Scarlett Johansson and Disney Reach Settlement Over 'Black Widow' Pay - The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Scarlett Johansson and Walt Disney Studios reached a settlement on Thursday in a legal dispute involving streaming-era compensation for the superhero film “Black Widow.”

Terms were not disclosed.

“I am happy to have resolved our differences,” Ms. Johansson, the title star of the movie, said in a statement. “I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team. I look forward to continuing our collaboration in years to come.”

Alan Bergman, chairman of Disney Studios Content, echoed her comments and added that Disney would move forward with Ms. Johansson “on a number of upcoming projects.” They include an adventure film based on Tower of Terror, a popular ride at Walt Disney World.

Ms. Johansson, who has played the Marvel character Black Widow in eight blockbuster films, sued Disney over the summer for breach of contract. A blistering response from a Disney spokeswoman put Ms. Johansson’s representatives at Creative Artists Agency on war footing with the entertainment conglomerate. Hollywood lit up with chatter that a bevy of other stars were similarly unhappy with Disney and poised to follow her to the courts.

In her lawsuit, Ms. Johansson claimed that Disney breached her contract when it released “Black Widow” simultaneously in theaters and on the Disney+ streaming service in early July. The suit said that Disney had promised that “Black Widow” would receive an exclusive release in theaters for about 90 to 120 days and that her compensation — based largely on bonuses tied to ticket sales — had been gutted as a result of the hybrid release.

Simultaneous availability on Disney+, where subscribers could watch the film instantly (and have permanent access to it) for a $30 surcharge, “dramatically decreased box office revenue,” Ms. Johansson said in the suit.

Over its first three days in release, “Black Widow” took in $158 million at theaters worldwide and about $60 million on Disney+ Premier Access. Total ticket sales now stand at $379 million, the lowest total for a Marvel Studios release since 2008, when “The Incredible Hulk” collected $265 million, or $341 million in today’s dollars. Disney has not given a running total for Disney+ sales of “Black Widow.”

Ms. Johansson would have made tens of millions of dollars in box office bonuses if “Black Widow” had approached $1 billion in global ticket sales; “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” both exceeded that threshold in prepandemic release, so similar turnout for “Black Widow” was not out of the question.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Creative Artists had privately asked Disney to pay Ms. Johansson $80 million — on top of her base salary of $20 million — to compensate for lost bonuses. Disney did not respond with a counteroffer, prompting her to sue.

The action got Disney’s attention and then some. “There is no merit whatsoever to this filing,” Disney said in a statement in July that went on to cast Ms. Johansson as greedy. “The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Disney said then.

On Thursday, Mr. Bergman said he was “very pleased” to have “come to a mutual agreement” with Ms. Johansson.

As for the predicted torrent of similar lawsuits from other stars, none have materialized. Not long after Ms. Johansson filed her complaint, Disney privately reached compensation agreements with actresses such as Emma Stone, whose “Cruella” was distributed in the same manner as “Black Widow.”

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Britney Spears’s conservatorship isn’t over. Yet. - Vox.com

A judge has officially ruled to suspend Jamie Spears as the conservator of Britney Spears’s finances, marking a major victory in Britney Spears’s ongoing battle to regain control of her life.

Since 2008, the 39-year-old pop icon has lived under a conservatorship that leaves her unable to legally make decisions about her own life, including when to work, how to spend her money, and even whether she can have children. Instead, her father Jamie has been calling the shots, leading him to reportedly adopt as a mantra the phrase, “I am Britney Spears.”

On September 29, Los Angeles Judge Brenda Penny replaced Jamie Spears as conservator of Britney’s estate and replaced him with California attorney John Zabel, as requested by Britney through her lawyer. Leaving Jamie in place as conservator, Penny said, was “not tenable.”

Jamie Spears agreed to step down from the conservatorship earlier this summer. In September, he filed a petition asking to end it entirely, citing Britney’s increasingly public opposition to the arrangement, which reached a climax in her explosive public testimony before the court this past June. At the September 29 hearing, Jamie’s lawyer argued that rather than suspend Jamie as conservator, the court should simply terminate the conservatorship immediately.

Britney’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart, however, pushed to suspend his client’s father and has said he will wait to petition for the end of the conservatorship until later this fall. There’s a basic strategic reason for that decision: If the arrangement ends now, with Jamie stepping down voluntarily, he would not be required to turn over records, including financial documents, from his 13 years as conservator.

Rosengart has repeatedly called for investigations into Jamie’s conduct, calling his mismanagement of Britney’s estate “evident and ongoing” and arguing that Jamie is only seeking to end the conservatorship due to the extreme public scrutiny as well as to avoid further investigation. “What he’s afraid of is the revelation of his corruption,” Rosengart said in court Wednesday. During Britney’s own testimony in June, she told the court she believed her father’s treatment of her constituted conservatorship abuse. “My dad, and anyone involved in this conservatorship, and my management who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no,” she said, addressing Penny directly. “Ma’am, they should be in jail.”

As the outcry over Britney’s conservatorship grows louder, more and more people involved in the conservatorship are coming forward to share their doubts about the situation publicly. Most damningly, in Controlling Britney Spears, a New York Times documentary recently released on Hulu, a former staffer for a security company Jamie Spears hired alleges that the firm secretly placed an audio listening device in Britney’s bedroom and monitored her text messages. In the Netflix documentary Britney vs. Spears, released Tuesday, an anonymous source reveals long-rumored court documents showing that Britney was originally placed under conservatorship with a diagnosis of dementia — a bold claim to make about any 27-year-old, particularly one who is also the face of a multimillion-dollar media empire.

It’s unclear whether the courts were aware of the extent to which Britney’s conservators allegedly surveilled her life. During the September 29 hearing, Rosengart called for an investigation into those claims.

Rosengart also asked the court to reconvene in 30 to 45 days to discuss “an orderly transition” out of the conservatorship. The next hearing in Britney’s case is scheduled for November 12.

