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Where Did All Your Zoom Friends Go?

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Where Did All Your Zoom Friends Go?

In the future final yr, Julie Gauthier went on Twitter with a confession to make. “Unpopular opinion: I don’t have zoom fatigue and I miss zoom comfortable hours and recreation nights,” she wrote. “I really feel extra remoted now than I did when associates all took time to talk on-line initially of the pandemic.”

Ms. Gauthier, 30, had been scrolling by way of previous photographs and located a screenshot of one of many digital comfortable hours she’d had with associates within the early days of Covid restrictions. On the time, dwelling alone and dealing remotely as a software program engineer in rural Coventry, Conn., the self-described extrovert seized each alternative for human contact she may get.

Digital trivia nights? She was in. Masks-making over Zoom with members of a neighborhood makerspace? Why not? She made a brand new finest buddy out of a stranger she met at a web based meetup for tech staff, and when one other buddy’s band started broadcasting porch concert events over Fb Dwell, Ms. Gauthier streamed the present on her TV and acquired all dressed up as if she had been there.

Her entire world had been lowered to her dwelling, and someway it felt full.

By the point she chanced on the previous Zoom screenshot — stuffed with the faces of associates she had scarcely seen since — it felt decidedly much less so. It nonetheless does.

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To be clear, it’s not that Ms. Gauthier misses these dreadful days — in any respect. It’s simply that she misses how hungry individuals had been to attach, as if the shortcoming to see anybody in particular person made us all wish to see everybody, on a regular basis, by any means essential.

“I’m simply not assembly new individuals practically as a lot, and I’m not capable of keep in contact with my associates practically as a lot,” Ms. Gauthier mentioned.

Three years for the reason that pandemic was declared, lots of the apps, platforms and digital instruments that Ms. Gauthier and thousands and thousands of others relied on to remain related are struggling, shrinking or shutting down. Zoom has slashed 15 % of its work drive. Epic Video games killed off the group video app Houseparty in late 2021, and even Meta’s Portal gadgets, which after years of challenges surged in recognition in 2020, acquired the ax final yr.

These apps which have survived, together with the multiplayer recreation Amongst Us, the video chat app Marco Polo and the dwell audio app Clubhouse, which as soon as had thousands and thousands of individuals on its ready record, have seen downloads drop.

“Busy life is again,” mentioned Vlada Bortnik, chief govt of Marco Polo, which launched a paid subscription product in 2020. “For us, the main target has actually grow to be: Let’s give attention to people who find themselves actually resonating with what we’re doing.”

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As on-line connections have withered and frenzy has returned to the everyday, many individuals say their social lives stay stunted. In a Pew survey final yr, 35 % of respondents mentioned going out and socializing was a decrease precedence now than it was earlier than the pandemic. Simply 21 % mentioned it was the next precedence.

One other research, which checked out greater than 7,000 responses to the continued Understanding America Research, discovered that personalities didn’t change a lot within the early pandemic days, however that by final yr, younger and middle-aged individuals specifically had grow to be a lot much less extroverted, open, agreeable and conscientious. Two years in, their personalities had modified about as a lot as they sometimes would over a decade.

Angelina Sutin, a professor on the Florida State College Faculty of Medication who led the research, mentioned digital connections might have shielded individuals from these adjustments within the earliest days of the pandemic.

“Individuals nonetheless acquired collectively on Zoom,” she mentioned. “They had been reaching out to individuals and listening to from individuals they hadn’t heard from in 20 years.”

Then, step by step, they weren’t. Which brings us to a brand new complicated section of the pandemic, caught between disaster and complete normalcy, nostalgic for home events — and Houseparty, too.

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It could really feel a bit of callous, or on the very least uncool, to confess to lacking any a part of these days. Whereas so many thousands and thousands of individuals had been sheltering at dwelling, thousands and thousands extra had been risking their lives simply going to work, mourning misplaced family members or struggling to even get web entry. Nobody needs to return to that.

