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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2021)
A11 B USINESS THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021 p DOW 31,522.75 +64.35 BRIEFING Oregon lawmakers urged not to hike food safety fees Farmers, processors and grocers are encourag- ing Oregon lawmakers to restore food safety fund- ing with general tax reve- nues rather than sharply increase maximum fees on their industries. In 2017, the Legisla- ture shifted more of the responsibility for funding the state’s food safety in- spection program to reg- ulated businesses, such as dairies, egg handlers, bak- eries and grocery stores. Their license fees now represent 75% of the program’s funding, up from 60% before the fee structure was changed. The balance comes from the state’s general fund, which comes from taxes on individuals and com- panies. The state Department of Agriculture, which oversees food safety, is now asking lawmakers to “reverse the downward trend” in the program’s budget by hiking maxi- mum license fees by 15% in mid-2022 and another 15% in mid-2023. Biden extends ban on foreclosures President Joe Biden is extending a ban on hous- ing foreclosures to June 30 to help homeowners struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. The moratorium on foreclosures of federally guaranteed mortgages had been set to expire on March 31. On his first day in office, Biden had ex- tended the moratorium from Jan. 31. Census Bu- reau figures show that al- most 12% of homeown- ers with mortgages were late on their payments. The White House says the coordinated actions announced Tuesday by the Departments of Housing and Urban De- velopment, Veterans Af- fairs and Agriculture also will extend to June 30 the enrollment window for borrowers who want to request a pause or reduction in payments and will provide up to six additional months of for- bearance for borrowers who entered forbearance on or before June 30 of last year. Tuesday’s actions do not address a federal moratorium through March 31 on evictions of tenants who’ve fallen be- hind on rent. q NASDAQ 14,047.50 -47.97 bendbulletin.com/business q S&P 500 3,932.59 -2.24 p 30-YR T-BOND 2.09% +.08 NASA enlists universities, companies to help design ... BY GARY ROBBINS The San Diego Union-Tribune S AN DIEGO — NASA has given the University of California, San Diego, $5.8 million to help develop electric-powered flying taxis, a form of ride sharing that has been envisioned for decades but is struggling to get beyond the concept stage. UCSD will lead a group of universities and companies in creating software tools to de- sign small fleets of vertical take- off-and-landing aircraft that are quieter, safer, cleaner and more efficient and affordable than helicopters. Customers would go to con- veniently located taxi stands, where they could hail a ride with a smartphone app and join other passengers in get- ting quickly transported signif- icant distances in areas where ground traffic is often con- gested. Some taxis might be pilotless, flying automated, preset routes. The concept — also known was urban air mobility — is p CRUDE OIL $60.05 +.58 q GOLD $1,797.20 -24.40 — Bulletin wire reports SILVER $27.32 ... q EURO $1.2115 -.0016 FLYING TAXIS? largely meant for sprawling ar- eas such as Los Angeles, which has some of the nation’s worst traffic. Air taxis also could shut- tle riders between places like San Diego International Air- port and such outlying cities as Oceanside and Escondido. A “90-minute ground com- mute to a downtown workplace could be reduced to a 15-min- ute air taxi flight,” said John Hwang, a UCSD mechanical and aerospace engineering, said in a statement. See Taxis / A12 Dreamstime NASA enlists universities, companies to help design flying taxis. Canada’s cruise ban puts SEASON IN DOUBT BY EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian T he Alaska cruise season — an important source of revenue for the Port of Asto- ria — could be in jeopardy after Canada banned cruise ships with more than 100 pas- sengers until March 2022 because of the coro- navirus pandemic. In a statement, the Canadian government said the ban was necessary to focus on vaccine rollout amid new variants of the virus. “Temporary prohibitions to cruise vessels and pleasure craft are essential to continue to protect the most vulnerable among our com- munities and avoid overwhelming our health care systems,” said Omar Alghabra, the min- ister of transportation in Canada. “This is the right and responsible thing to do.” U.S. maritime law requires foreign-flagged cruise ships visiting multiple domestic ports to stop in another country during each cruise. Canada provides the stopover for cruise ships shuttling between the West Coast and Alaska. As of last week, the port still had 17 cruise ships scheduled to dock in Astoria through the year, starting with the Celebrity Eclipse on May 4. Ten spring cancellations have so far cost the port an estimated $314,000 in revenue. Canceling the rest of the season could cost an- other $500,000. “I anticipate that we will have more cancel- lations if the CDC (Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention) guidelines don’t change and the COVID situation doesn’t change,” Sue Transue, the port’s terminal manager, recently See Cruise / A12 The Rega Regatta is riding out the coronavirus pandemic at the Port of Astoria. Bitcoin price over $50K for first time The seemingly un- stoppable rise of Bitcoin continued Tuesday with the cost of a single unit of the digital currency ris- ing above $50,000 for the first time. The price of Bitcoin has risen almost 200% in the last three months, and its volatility was on dis- play Tuesday. After rising above $50,600, it fell back to $48,674 at 11:15 a.m. Pacific time. Bitcoin is rallying as more companies signal the digital currency could eventually gain wide- spread acceptance as a means of payment. The vast majority of those who have acquired Bit- coin have treated it as a commodity, like gold, with few places accepting it in exchange for goods or services. Companies have been leery because of Bitcoin’s volatility and its use by parties who want to avoid the traditional banking system for a myr- iad of reasons. n Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian Young inventor makes coding fun BY GINA RICH Special To The Washington Post When Samaira Mehta was 6 years old, her father played a prank on her. “He showed me basically some- thing on his computer which had one button and a command which said, ‘Press this if you’re beautiful.’ And he told me to give it a try,” she said. As Samaira hovered her mouse pointer over the command, the but- ton disappeared. Intrigued, Samaira asked her dad how he did it. He explained that he’d used something called coding, using a programming language to get a computer to do something. That lighthearted moment inspired Samaira to develop a passion for computer science. Now age 12, she is founder and chief executive of CoderBunnyz, a business that aims to make coding fun for everyone. After her dad’s prank, Samaira was eager to learn coding tricks. Her father recommended a website with practice exercises. Scrolling Vaccine delays leave grocery workers feeling expendable BY ALEXANDRA OLSON, DEE-ANN DURBIN AND ANNE D’INNOCENZIO The Associated Press Coder Bunnyz via The Washington Post Samaira Mehta, who is 12, became interested in coding at age 6. Her friends didn’t share her enthusiasm. She thought a game might convince them that learning to code can be fun. So she invented a board game called CoderBunnyz. down the page, Samaira saw the words “make your own app.” She tried following the instructions but made so many mistakes that “it made my whole screen just look red,” she said. Frustrated, she gave up. See Coding / A12 As panicked Americans cleared super- markets of toilet paper and food last spring, grocery employees gained recognition as among the most indispensable of the pan- demic’s front-line workers. A year later, most of those workers are waiting their turn to receive COVID-19 vaccines, with little clarity about when that might happen. A decentralized vaccine campaign has resulted in a patchwork of policies that dif- fer from state to state, and even county to county in some areas, resulting in an incon- sistent rollout to low-paid essential workers who are exposed to hundreds of customers each day. See Grocery / A12