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UK class action-style suit filed over DeepMind NHS health data scandal - TechCrunch

A U.K. law firm is bringing a class-action style claim over a patient health data scandal that dates back to 2015 and involves the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, after it was quietly passed medical information on more than a million patients by an NHS Trust as part of an app development project.

Law firm Mishcon de Reya announced the legal action today, saying a “representative action” has been filed on behalf of a U.K. citizen, called Mr Andrew Prismall, and the approximately 1.6 million others whose confidential medical records were obtained by DeepMind/Google without their knowledge or consent.

Google and the Royal Free NHS Trust have been contacted for comment on the lawsuit.

Last month TechCrunch reported that Google was pulling the plug on the clinician support app, Streams, which was developed by DeepMind and the London-based Royal Free NHS Trust starting in 2015.

The Streams app was rolled out for use by clinicians at the Royal Free and a handful of other NHS Trusts. However, the Royal Free was sanctioned in 2017 by the U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the ICO, for breaching data protection rules when it passed patients’ sensitive medical information to the Google-owned company during the development phrase of the app.

In a press release today, Mishcon de Reya described the lawsuit as an “important step in seeking to address the very real public concerns about large-scale access to, and use of, private health data by technology companies”.

“It also raises issues regarding the precise status and responsibility of such technology companies in the data protection context, both in this specific case, and potentially more generally,” the firm added.

During the height of the COVID-19 crisis last year, the U.K. government inked a number of health data processing contracts with tech giants, including Google and Palantir — and those deals have also faced concern and criticism over a lack of transparency.

The government is also consulting on whether to reduce the level of data protection afforded to U.K. citizens, as it seeks to diverge from the European Union’s gold standard of privacy by design and default, set out in legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In a statement on why he’s taking the legal action, Prismall said: “Given the very positive experience of the NHS that I have always had during my various treatments, I was greatly concerned to find that a tech giant had ended up with my confidential medical records.

“As a patient having any sort of medical treatment, the last thing you would expect is your private medical records to be in the hands of one of the world’s biggest technology companies. I hope that this case will help achieve a fair outcome and closure for all of the patients whose confidential records were obtained in this instance without their knowledge or consent.”

Mishcon partner Ben Lasserson, who is leading the case, added: “This important claim should help to answer fundamental questions about the handling of sensitive personal data and special category data. It comes at a time of heightened public interest and understandable concern over who has access to people’s personal data and medical records and how this access is managed.”

A spokeswoman for Mishcon de Reya confirmed to us that it has issued the claim in the U.K. High Court.

Asked about whether the claimant is seeking financial damages and/or asking for the data to be deleted she said she was unable to provide any more information at this early stage.

Most of the NHS Trusts that inked five-year deals with DeepMind to use the Streams software — contracts which subsequently transitioned to Google’s health division, after the company took over DeepMind Health in 2018 — told us they had terminated their arrangements when we asked them about their use of the app last month, as it emerged Google was pulling the plug on the U.K. app following news of an internal reorganization of its health efforts.

However, the Royal Free Trust claimed it would continue to use Streams, despite Google’s announcement that support was being withdrawn — raising questions over how the Trust would ensure the app’s security was kept up-to-date and which divisions within Google would be responsible for handling related service level agreements, going forward, after the tech giant’s internal reorg of its health, wellness and AI efforts.

Update: Google declined to provide a comment at this time but a spokesperson confirmed it’s aware of the lawsuit.

The company added that no claim form has been formally served but said once it has it will look at it in more detail.

The tech giant also pointed us to a third party audit carried out by Linklaters into the data processing arrangement between Royal Free and DeepMind — as part of the ICO settlement — which it said found the Royal Free’s use of Streams to be lawful and compliant with data protection laws. However that third party audit did not examine the original data processing arrangement — which was the one sanctioned by the ICO — looking only at a replacement deal, not the historical misstep, as we reported at the time, so it’s essentially irrelevant to the legal issue being raised by this lawsuit.

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Facebook to Face Senate Grilling Over Instagram's Effects on Teens - The New York Times

Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, faced harsh questioning on Capitol Hill on Thursday about Instagram’s effect on teenagers, addressing accusations that Facebook has known for years that its photo-sharing app has caused mental and emotional harm.

Members of the Senate’s consumer protection subcommittee admonished Ms. Davis and Facebook for withholding internal information about how its services adversely affect young people and for not significantly changing those services to reduce those downsides.

“It has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effects of its products,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, the chairman of the subcommittee and a Democrat of Connecticut. “It has attempted to deceive the public and us in Congress about what it knows, and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves. It’s chosen growth over children’s mental health and well-being, greed over preventing the suffering of children.”

Lawmakers called for regulations to rein in the Facebook, saying repeated scandals on safety, data privacy abuses and misinformation have created a trust deficit.

“You’ve lost trust, and we do not trust you with influencing our children,” said Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee.

Senators Roger Wicker, Amy Klobuchar and Marsha Blackburn.Tom Brenner for The New York Times

The hearing was the first of two on Facebook’s harmful effect on children. The second, on Tuesday, will be with a whistle-blower who has shared documents on Facebook’s research on teenagers.

The hearings were called after The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles this month about internal research at Facebook. One of the articles reported that, according to Facebook’s findings, one in three teenagers said Instagram made his or her body image issues worse. Among teenagers who had suicidal thoughts, 13 percent of British users and 6 percent of American users said they could trace those thoughts to Instagram.

On Wednesday evening, Facebook released two slide decks from the research cited by The Journal. The company heavily annotated the slides, at times disputing or reframing the accuracy and intention of the research report. The company said in its slides that many teenagers reported positive experiences on Instagram, including that the app at times helped with mental health.

Lawmakers said the documents were only a small part of the internal Facebook research they had seen on Instagram and teenagers. The company appeared to be cherry-picking data to suit its messaging, Mr. Blumenthal said.

“To be very blunt, it is more concealment and deception,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview before the hearing. “I am increasingly convinced that they are incapable of holding themselves accountable, and therefore the public, either through users or the Congress, has to impose accountability.”