However for all of the discuss of Zoom fatigue, lots of people, like Ms. Gauthier, miss the entire inventive methods individuals discovered to attach, which have since gone the best way of grocery washing and automotive parades.

“Everyone was kind of equal distance after we had been all distanced,” mentioned Emily Phalen, a analysis affiliate on the College of Iowa. Final summer time, invoking Jackbox video games, she tweeted that “a jack field evening with my associates that dwell throughout the nation sounds so beautiful.”

Now, the 25-year-old mentioned, she’s struggling to determine what grownup friendships are even purported to appear to be.

“How a lot time do adults spend collectively? How a lot time do they discuss collectively?” Ms. Phalen requested. “It at all times feels to me prefer it must be greater than I’m doing.”

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“What I miss most about it’s getting everybody in a single area and catching up collectively, versus simply visiting one buddy wherever they’re,” mentioned Markie Heideman, a 25-year-old advertising and marketing skilled in Howell, Mich., who additionally confessed to lacking Zoom comfortable hours on Twitter final yr.

“I wouldn’t say I’m an introvert now, however I’d say that I undoubtedly have taken a step again,” Mr. Heideman mentioned.

Almost 100 individuals responded to a request by The New York Occasions for tales about how their use of expertise to attach has modified for the reason that pandemic started. Their responses learn like a time capsule of the very latest previous, stuffed with fond recollections of easy joys that might scarcely bear mentioning in regular occasions: Google Meet figure-drawing lessons and rounds of on-line Spades with faraway household. Dungeons & Dragons video games over Zoom and distant beer pong tournaments. A social employee in Washington, D.C., reported being so devoted to her household’s biweekly Zoom trivia evening that she logged in from her hospital mattress just a few hours after giving delivery to her son.

It seems these digital connections weren’t simply distractions from the dire state of issues. Research present they meaningfully benefited individuals’s psychological well being throughout a traditionally isolating interval of human historical past.

In Italy, which imposed a number of the earliest and strictest Covid lockdowns, researchers surveyed greater than 400 individuals in March 2020 to ask about how typically they had been doing issues like making video calls or enjoying on-line video games with associates. They discovered that, general, the extra individuals related utilizing these instruments, the much less lonely, indignant and irritable they felt.

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“Individuals who had shifted their relationships on-line perceived that they retained social help from their family members,” mentioned Alessandro Gabbiadini, an affiliate professor of social psychology on the College of Milano-Bicocca, who led the research.

An analogous survey in the US in Could 2020 by researchers on the College of California, Los Angeles, checked out which forms of digital connections had been most useful. That research discovered that individuals of all ages had been usually most happy with video calls, versus texts or telephone calls, and that elevated satisfaction with these communications was related to much less loneliness.

“It was actually the satisfying connections that had been assuaging these types of psychological misery,” mentioned Jaana Juvonen, a developmental psychologist and the research’s lead creator. She famous that the practically 300 respondents had been largely white and feminine.

Professor Juvonen has since continued exploring these questions, with a specific give attention to younger individuals of their peak social years. Final yr, in interviews with 100 topics of their 20s, she discovered that whereas the pandemic had interfered with creating new friendships, it helped younger individuals rekindle older, and probably extra significant, ones.

“That’s way more satisfying when it comes to assuaging loneliness than these new attainable social connections,” she mentioned.

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Many of the respondents to The Occasions mentioned these digital ties had strengthened their relationships with individuals they’d misplaced contact with or had not often seen earlier than the pandemic. Sisters bonded whereas making a podcast. A crew of previous colleagues from the Central Park Zoo Zoomed each Friday evening. Minecraft video games reunited a highschool senior along with his childhood associates, and month-to-month digital birthday celebrations made Pranjali Muley really feel as if she and her faculty associates “had been again within the dorm,” she wrote.

Ben Compaine, 77, whose associates from Dickinson Faculty have been holding a weekly “gabfest” since March 2020, mentioned, “I feel we’ve been shocked at how a lot we discovered about one another that years of assembly at weddings or reunions hadn’t revealed.”

