’s headquarters.

‘I’m delighted to be here and see all these faces,’ he announced at the beginning of the meeting, the New York Times reported. ‘Thank you for allowing me to listen in,’ he continued.

As he left the meeting an employee in a red shirt carrying the insignia of the union stopped him to ask why he was planning to lay off staff without offering them buyouts.

Bezos responded that he had come to listen – not to answer questions – but emphasized that he was committed to The Post’s journalism.

‘As Bezos walks through the office, we want him to see that Post employees are a powerful and united front,’ wrote the guild in an email to its members in the days before.

It said in a public statement on Thursday: ‘We hope that Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has heard employees’ appeals for a stop to these impending layoffs that, as far as we can tell, are not financially necessary or rooted in any informed business strategy from publisher Fred Ryan.’

‘Jeff is visiting The Post this week and meeting with Fred Ryan, Sally Buzbee, and other members of the staff,’ a representative for The Post wrote in an email to The Daily Beast.

The spokesperson confirmed the layoffs were still going to happen in the first quarter of this year but did not say exactly when.

The outlet reported the meeting transpired as it would on any other day, with editors discussing its current stories and trends in the news.

At one point an editor mentioned it was planning to run a story on the termination of AmazonSmile – one of Bezos’ charitable endeavors. That story was published at 11.37 am on Thursday.

On Wednesday around 18,000 Amazon workers woke up to news their employment had been terminated, ‘effective immediately’.

The layoffs were the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves by Amazon and overseen by Bezos.

Source: dailymail

Mexico’s president said Wednesday that he would consider a request by convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to return from the United States to complete his sentence on humanitarian grounds.

The Sinaloa cartel founder has appealed to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for help due to alleged “psychological torment” that Guzman says he is suffering in a U.S. prison.

“We’re going to review it [the plea],” Lopez Obrador told reporters.
It was unclear if Mexico had the power to grant the request, “but the door must always be left open when it comes to human rights,” he added.

El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 of charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.

According to one of his lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, Guzman is unhappy with the harsh prison conditions including isolation and a lack of sunlight.

He hopes to return to face outstanding charges and complete his sentence in Mexico under a prison agreement between the two countries, Rodriguez told AFP.

On Tuesday, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard had downplayed the chance of any government intercession in favor of Guzman, who twice escaped from jail in his home country.

“Frankly I don’t see any possibilities for him, but I’m going to review it with the prosecutor’s office,” Ebrard told reporters.

One of El Chapo’s sons, Ovidio Guzman, was arrested by Mexican security forces this month in an operation that left 29 people dead and sparked a dramatic shootout at an airport in the city of Culiacan.

Source: voanews

Telecom billionaire Carlos Slim, Mexico’s wealthiest man and the former richest man in the world, has re-listed his palatial New York City townhouse for a whopping $80 million, according to a jaw-dropping StreetEasy listing update.

Located at 1009 Fifth Ave. on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Slim — otherwise known as Carlos Slim Helú — previously listed the 20,000-square-foot property for the same price in 2015. At the time, that $80 million ask was a record price in the city — and today, it’s the priciest townhouse for sale across the city, according to StreetEasy data.

Moreover, if the property sells for that princely eight-figure sum, it would break a record for the most expensive townhouse ever sold in the Big Apple. (The current record holder, according to StreetEasy data, belongs to Vincent Viola’s $59 million sale of 12 E. 69th St. in 2021.)

Its mere size, massive for New York standards, is also nothing to sniff at. StreetEasy also shows it’s the largest townhouse for sale across the boroughs.

Slim, whose net worth is currently $90.7 billion, purchased the limestone and red-brick mansion from the now-late Russian oil titan Tamir Sapir in 2010 for $44 million.

Known as the Benjamin N. Duke House, it has been described as “the rarest opportunity to acquire a piece of history and make a bold statement in your portfolio.” Built between 1899 and 1901, it was designed by the firm of Welch, Smith & Provot in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo style, and is considered one of the last remnants of the luxe mansions along Fifth Avenue facing Central Park that remain in private hands, the listing notes.

Spanning 27 feet along Fifth Avenue — and a grand 100 feet along 82nd Street — the interiors feature marble fireplaces and ornate moldings throughout, a grand staircase that climbs up through five levels, and a skylight on the top floor.

The terrace and rooftop provide panoramic views of Central Park and the city skyline.

“The building can be reimagined as a private residence or converted into a gallery, store, museum, or foundation given its prime location across the Met Museum,” the listing adds.

Jorge Lopez with Compass holds the listing — and declined to comment.

The business magnate, investor, and philanthropist Slim and his family control América Móvil, Latin America’s biggest mobile telecom firm. He is a self-made man, the son of Catholic Lebanese parents who immigrated to Mexico. He studied Civil Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (known by its Spanish acronym UNAM) School of Engineering.

This listing comes at a time when Gilded Age mansions — themselves a rare breed — are back at the forefront in New York’s residential market. In late 2022, the successor states of the former Yugoslavia sold a Fifth Avenue mansion for $50 million in an all-cash deal.

Source: nypost