The research appears to contradict public statements by Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and the executive in charge of Instagram, Adam Mosseri. Both have long downplayed warnings that Instagram — through filters that can enhance images and a “like” button that can be used as a gauge of popularity — created a fraught environment for young users and made many teenagers feel worse about themselves.

This week, Mr. Mosseri announced that Facebook would pause plans to release a version of Instagram aimed at children in elementary and middle school.

Mr. Mosseri has argued that The Journal’s article on Instagram took research out of context, and said the number of teenagers in the study was “quite small.” He has said many teenagers report positive experiences on Instagram.

Ms. Davis, who has led safety at Facebook for seven years, is expected to reiterate that message in the hearing. The company has defended the idea of an app for children, like YouTube Kids, saying it could provide stronger safety and privacy features for young children than the main Instagram app.

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Supreme Court to hear case over Boston's refusal to fly Christian flag - POLITICO

The Supreme Court is likely to hear arguments in the case early next year and issue a ruling by early July. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case over local officials' refusal to fly a Christian group's pennant outside Boston City Hall.

In a brief order list addressing cases that accumulated over the summer, the justices indicated they will review an appeals court ruling issued in January that found the city did not violate the Constitution by turning down the flag-flying request from a Christian organization called "Camp Constitution."

The case could provide an opportunity for the court's relatively new, six-justice conservative majority to expand the rights of religious groups and individuals to use public facilities to advance their views.

The dispute involves the Christian group's desire to fly a white flag bearing a red cross over a blue square in the upper left corner from an 83-foot flagpole outside the seat of Boston's city government. Two of the three flagpoles at City Hall are used to fly the U.S. flag (along with a POW/MIA flag) and the Massachusetts state flag.

However, the City of Boston flag that customarily flies from the third flagpole has been lowered on numerous occasions and replaced with flags of various groups or causes, including gay pride, and foreign countries, including Albania, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, China, Cuba and Turkey. Some of those flags contain religious symbols.

The alternate flags flew on at least 284 occasions over the 12-year period, often in connection with events groups held at City Hall, according to the decision from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

But city officials rejected the Christian group's flag on the basis it would appear to convey an endorsement of particular religious views.

Despite the frequent substitution of the city flag with others, a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously ruled that rejecting the Christian group's flag did not violate the organization's free-speech rights or amount to a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition on establishment of a religion.

"The City has never before displayed such a flag and, as such, this pioneering elevation of an 'important symbol' of the Christian heritage would come without the secular context or importance that the passage of time may have afforded other displays," Judge Bruce Selya wrote in the 1st Circuit opinion.

"The raising of the Christian Flag thus would threaten to communicate and endorse a purely religious message on behalf of the City. Where that endorsement is as widely visible and accessible as it is here, and where the City could run the risk of repeatedly coordinating the use of government property with hierarchs of all religions, the City's establishment concerns are legitimate."

The Christian group is represented by a religious-freedom advocacy organization, Liberty Counsel.

The Supreme Court is likely to hear arguments in the case early next year and issue a ruling by early July.

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Southeastern Earns 18-7 Exhibition Win Over LSU Eunice - Southeastern Lions Athletics

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HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana University softball team continued its fall season with an 18-7 victory over LSU Eunice in a 10-inning exhibition Wednesday evening at Hammond America Sportsplex.
 
Southeastern jumped out to a 10-0 lead after the first two innings and never looked back. The Lady Lions collected 20 hits on the way to its second win of the fall.
 
Madisen Blackford led SLU with a pair of home runs, while Audrey Greely and Lexi Johnson also homered for the Lady Lions. Johnson and Bailey Krolczyk led Southeastern with three hits apiece, while Blackford, Greely, Madison Rayner, Maddie Watson and Karlee Kraft each collected two hits apiece.
 
Blackford and Krolczyk paced Southeastern with three RBI apiece, followed by Johnson and Watson with two RBI apiece. Greely and Blackford each scored a team-high four runs, while Rayner, Johnson and Blaire Bizette all added two runs apiece.
 
In the circle, five SLU pitchers combined to hold the Lady Bengals to eight hits. MC Comeaux and KK Ladner each threw three shutout innings for Southeastern. More than half of the LSUE outs were recorded by strikeout, as Comeaux (three strikeouts), Ladner (four), Ellie DuBois (six), Alyssa Romano (one) and Alexis Findley (two) combined for 16 strikeouts.
 
The Lady Lions will return to action on Friday, hosting Meridian Community College at 5 p.m. in a 10-inning exhibition at Hammond America Sportsplex.
 
LSUE – 000 000 330 1 – 7 8 2
SLU – 730 003 030 2 – 18 20 5
 
SLU Batting
Aeriyl Mass – 1-for-4, 1 1B, 1 run, 1 K
Madison Rayner – 2-for-4, 1 2B, 1 1B, 1 BB, 1 RBI, 2 runs, 1 error, 1 SB
Audrey Greely – 2-for-4, 1 HR, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 4 runs, 1 HBP, 1 K
Madisen Blackford – 2-for-3, 2 HR, 1 SAC, 1 BB, 3 RBI, 4 runs, 1 error
Bailey Krolczyk – 3-for-3, 1 2B, 2 1B, 1 SF, 3 RBI, 1 run, 2 SB
Lexi Johnson – 3-for-3, 1 HR, 2 1B, 1 BB, 2 runs, 2 RBI, 1 error
Elise Jones – 0-for-4, 1 SB, 1 run, 1 K
Maddie Watson – 2-for-4, 1 2B, 1 1B, 2 RBI, 1 run, 1 K, 2 errors
Blaire Bizette – 0-for-0, 1 HBP, 1 BB, 2 runs, 2 SB
Cameron Goodman – 0-for-3, 2 K
Karlee Kraft – 2-for-3, 1 2B, 1 1B, 1 RBI, 1 K
Ellie DuBois – 1-for-3, 1 1B, 1 RBI, 1 K
Sarah Diaz – 0-for-2, 2 BB
Sadie Hewitt – 1-for-1, 1 1B, 1 SB
Leah Marshall – 1-for-1, 1 1B

SLU Pitching
MC Comeaux – 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 K
KK Ladner – 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 K, 1 BB
Alyssa Romano – 1.0 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 K, 1 BB
Ellie DuBois – 2.0 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 6 K, 1 BB, 1 WP
Alexis Findley – 1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 K, 1 BB
 
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Softball, follow @LionUpSoftball on Twitter and Instagram, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
 
HOME RUN CLUB / S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the softball program are encouraged to join the Home Run Club. Lady Lion softball alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letter winners.
 