As socializing modified, so did leisure. These had been the times of balcony concertos and D-Good’s Instagram dance events, digital crowds for Nationwide Basketball Affiliation video games and a full-scale, audio-only manufacturing of “The Lion King” streamed for an viewers of 1000’s over Clubhouse.

“It was essentially the most insane expertise, simply understanding that we had been the primary individuals to think about that concept and truly have it undergo absolutely deliberate,” mentioned Kalieha’ Stapleton, 29, who joined the “Lion King” Clubhouse forged after the pandemic compelled her to cancel her personal singing gigs that yr.

“That first yr of the pandemic was a inventive tempest,” mentioned Pesha Rudnick, creative director of Boulder’s Native Theater Firm, which was capable of develop its viewers throughout dozens of states and a number of other international locations by way of experimental digital performances, lessons and workshops.

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A few of these traditions solid in isolation have lasted. Most haven’t. Why? Children. Commutes. Complacency. As one respondent put it, “Recurrently scheduled life returned.”

Others grew to become overwhelmed with the burden of planning and taking part in so many digital actions, when distant work already meant spending all day on video calls. Professor Gabbiadini mentioned that tracked along with his analysis in Italy.

“One glass of wine a day is alleged to be wholesome, but when I drink 15 glasses of wine a day I’ve a consuming downside,” he mentioned. “The identical applies to the usage of expertise.”

Nonetheless others got here to see these digital visits solely as a reminder of what they’d misplaced.

“It made me really feel lonelier,” mentioned Vanessa Carter, a 60-year-old patient-care tech at a hospital in Philadelphia, who lives alone and used to FaceTime together with her sister after 12-hour shifts spent seeing a lot loss of life up shut. “TV grew to become my finest buddy.”

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Ms. Carter was hardly the one one feeling that approach. There’s a motive analysis has proven a rise in loneliness — albeit, a small one — for the reason that early days of the pandemic.

“I actually don’t perceive how individuals can join with a bit of sq. video on a bit of laptop computer display,” one respondent wrote. “It makes me wish to surrender on life.”

For lots of people, the return to regular has felt something however. Sure, most restrictions have been lifted. Faculties, eating places, bars and worldwide borders have opened, and in Could, the general public well being emergency in the US is ready to formally finish. However in so many different methods, the world that persons are returning to is fully totally different from the one they left behind simply over three years in the past.

Full-time workers nonetheless spend practically a 3rd of their working hours at dwelling, in contrast with 5 % earlier than the pandemic, in keeping with a latest survey. Add to that the truth that, for the reason that pandemic started, individuals have moved in nice numbers, cities have shrunk and births have boomed. Is it any marvel individuals’s social lives look smaller than they did earlier than, or at the least radically totally different?

For Marco Polo, at the least, the pandemic peak was short-lived. Downloads of the video messaging app on the Apple and Google Play app shops, which totaled 4.9 million in 2020, fell to 1.3 million final yr, in keeping with knowledge from the analytics agency SensorTower.

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And but, mentioned Ms. Bortnik, the chief govt, one upside of this second is that engagement amongst customers who’ve caught with Marco Polo has by no means been greater, which has enabled the corporate to start producing regular income.

“We’ve been very conscious about let’s develop the person base of oldsters who’re paying and who’re actually according to our objective,” she mentioned.

This era of transition that so many individuals are experiencing is regular, mentioned Professor Juvonen of U.C.L.A.

“There’s an expectation that now issues are going to be higher. No extra loneliness. I’m connecting on a regular basis — after which discovering that socialization is basically exhausting,” she mentioned. “There was clearly an absence of face-to-face apply. It’s going to take some time to get again to that.”

By now, it could be apparent that I, too, have a confession: Like Julie Gauthier, I’ve had moments of lacking all of the bizarre methods my family and friends saved each other afloat after we wanted it most — from the fundamental FaceTime catch-ups with previous roommates to the actually weird YouTube selection present a school buddy orchestrated. For one among his acts, he auctioned off sections of his unruly pandemic mane whereas his mother, typing frantically within the feedback, begged him to cease. With apologies to Mother, off went the widow’s peak for $89.

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I’ve typically puzzled why we gave all of it up. As soon as these digital connections weren’t our solely choice, many individuals appeared to neglect they had been ever an choice in any respect. Then one evening final yr, a buddy who lives just a few hours away requested if my husband and I wished to hitch her and her husband in a recreation of Codenames.

It felt a bit of unusual — like an invite plucked from a bygone period. We logged on and ribbed her a bit for proposing one thing that felt so very 2020. After which we had an important evening.

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Paramount's board approves bid by David Ellison's Skydance Media in sweeping Hollywood deal

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Paramount's board approves bid by David Ellison's Skydance Media in sweeping Hollywood deal

Tech scion David Ellison’s months-long quest to win control of Paramount Global moved closer to the finish line Sunday, in a deal that marks a new chapter for the long-struggling media company and parent of one of Hollywood’s oldest movie studios.

Paramount Global board members on Sunday approved the bid by Ellison’s Skydance Media and its backers to buy the Redstone family’s Massachusetts holding firm, National Amusements Inc., said two sources close to the deal who were not authorized to comment.

A spokesperson for Paramount declined to comment.

The Redstones’ voting stock in Paramount would be transferred to Skydance, giving Ellison, son of billionaire Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison — a key backer of the deal — control of a media operation that includes Paramount Pictures, broadcast network CBS and cable channels MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.

The proposed $8.4 billion multipronged transaction also includes merging Ellison’s production company into the storied media company, giving it more heft to compete in today’s media environment.

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The agreement, which mints Ellison as a Hollywood mogul, came together during the last two weeks as Ellison and his financing partners renewed their efforts to win over the Redstone family and Paramount’s independent board members.

Shari Redstone has long preferred Ellison’s bid over other those of potential suitors, believing the 41-year-old entrepreneur possesses the ambition, experience and financial heft to lift Paramount from its doldrums.

But, in early June, Redstone got cold feet and abruptly walked away from the Ellison deal — a move that stunned industry observers and Paramount insiders because it was Redstone who had orchestrated the auction.

Within about a week, Ellison renewed his outreach to Redstone. Ellison ultimately persuaded her to let go of the entertainment company her family has controlled for nearly four decades. The sweetened deal also paid the Redstone family about $50 million more than what had been proposed in early June. On Sunday Paramount’s full board, including special committee of independent directors, had signed off on the deal, the sources said.

Under terms of the deal, Skydance and its financial partners RedBird Capital Partners and private equity firm KKR have agreed to provide a $1.5-billion cash infusion to help Paramount pay down debt. The deal sets aside $4.5 billion to buy shares of Paramount’s Class B shareholders who are eager to exit.

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The Redstone family would receive $1.75-billion for National Amusements, a company that holds the family’s Paramount shares and a regional movie theater chain founded during the Great Depression, after the firm’s considerable debts are paid off.

The proposed handoff signals the end of the Redstone family’s nearly 40-year reign as one of America’s most famous and fractious media dynasties. The late Sumner Redstone’s National Amusements was once valued at nearly $10 billion, but pandemic-related theater closures, last year’s Hollywood labor strikes and a heavy debt burden sent its fortunes spiraling.

In the last five years, the New York-based company has lost two-thirds of its value. Its shares are now worth $8.2 billion based on Friday’s closing price of $11.81 a share.

The struggles in many ways prompted Shari Redstone to part with her beloved family heirloom. Additionally, National Amusements was struggling to cover its debts, and the high interest rates worsened the outlook for the Redstone family.

Paramount boasts some of the most historic brands in entertainment, including the 112-year-old Paramount Pictures movie studio, known for landmark films such as “The Godfather” and “Chinatown.” The company owns television stations including KCAL-TV (Channel 9) and KCBS-TV (Channel 2). Its once-vibrant cable channels such as Nickelodeon, TV Land, BET, MTV and Comedy Central have been losing viewers.

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The handover requires the approval of federal regulators, a process that could take months.