All membership fees and donations to both the Home Run Club and S Club (softball) are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern softball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting www.LionUp.com.
 
CLEAR BAG POLICY
Southeastern Athletics instituted a clear bag policy for all ticketed events (softball, baseball, football and basketball), effective with the start of the 2018 football season. For more information on the clear bag policy, visit www.LionSports.net/clear.
 

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Democrats dial back drug-pricing plans to win over moderates - POLITICO

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), one of the leading House members working on the drug pricing legislation, confirmed that the leadership plan has been reopened for debate. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

Top congressional Democrats are acknowledging for the first time that they’ll have to scale back their drug pricing plans to win centrist votes for their giant social spending package.

Leadership may drop efforts to have the government directly negotiate the prices for medicines in private insurance plans and make fewer drugs subject to negotiations in Medicare, among the changes under consideration.

It’s a sign the drug industry is bending a potential compromise in manufacturers’ favor after spending more than $171 million lobbying in the first half of this year, including fighting House leadership's set of proposed price controls. But a more industry-friendly outcome could slash hundreds of billions of dollars in projected savings from the Democrats’ social spending bill, H.R. 5376 (117), and antagonize progressives who promised they'd enact tough new measures to reel in pharmaceutical costs.

“It is alarming that a very modest bill could become even weaker,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who chairs the health subcommittee of House Ways and Means. “I’m aware of how tight our vote is, but I don’t believe any of the changes … do anything other than make it approach meaninglessness.”

The Democrats’ thinking on drug pricing and a swath of other policies was recently scrambled by efforts to pare the overall size of the social spending package from $3.5 trillion to win over holdouts like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

One senior Democratic aide said negotiations between the House, Senate and White House on the pharmaceutical piece of the bill have been playing out "quietly." Another aide said a compromise is set to be “a little more limited” than the House plan pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and backed by progressives, H.R. 3 (117), not only because of centrists’ concerns, but because of Senate rules around what kind of legislation can be brought up under the expedited process known as reconciliation and passed on a party-line vote. The House plan could save as much as $700 billion over a decade, according to congressional estimates.

Lawmakers, aides and lobbyists close to the process said the leaders are now discussing making fewer drugs subject to government negotiation, and shifting the benchmark for such talks away from prices paid in other developed nations.

Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he’s in talks with House members who are insisting the bill be “sensitive to innovation” in the drug industry, and he suggested that the negotiated prices may be limited to Medicare and not apply to the private market or employer-sponsored plans, as progressives originally sought.

“History shows that changes made in Medicare almost always migrate to the private sector,” said Wyden. “Because Medicare is the flagship federal program, and when the private sector learns about [the lower drug prices], they're going to insist on it.”

All three of the centrist House Democrats who defied Pelosi earlier this month and voted against the leadership-backed pricing plan in the Energy and Commerce Committee told POLITICO they’ve received assurances from committee leaders that changes are underway and have been part of negotiations in recent days.

The White House has also begun making overtures to centrist Democrats to gauge what compromise language on drug pricing could look like, said one Democratic lobbyist familiar with the talks.

Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) said leaders are discussing options such as using a different benchmark for drug negotiations than the price paid in countries where drugs typically sell for less — a key part of House leadership's plan that Schrader said “has no juice” among his fellow centrists.

“The White House, Senate Finance, our senator friends, we’re all looking for a different vehicle that makes sense, that threads the needle between not restricting innovation and getting these drugs to the lowest cost we can in the marketplace,” he said.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), one of the leading House members working on the drug pricing legislation, confirmed that the leadership plan has been reopened for debate, and “not just around the number of drugs” but “the whole process.”

It’s a coup for the pharmaceutical industry, which has spent tens of millions more on lobbying than any other industry so far this year, according to disclosures tallied by the watchdog group OpenSecrets. Though drug companies would prefer to kill the House plan entirely, weakening it may be their best-case scenario given Democrats’ full control of Washington and vows to go after the industry.

“The idea that you're going to have a Democratic-driven [social] infrastructure package that doesn't take a pound of flesh out of the pharma sector, to me, is laughable,” a Republican health care lobbyist told POLITICO. “But how big a pound of flesh that will be is a function of how powerful the pharma sector is.”

The big Washington drug industry lobby, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, declined to comment about the state of negotiations.

K Street sources, however, said the industry is still intent on killing an escalating excise tax Democrats want to levy on drug companies that refuse to negotiate with the government — a tax that would increase up to 95 percent depending on how long a company doesn't comply. The Congressional Budget Office said in 2019 that the proposal would reduce the federal budget deficit by nearly $500 billion over 10 years, making it a key driver of the bill’s savings. But critics argue it could result in fewer new drugs being brought to market.

“How do you know that companies aren’t going to say, ‘F--- the price controls,’ pay the tax and then pass the tax on to consumers?” said another Republican lobbyist working on the issue. “There are going to be whole political campaigns built on this 95 percent tax... [Democrats] are going to get blitzed with TV ads.”

Even Democrats who have long pushed Democratic leaders to stick to their guns on drug pricing are now acknowledging that a watered-down version may be their best option with such slim majorities in the House and Senate.

“On drug negotiation, and every other issue, any three members can bring it down, so they’ve got negotiating power,” Welch allowed. “And I think a number of concerns they’re raising are in good faith, even if I disagree with their argument. We have to be successful, so we have to try to work with them.

Too many changes, however, and progressives could balk and withdraw their support.

“For every action there are collateral reactions,” he warned.

Heather Caygle contributed to this report.

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World Athletics Group Is Investigating 2 Belarus Coaches Over A Tokyo Olympics Flap - NPR

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Belarus track coaches Artur Shimak (left) and Yury Maisevich are now under investigation, Olympics officials announced on Thursday. The pair are seen here last month at a checkpoint at a Tokyo airport. Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images

Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images

The two Belarusian coaches accused of trying to punish sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya by forcing her to fly home early from the Tokyo Olympics are now under investigation, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday.

Coaches Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich were also sent packing from the Summer Games just days after Timanovskaya's plight made international headlines. The IOC revoked their credentials and asked them to leave the Olympic Village immediately.

The two now face an inquiry into their actions, which were apparently sparked by Timanovskaya's criticism of them on social media. The sprinter had complained the coaches were trying to make her run in the 400-meter relay race in addition to the 200-meter race for which she'd prepared.

Timanovskaya, 24, said she was abruptly taken to the airport one day before her scheduled race; she refused to board a plane after grandmother warned her that her actions were being politicized in Belarus.

After telling a police officer she needed help, Timanovskaya hid out in a hotel and issued a plea for international aid. The athlete was eventually granted a Polish humanitarian visa, allowing her to seek political asylum.

Timanovskaya said she feared retaliation in Belarus under President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been called Europe's last dictator. At home, her criticisms were interpreted as a slap at both the Belarus Olympic Committee and the Lukashenko regime — the sporting body is led by the president's eldest son.

Mass protests have been mounted in Belarus against Lukashenko, and some athletes have taken part — and have been punished for their stances, according to the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation.

The investigation into Shimak and Maisevich will be handled by the Athletics Integrity Unit, the same organization that oversees anti-doping and other fairness issues. When the inquiry is complete, a full report will be made public, the IOC said.

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Over 100 killed in bloody Ecuador prison massacre - CNN

(CNN)A prison massacre that erupted Tuesday in Ecuador has killed 116 people and wounded about 80, Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso said Wednesday.

The death toll represents a significant uptick from earlier estimates after Tuesday's bloody clashes at the Litoral Penitentiary, located on the outskirts of the coastal city of Guayaquil.

In a speech televised Wednesday, Lasso indicated the prison was not yet entirely secured, and urged inmates' relatives and families to stay away from the area.

"I wish I was able right now to say that yes, we have completely secured the Litoral Penitantiary, but frankly I cannot. This meeting we just had was to organize the next steps forward, and I hope in the next few hours you will see some of the plans we agreed in action," he said in a televised address.

Lasso also said more bodies might be found in the next few hours.

Ecuadorian prison agency SNAI had earlier reported detonations and "fights between criminal gangs" in one of the pavilions of the prison.

Those killed and injured suffered from injuries resulting from bullets and grenades, according to regional police commander Fausto Buenaño.

"The inmates call us (saying) 'Sister they are killing me. Call the police, they need to enter the pavilion (prison wing) five," the sister of one inmate told Reuters.

At least five of the deceased prisoners were beheaded before responding police and the tactical forces "managed to restore order," the governor of Guayas Province, Pablo Arosemena, said Tuesday.

Relatives of inmates wait for news as a coroners' truck arrives at the Litoral Penitentiary after a riot, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021.

Ecuador's prisons have been wracked with bloodshed this year, with more than 140 violent deaths reported, according to SNAI figures.

In response to the latest deaths, the government has declared a 60-day state of emergency across Ecuador's prisons. The measure allows military troops to be deployed to penitentiaries, and limits inmates' rights to privacy and free association in order to allow searches and other surveillance measures.

The state will devote $24 million to the prisons system during the state of emergency, Lasso added during his speech.

Reporting contributed by CNN's Abel Alvarado and Sharif Paget in Atlanta, Ally Barnard in Hong Kong, and Ana Maria Canizares in Quito, Ecuador.

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Schumer, Pelosi toil to ease cross-Capitol rifts over Biden agenda - POLITICO

Daylight is cracking through between Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi after nearly five tight-knit years leading congressional Democrats together.

The two leaders are trying to ease the cross-Capitol differences that have consumed the Democratic Party’s majorities the past two weeks. And they've been laboring to get their caucuses and President Joe Biden on the same page.

The speaker and Senate majority leader headed to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to try and shore up Biden’s jobs and families plan, which is on the brink of collapse as Senate moderates refuse to cut a deal on the social spending component ahead of a planned House vote on the infrastructure package. Leadership also needs to coordinate strategy on the debt ceiling, which has opened a yawning divide between Senate and House Democrats.

In other words, the meeting between Biden, Pelosi and Schumer couldn’t come at a better time. Both a credit default and a collapse of the Biden agenda are possible, particularly if rifts continue between House and Senate Democrats. There is little margin for error in either chamber. Pelosi can lose three votes in the House, and Schumer has no extra room to maneuver in a 50-50 Senate.

“In the abstract we all have been talking about how tough it is to work with these really thin margins,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.). “This is actually the result.”

Democratic senators are watching Pelosi’s House machinations on the bipartisan infrastructure bill with exasperation, worried the speaker’s planned break from the two-track process that coupled Biden’s jobs and families plan to a roads and bridges bill will provoke disaster. Schumer told his members that he had not been consulted about Pelosi’s plan to decouple the two and forge ahead with a solo vote on the bipartisan bill this week.

Across the Capitol, House Democrats are perplexed at Schumer’s tactics to raise the debt ceiling, concerned his insistence at challenging Republicans is a box canyon and that eventually he’ll have to go it alone through a reconciliation vehicle. Several fumed about voting a second time on a debt ceiling increase that stands little chance of winning Republican support— and could cost them politically next year.

“I do see there’s some daylight between them right now. I trust Nancy,” Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) said of the two leaders. “If you let Nancy run the whole place, things would get done.”

But Democrats who wrote the bipartisan infrastructure bill are agog that Pelosi’s progressive members might tank it or get it pulled from the floor.

“That’s a shame. That’s the best bill you got. It’s the most important thing we have,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who added that a deal on the social spending package is “not possible” ahead of the vote.