In May, Paramount’s independent board committee said it would entertain a competing $26-billion offer from Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management. The bid would have retired all shareholders and paid off Paramount’s debt, but Sony executives grew increasingly wary of taking over a company that relies on traditional TV channels.

Earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery expressed interest in a merger or buying CBS. However, that company has struggled with nearly $40 billion in debt from previous deals and is in similar straits as Paramount. Media mogul Byron Allen has also shown interest.

Skydance Media founder and Chief Executive David Ellison prevailed in his bid for Paramount.

(Evan Agostini/Invision/Associated Press)

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Many in Hollywood — film producers, writers and agents — have been rooting for the Skydance takeover, believing it represents the best chance to preserve Paramount as an independent company. Apollo and Sony were expected to break up the enterprise, with Sony absorbing the movie studio into its Culver City operation.

The second phase of the transaction will be for Paramount to absorb Ellison’s Santa Monica-based Skydance Media, which has sports, animation and gaming as well as television and film production.

Ellison is expected to run Paramount as its chief executive. Former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who’s now a RedBird executive, could help manage the operation. It’s unclear whether the Skydance team will keep on the three division heads who are now running Paramount: Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins, CBS head George Cheeks and Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios chief Chris McCarthy.

Skydance has an existing relationship with Paramount. It co-produced each film in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise since 2011’s “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” starring Tom Cruise. It also backed the 2022 Cruise mega-hit “Top Gun: Maverick.”

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Ellison first approached Redstone about making a deal last summer, and talks became known in December.

Redstone long viewed Ellison as a preferred buyer because the deal paid a premium to her family for their exit. She also was impressed by the media mogul , believing he could become a next-generation leader who could take the company her father built to a higher level, according to people knowledgeable of her thinking.

Larry Ellison is said to be contributing funding to the deal.

David Ellison was attracted to the deal because of his past collaborations with Paramount Pictures and the allure of combining their intellectual properties as well as the cachet of owning a historic studio, analysts said. Paramount’s rich history contains popular franchises including “Transformers,” “Star Trek,” “South Park” and “Paw Patrol.”

“Paramount is one of the major historic Hollywood studios with a massive base of [intellectual property], and so it seems to us that it’s more about using the capital that Ellison has and what he’s built at Skydance and leveraging that into owning a major Hollywood studio,” Brent Penter, senior research associate at Raymond James, said prior to the deal. “Not to mention the networks and everything else that Paramount has.”

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The agreement prepares to close the books on the Redstone family’s 37-year tenure at the company formerly known as Viacom, beginning with Sumner Redstone’s hostile takeover in 1987.

Seven years later, Redstone clinched control of Paramount, after merging Viacom with eventually doomed video rental chain Blockbuster to secure enough cash for the $10-billion deal. Redstone long viewed Paramount as the crown jewel, a belief that took root a half-century ago when he wheeled-and-dealed over theatrical exhibition terms for Paramount’s prestigious films to screen at his regional theater chain.

Under Redstone’s control, Paramount won Academy Awards in the ’90s for “Forrest Gump” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

He pioneered the idea of treating films as an investment portfolio and hedging bets on some productions by taking on financial partners — a strategy now widely used throughout the industry.

Sumner Redstone and Shari Redstone in 2012.

The late Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari Redstone have owned a controlling interest in Viacom, which was rebranded as Paramount, through their family holding company, National Amusements Inc., since 1987.

(Katy Winn/Invision/Associated Press)

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In 2000, Redstone expanded his media empire again by acquiring CBS, a move that made Viacom one of the most muscular media companies of the time, rivaling Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Inc. Just six years later, Redstone broke it up into separate, sibling companies, convinced that Viacom was more precious to advertisers because of its younger audience. Redstone also wanted to reap dividends from two companies.

After years of mismanagement at Viacom, which coincided with the elder Redstone’s declining health, and boardroom turmoil, his daughter stepped in to oust Viacom top management and members of the board. Three years later, following an executive misconduct scandal at CBS, Shari Redstone achieved her goal by reuniting CBS and Viacom in a nearly $12-billion deal.