After her meeting with Biden and Schumer, Pelosi indicated she was not changing her plans.

“The plan is to bring the bill to the floor," she said. "One hour at a time."

Democrats acknowledge the friction isn’t helpful at this critical moment. But they expressed confidence that it would be short-term and may ultimately be productive.

“The Senate votes as the Senate votes because they think it’s the right thing for the Senate. We vote as we vote because we think it's the right thing for the House. Generally, and oftentimes, we don't vote together,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). “And then we try to get it together.”

On Wednesday, several House Democrats threatened to rebel over a vote for a clean debt ceiling increase that’s certain to be blocked by Senate Republicans. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said one of the House moderates griped to him: “We’re doing Schumer’s thing. The debt ceiling should be on reconciliation. Why are we voting on this again? It’s pointless.”

Yet Schumer is eager to paint the GOP as the party of “default” and wants to lambaste them for risking the country’s credit worthiness. He also refuses to entertain using the complex budget reconciliation process to raise the debt ceiling without Republican votes, an idea Pelosi wouldn’t rule out this week. And Schumer sees House Democrats getting cold feet about the clash with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are livid at the suggestion from House members to fold and move on to raising the debt ceiling through reconciliation. Leaders are currently insisting it cannot be done before the Oct. 18 deadline.

“Totally disagree,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “It is not realistic. We will never get it done by the October deadline, that’s for sure. And secondly, establishing the precedent of using reconciliation is outrageous. To think that this pro forma declaration of the debt of the United States has to go through this elaborate procedure every year? Shame on us.”

Despite the bad feelings in the House, the chamber passed a clean debt ceiling suspension Wednesday evening after Pelosi upbraided her members who were balking at the vote.

Now, Pelosi is under pressure not just from her own members but also from Democratic senators to proceed on a vote on infrastructure legislation that was painstakingly negotiated by Senate centrists. They say folding to progressive pressure and yanking the planned vote this week would be a catastrophe.

“I want to see it pass. I think it would be a mistake not to pass it,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “I think it’s going to happen. But if that dies, and reconciliation dies? Man oh man.”

Not everyone lays the current conundrum at Pelosi’s feet. House Democrats say Schumer is to blame for multiple reasons. The infrastructure bill cleared the Senate with little input from the House, and now members in the lower chamber are irate at some of the provisions — particularly those that claim to address climate change.

In addition, the key to unlocking progressive support for infrastructure is securing public guarantees from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on the bigger spending bill.

Schumer, those Democrats say, has failed to deliver those promises. And now the House has run out of time and must vote on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill as progressives root for its defeat.

“I hope to see our progressives in the House stand strong. They know the deal that we all agreed to months ago,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Even if Pelosi and Schumer reconcile their immediate differences, there is another huge fight looming: what health care programs to fund in their social spending bill.

Pelosi has been advocating for programs that would shore up Obamacare, including an effort backed by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to expand Medicaid to more than 2 million people in mostly Republican states.

Clyburn railed on Democrats opposed to that effort during a private caucus meeting this week, saying there’s a “racial component” to the backlash among his colleagues for expanding Medicaid.

Schumer, meanwhile, has been backing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) effort to permanently expand Medicare to offer vision, hearing and dental benefits. The effort is costly and would siphon away critical dollars that Pelosi wants to use for Obamacare-era programs.

Democrats ultimately believe the two party leaders won’t let Biden’s domestic agenda fail due to intraparty squabbling, particularly with control of Congress on the line next year.

“This is legislation in the works. I mean, it's never pretty,” said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.). “It takes a little time to work these things out.”

Sarah Ferris contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: A previous version misstated Rep. Dan Kildee's state affiliation. He represents Michigan.

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Amazon settles with two employees who said they were fired over activism - CNBC

Environmentalists protesting outside Amazon's shareholder meeting

Paayal Zaveri | CNBC

Amazon settled with two former employees the National Labor Relations Board claimed were illegally fired for publicly speaking out about the company's climate record and labor policies.

Terms of the settlement between Amazon and the two employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, weren't immediately disclosed. The settlement was announced by NLRB Administrative Law Judge John Giannopoulos at a virtual hearing, where Giannopoulos had been expected to review the NLRB's complaint.

NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado confirmed a private settlement was reached between the parties.

An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: "We have reached a mutual agreement that resolves the legal issues in this case and welcome the resolution of this matter."

Attorney James McGuinness, representing the Seattle chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, who filed the NLRB complaint on behalf of Cunningham and Costa, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, the NLRB found Amazon illegally retaliated against Cunningham and Costa when it fired them in April 2020. Amazon previously said it disagreed with the NLRB's findings, claiming that it fired Costa and Cunningham for "repeatedly violating internal policies."

In their complaint to the NLRB last October, Costa and Cunningham alleged Amazon violated federal labor law by firing them "based on discriminatory enforcement of its non-solicitation and communication policies," the latter of which prohibits employees from speaking about Amazon's business without manager approval.

By reaching a settlement, Amazon avoids what could have been a potentially lengthy trial, complete with witnesses and a dissection of its treatment of employees. Had the NLRB sided with the employees, Amazon could have been forced to rehire Cunningham and Costa or award them back pay, among other remedies.

Cunningham and Costa worked at Amazon's Seattle headquarters for 15 years as user experience designers. In 2018, they became vocal critics of Amazon's climate stance and founded an employee advocacy group that has urged the company to reduce its impact on climate change. The group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, gained the support of more than 8,700 employees and propelled more than 1,500 employees to walk out in protest of Amazon's climate policies.

During the pandemic, Cunningham and Costa raised concerns about Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers. Both of them shared a petition from warehouse workers advocating for more coronavirus protections, and their employee advocacy group planned an internal event allowing Amazon tech workers and warehouse employees to discuss workplace conditions.

Amazon has faced growing scrutiny from employees and outside groups over its labor practices. Warehouse and delivery workers have publicly voiced their concerns around the safety of front-line employees during the pandemic. At the same time, an increasing number of employees have filed complaints with the NLRB, many of which allege unfair labor practices.

Cunningham and Costa's firing last April generated immediate backlash. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Vice President Kamala Harris, then a California senator, joined other lawmakers in writing to Amazon asking for more information about the firing.

Tim Bray, a prominent engineer and a former vice president at Amazon, resigned in protest last May. Bray said he "snapped" after learning of the firings, adding that remaining at the company would have amounted to "signing off on actions I despised."

WATCH: California Gov. Newsom signs bill bolstering warehouse worker protections

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United Airlines Is Firing Workers Over Vaccine Noncompliance - The New York Times

United Airlines said it would terminate about 600 employees for refusing to comply with its vaccination requirement, putting the company at the forefront of the battle over vaccine mandates as the economy moves through a bumpy pandemic recovery.

The airline also said that 99 percent of its U.S. work force of 67,000 had been vaccinated, a sign that mandates can be an effective way for companies to prod their employees to get shots.

More large companies have announced vaccine requirements as the government puts increasing pressure on them to help the country increase its inoculation rate. This month, President Biden mandated that all businesses with 100 or more workers require their staff to be vaccinated or face weekly testing, helping propel new corporate vaccination policies.

Some companies are still trying to encourage their employees with a mix of incentives and deterrents, but many others have made vaccination compulsory as a condition of work. On Wednesday, AT&T said it was extending its vaccination requirement to tens of thousands of unionized employees.

In August, United Airlines became the first U.S. carrier and one of the first large corporations to mandate a vaccine for Covid-19.

“This was an incredibly difficult decision but keeping our team safe has always been our first priority,” Scott Kirby, United’s chief executive, and Brett Hart, its president, said in a memo sent to the staff on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman confirmed that the company had already begun its process to terminate 593 U.S.-based employees who declined to be vaccinated.

“We will work with folks if during that process they decide to get vaccinated,” the spokeswoman said. United Airlines did not give a timeline for the termination process or a breakdown of the job categories of the fired workers.

United has said that unvaccinated workers can request an exemption based on religious or medical reasons. It had planned to place exempt workers on leave, in many cases unpaid, starting Saturday. But the airline postponed the decision, until Oct. 15, pending a lawsuit filed by six employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said in a statement on Monday.

Roughly 350 workers in customer service, storekeeper and baggage service positions have not reported proof of vaccination to the airline, said Michael Klemm, district president of the machinists union.

“We’re not in agreement with United’s position,” he said. “We plan, through a collective bargaining agreement, to grieve this process.”

A spokesman for the union representing flight attendants said about 100 of its members had not reported proof of inoculation. “We are demanding that the company give the flight attendant every benefit and make sure they’ve researched every issue for every flight attendant before they’re terminated,” said Jeff Heisey, the secretary-treasurer of the union, the United Master Executive Council.

Any company is within its legal right to require employees to be vaccinated, barring any conflicting disability or religious belief, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has not provided details in response to Mr. Biden’s announcement for a nationwide mandate. The regulation is expected to be challenged in court by employers and perhaps even some states.

OSHA has the authority to quickly issue a rule, known as an emergency temporary standard, if it can show that workers are exposed to a grave danger and that the rule is necessary to address that danger. The rule must also be feasible for employers to enforce.

“There’s public policy in favor of vaccine mandates, so it’s almost impossible for an employee to argue that it’s against public policy to terminate them as long as the employer provided exemptions on medical and religious grounds,” said Aditi Bagchi, a labor law professor at Fordham University School of Law.

In early August, United announced that all its employees would be required to provide proof of vaccination within five weeks of a vaccine’s full approval by the Food and Drug Administration, or by Oct. 25, whichever came first. The F.D.A. in late August granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older. At the time, United warned that it would fire employees who did not follow the new policy.

Other airlines have taken different measures to encourage employees to get inoculated. Delta Air Lines announced last month that it was adding a $200 monthly surcharge on its health care plan for unvaccinated employees. The company has also said that it requires new employees to be vaccinated, but that existing employees are exempt. American Airlines said it was “not putting mandates in place” for employees or customers.

Other industries are enforcing vaccination requirements. Hospitals across the country have fired health care workers for refusing to comply with vaccination requirements, and in early August, CNN said it had fired three employees who violated its coronavirus safety protocols by going to the office unvaccinated.

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Surveys Say Workers Will Quit Over Vaccine Mandates, But They Often Don't - NPR

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A health care worker fills syringes with doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in August in Southfield, Mich. Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Surveys have shown that as many as half of unvaccinated workers say they will leave their jobs if they're forced to get the COVID-19 shot, but in reality few of them actually quit. That's according to an article in The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization that covers academic research.

Researchers looked at companies that have vaccine mandates in place and saw that, so far, only a fraction of workers leave their jobs when it comes down to it.

"In other words, vaccine mandates are unlikely to result in a wave of resignations — but they are likely to lead to a boost in vaccination rates," they write.

Here's some data they cite:

"Houston Methodist Hospital, for example, required its 25,000 workers to get a vaccine by June 7. Before the mandate, about 15% of its employees were unvaccinated. By mid-June, that percentage had dropped to 3% and hit 2% by late July. A total of 153 workers were fired or resigned, while another 285 were granted medical or religious exemptions and 332 were allowed to defer it."

The situation seems to be playing out in New York, too, where fears of a mandate for health care workers have prompted officials to prepare for possible staffing shortages. But even there, the mandate appeared to force an uptick in vaccinations.

The researchers say there are a few ways to minimize further the number of people who would quit over such a policy, including building trust with employees, making vaccination accessible and engaging trusted messengers such as doctors and family.

---

This story originally published in the Morning Edition live blog.

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Tunisian President Appoints Prime Minister Amid Protests Over Power Grab - The New York Times

President Kais Saied named a political novice, Najla Bouden Romdhan, in a move that may do little to dispel fears that he is moving toward one-man rule of the nation where the Arab Spring began.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s president appointed a new prime minister on Wednesday amid growing criticism of a series of steps he has taken over the past two months to concentrate power in his hands.