The combined company, then called ViacomCBS and valued at more than $25 billion, was supposed to be a TV juggernaut, commanding a major percentage of TV advertising revenue through the dominance of CBS and more than two dozen cable channels.

But changes in the TV landscape took a toll.

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As consumer cord-cutting became more widespread and TV advertising revenue declined, ViacomCBS’ biggest asset became a serious liability.

The company was late to enter the streaming wars and then spent heavily on its Paramount+ streaming service to try to catch up with Netflix and even Disney. (In early 2022, the company was renamed Paramount Global in a nod to its moviemaking past and to tie in with its streaming platform of the same name.)

The company’s eroding linear TV business and the decline of TV ad revenue, as well as its struggles trying to make streaming profitable, will be major challenges for Ellison as he takes over Paramount. Though traditional TV is declining, it still brings in cash for Paramount.

And streaming is a whole different economic proposition from television, one that offers slimmer profits. Meanwhile, the company also faces larger industry questions about when — if ever — box office revenue will return to pre-pandemic levels.

“This is a company that is floating on hope,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “And hope isn’t a great business strategy.”

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Missing the paperwork on your IRAs? All is not lost

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Missing the paperwork on your IRAs? All is not lost

Dear Liz: I have four daughters, now in their late 30s and early 40s. When they were very young, I started investing for them. As they began to earn their own money, I started Roth IRAs for them as well.

A decade ago, due to an unexpected divorce, a 30-day escrow and a move, I lost the paperwork for their accounts. After the investment company was acquired by another in 2015, I forwarded the new company’s contact information to my daughters. One transferred her account to another investment company, while her sisters left theirs in place.

Recently I found the old investment paperwork. The company has changed hands again, but the new company says it has no information about my three other daughters’ accounts. Can anything be done?

Answer: Since the latest company can’t find the accounts, your daughters should contact the escheat office of the state where you lived before your move.

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Perhaps you didn’t update your address with the original company when you moved and the account statements or other mail were returned as undeliverable. If the company and its successor couldn’t find you — and some companies don’t look very hard — the accounts would be considered unclaimed and would have to be turned over to the state.

Links to state escheat offices can be found online at unclaimed.org, the website for the National Assn.
of Unclaimed Property Administrators.

The good news is that there’s no time limit for claiming previously unclaimed property.

The bad news is that some states will liquidate stocks and other investments after escheatment. If that’s the case, then the three daughters who didn’t move their accounts will have missed out on nearly a decade of investment returns.

Dear Liz: Is it common for a brokerage agreement to say the firm can close my account for any reason and without any notice? The agreement goes on to say that the brokerage can liquidate the investments in my account if it’s closed and that the brokerage is not responsible for any investment losses that result.

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Answer: The short answer is yes — brokerage accounts can be closed at any time by the firm or by the client.

Such agreements often specify certain actions that can trigger a closure, such as failing to maintain a minimum required balance. But the agreements also typically have language that allows the brokerage to close your account at any time and for any reason.

Brokerages don’t commonly close customer accounts. If yours does, however, move quickly to transfer your investments to another firm.

Failure to act could result in your investments being liquidated, and you would owe capital gains taxes on any appreciation in their value.

Dear Liz: You have written that non-spouse beneficiaries are now required to drain their inherited IRAs within 10 years. Is this requirement retroactive?

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I inherited an IRA from my mother in 2015. I have been taking out the minimum required each year. If I must drain the account within 10 years, will the increase in yearly income affect my Social Security benefits?

Answer: The 10-year requirement applies only to accounts inherited from people who died after Dec. 31, 2019.

IRA distributions don’t affect Social Security benefits, but could affect Medicare premiums if the withdrawal is large enough. Taxable income above certain limits triggers a Medicare surcharge known as an income-related monthly adjustment amount, or IRMAA.

Dear Liz: My husband passed away 10 months ago. I applied for widow benefits.