The president, Kais Saied, named Najla Bouden Romdhan, a director-general at the Ministry of Higher Education who runs a World Bank-financed program designed to support the modernization of the country’s higher education system. She is the first woman to hold the office. The appointment came more than two months after he suspended Parliament, fired the prime minister and took the reins of power himself in what opponents called a “coup.”

Mr. Saied promised in July to reinstate a prime minister, and the appointment technically fulfills that pledge while doing little to check his rapid accumulation of power. The new prime minister, a former geology professor at the National School for Engineering, appears to have little political experience, making her unlikely to pose much of threat to the president.

Mr. Saied is comfortably in charge of Tunisia, having given himself the power to rule by decree, unilaterally write legislation, propose changes to the political system and suspend parts of the Constitution. With Parliament frozen and the judiciary, military and security services under his control, he has arrested several political opponents and imposed travel bans and asset freezes on businesspeople and judges.

All this has occurred with the blessing of much of Tunisia’s population, who welcomed Mr. Saied’s July 25 power grab as their only chance to break the country’s political logjam and escape its economic and health crises.

But as months have passed without Mr. Saied offering a clear plan for political or economic reforms, more Tunisians have grown concerned over the threat to their fledgling democracy, the only one to emerge from the Arab Spring protests that engulfed the region a decade ago.

Najla Bouden Romdhan was previously a director-general at Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Education.Tunisian Presidency, Via Afp/Getty Images

On Sunday, at least 2,000 people protested actions, demanding that he put an end to what they termed his “coup.” He faces mounting criticism from political parties and media outlets, including some that had supported him.

Mr. Saied had said on July 25 that his actions were temporary responses to Tunisia’s emergencies and that he would appoint a new head of government within 30 days, but later extended his “exceptional measures.” Despite growing local and international pressure, he has kept the suspension of Parliament in place and rejected calls for dialogue.

By appointing Tunisia’s first female prime minister, the president may hope to counter perceptions among Tunisian feminists that he does not support full gender equality because of his opposition to equal inheritance for women and men.

But now that Mr. Saied has concentrated authority in his own hands, she is likely to enjoy less power than previous prime ministers and unlikely to do more than run the day-to-day business of government.

The Constitution tasks the prime minister with choosing a cabinet, but Mr. Saied last week gave himself that responsibility, saying that constitutional provision would simply no longer apply.

Massinissa Benlakehal contributed reporting.

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The Melting Face Emoji Has Already Won Us Over - The New York Times

Of the 37 new emojis approved this year, one has stood out as a visual proxy for our collective malaise.

There are times when words feel inadequate — when one’s dread, shame, exhaustion or discomfort seems too immense to be captured in written language.

That’s where the melting face emoji comes in.

The face, fixed with a content half-smile even as it dissolves into a puddle, is one of 37 new emojis approved this year by the Unicode Consortium, the organization that maintains the standards for digital text. Other emojis that made the cut include saluting face, dotted line face and a disco ball.

These new emojis will roll out over the course of the next year. But already the melting face has found fans on social media, who see it as a clear representation of the coronavirus pandemic’s vast psychological toll.

“This melting smiley face is quite the pandemic mood,” one Twitter user said.

Others viewed the new emoji as a visual proxy for climate anxiety. “Something tells me that in this climate change apocalypse era, we’re going to be using the new melting face emoji a lot,” another user wrote.

The melting face was conceived back in 2019 by Jennifer Daniel and Neil Cohn, who connected over their mutual appreciation for visual language. Ms. Daniel, who uses the pronouns they and them, is an emoji subcommittee chair for Unicode and a creative director at Google; Mr. Cohn, an associate professor of cognition and communication at Tilburg University.

Mr. Cohn had published some work on representations of emotion in Japanese Visual Language that caught the eye of Ms. Daniel. In Mr. Cohn’s research was “paperification,” which, according to him, is “what happens in a manga sometimes when people become embarrassed, they will turn into a piece of paper and flutter away.”

He and Ms. Daniel realized there wasn’t an existing emoji that evoked that visual convention, so they decided to pursue one and eventually landed on the melting face, which Ms. Daniel described as “more visceral” than turning into paper. The same idea is also sometimes depicted as a solid becoming liquid, they added.

Many of the best face emojis “rely on conventions that already exist in other places in visual culture, and one of the main drivers of this is comics or manga,” said Mr. Cohn. He also noted that many of the face emojis from the original emoji set use expressions from manga.

In 1999, the first emojis were created by a Japanese artist named Shigetaka Kurita, who found inspiration in manga. They were designed to facilitate text-based communication; NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile phone company, had a 250-character limit on messages sent through its mobile internet service, so shorthand was key to getting one’s point across. The original set of 176 emojis designed by Mr. Kurita is now part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art.

Today, even without character restrictions, emojis can still communicate emotions with greater ease, speed and flexibility than words can.

The melting face is no exception. On the more literal side, it can be a way of expressing, say, the sensation caused by a broken air-conditioner. Figuratively, it can be used to convey how one feels after an embarrassing interaction with a crush, the exhaustion of living through a pandemic and, of course, sarcasm.

“It evokes a metaphoric frame or metaphoric knowledge base that should be relatively accessible to people — the notion of melting,” Mr. Cohn said. That concept can then be applied to all kinds of emotions.

All emojis “are usually designed with the intention that they can be used in flexible, multifaceted ways, in the same way that many words can be flexibly used,” Mr. Cohn added.

And visual language, of course, can be even more elastic than words. “Illustration can do things that reality can’t,” Ms. Daniel said.

Case in point: “melting face” and its myriad interpretations, many of them quite affecting.

“Emojis aren’t inherently deep,” said Erik Carter, the graphic designer who created the sample image for the melting face. “It’s how people use them that makes them profound.”

He offered a reading of his own. Many of us, he said, may feel hopeless because of things like climate change, or “our government’s inaction.” “Sometimes,” he said, “it does feel as though the best we can do is smile as we melt away.”

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