The Social Security Administration sent me a letter that said they cannot pay because my Social Security benefit would equal two-thirds of the amount of my pension. Please help me with this.

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Answer: This is known as the government pension offset, and it applies to people who receive a pension from a job that didn’t pay into Social Security. Any survivor or spousal benefits you might receive are reduced by two-thirds of the pension amount. In your case, your entire benefit was offset.

People are understandably upset to learn they don’t qualify for survivor or spousal benefits through Social Security. But since your pension is large enough to offset any benefit, you’re financially better off with the pension than without it.

For more information, see the government pension offset pamphlet, available online at SSA.gov/pubs or by calling the Social Security Administration toll-free at (800) 772-1213.

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California’s workplace violence prevention law is now in effect. Here's how it changes things

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California’s workplace violence prevention law is now in effect. Here's how it changes things

Beginning this month, California businesses will be required to have plans in place to prevent violence in the workplace.

Senate Bill 553, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, requires that employers develop plans to protect workplaces from foreseeable threats of violence, which can range from bullying and harassment to active shooter and hostage situations. Under the law, employers were to have these comprehensive plans in place by July 1.

Here’s what you should know about the new law:

Who pushed for the workplace violence prevention law, and why?

State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), who wrote the legislation, said he began looking into regulating workplace violence after a major shooting in 2021 at a light-rail yard roiled his district. In the incident, an employee killed nine colleagues at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority before taking his own life.

Surveying the scene soon after the shooting, Cortese said he felt there could have been a clear plan for how workers might respond in such a situation. “It would have saved lives,” he said.

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Cortese said the requirements outlined by the law took cues from a regulation the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health had been in the process of developing. Their safety standard, however, given their lengthy rule-making process and bureaucratic delays, probably would have taken several more years to get final approval.

More than half of such shootings in 2021 occurred in places of commerce, including grocery stores and manufacturing sites, according to the FBI.

SB 553 was backed by several unions, among them the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council. The union sought a law that would help address what it described as a rash of violent attacks at grocery stores and pharmacies, as workers were being pressured by their employers to crack down on shoplifting.

Grocery and other retail workers who interact with the public have long worried about violence in the workplace. Notably, they faced harassment and at times assault from customers who refused to comply with mask mandates in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast-food workers also have complained of violent and dangerous customers.

Did anyone oppose the legislation? If so, why?

Industry groups such as the National Retail Assn. had vehemently opposed SB 553, arguing the paperwork would be overly burdensome for businesses.

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They also took issue with a provision the bill had in its early stages that prohibited businesses from requiring nonsecurity employees to confront shoplifters and active shooters. That language was later removed. Eventually, the trade groups dropped their opposition.

What exactly is required under the law?

Legal experts said many companies had already started loosely addressing workplace violence concerns as mass shootings and other violent incidents dominated headlines over the years. The law helps to clarify employers’ obligations in this arena, experts said.

The law defines four types of workplace violence employers should try to prevent: violent action by a third-party person with no real reason to be at the worksite — essentially, a stranger showing up and harming an employee; violence by parties that are entitled to be there, such as customers, clients, patients or other authorized visitors; violence committed against employees by another employee; and violence by a third party who has a romantic or other personal relationship with an employee.

Under the law, most California businesses with at least 10 employees are required to have a policy document identifying potential violence and plans to deal with it — either as a standalone document, or as part of an existing injury and illness prevention policy.

They must also make workers aware of the violence prevention plan through annual training, and maintain a log of incidents of violence over a minimum of five years.

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What else should I know about the law?

The law makes it easier for employees — or the unions that represent them — to get temporary restraining orders if they are threatened by a coworker or someone else in the workplace.

“That’s a big thing — most employees don’t get to choose who they work with or what happens at work,” said Ian A. Wright, a labor and employment attorney at Alston & Bird. “It gives employees an additional form of protection that they can go and seek themselves.”

Noncompliance could be met with civil penalties, and businesses that haven’t yet implemented the law are already several days past the deadline.

“My advice would be to get it done as soon as possible,” Wright said.

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