CEO: Port Canaveral Cruises "In the Hands of the CDC" as COVID-19 Pandemic Continues - Bay News 9

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PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. — When will cruising return nearly a year after being shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic?

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What You Need To Know

•  Cruises at Port Canaveral have been shut down for nearly a year as the COVID-19 pandemic continues


•  Port officials say they have experienced a $14 million loss just since October


• Businesses in the area have also reported sizable losses due to the lack of cruises

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Port Canaveral is reporting a more than $14 million loss just since October, with more losses expected as 2021 wears on.

A return to sailing can't come soon enough for the port, and businesses relying on passengers bolstering their livelihoods.​

"Not very good, we miss them a lot," said Dina Ligerakis owner of Zachary's in Cape Canaveral, who is talking about Port Canaveral cruise ship passengers.

People who step off ships usually then step into her restaurant, but none have set foot inside for the past year.

"We depend on the cruise industry, it's been very challenging," Ligerakis said. "Very hard, very tough, like everybody."

Cruise passengers account for 50% of her business, she said, and since the pandemic began, business has dropped by 30%.

In the meantime, the return of cruising continues to be kicked down the road.

Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer Captain John Murray said commissioners just learned Carnival is calling off cruises through May.

"We're in the hands of the CDC, they control the destiny of our ships, and when they can come back," Murray said.

It means the port's new 185,000 square foot Cruise Terminal 3, completed in June 2020, will continue to sit empty and unused.

"We haven't had a single passenger through it yet," Murray said.

Carnival's "Mardi Gras," which will be home-ported at Port Canaveral, remains overseas indefinitely.

Port Canaveral is seeking federal aid through the latest COVID-19 relief bill yet to be voted on by Congress.​

Murray remains optimistic cruising will return soon.

"We need to get our economy back and people working again," he said.

And when that happens, Ligerakis's doors are open.

"Please come, we cannot wait," she said.

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‘WandaVision': What You Need to Know About Episode 8’s Insane Mid-Credits Scene - TheWrap

(This article contains major spoilers for “Previously On,” the eighth episode of the Marvel series “WandaVision”)

Well, that sure was a doozie. For the next-to-last episode of “WandaVision” on Disney+, we got a bit of a lore dump as Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) took a trip through Wanda Maximoff’s (Elizabeth Olsen) past. One of the biggest things we learned was that, actually, Wanda did NOT steal Vision’s body from S.W.O.R.D.

S.W.O.R.D. director Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), it turns out, lied to Monica about that to paint Wanda as a villain — he showed her video of Wanda breaking the glass in the lab and descending into the bay, and used those to weave a fake story.

So it certainly looks a lot like Hayward himself is the real villain here. Especially after that bonus scene we got during the end credits.

Also Read: 'WandaVision' Might Have Finally Confirmed the MCU Multiverse

In that bonus scene, we see that S.W.O.R.D. has specific plans for Vision’s corpse, which they’ve reassembled without the Mind Stone in his head. He’s now totally colorless — not just washed out like his corpse was, but completely absent of color.

And it looks like they’ve brought him back to life, using energy they had collected from Wanda using a drone. What exactly Hayward plans to do with it is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t seem like he’s got peaceful intentions.

The big question now surrounds what this new white Vision will be like. And the Marvel comics — specifically a run of “West Coast Avengers” from the 1980s — do give us a pretty solid indication of what we can expect.

So in the comics, Vision’s mind is constructed from the brain patterns of a guy named Simon Williams, better known by his superhero alias Wonder Man (I know, I know). In West Coast Avengers, some rogue government agents acting at the behest of villain from the future, Immortus, capture Vision and take him apart.

Also Read: How 'WandaVision' Has Ties With 'Loki' and 'Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania'

But then the Avengers get him back, and Hank Pym rebuilds him. But Williams didn’t want his brain to be copied again. So when Pym reactivated Vision — colorless because of damage to his outer shell — he lacked any of the emotion that made Vision who he was.

From there, things get really convoluted, in a way that almost certainly won’t happen on “WandaVision” now that we’ve only got one episode remaining. But this Vision does eventually regain his personality. And then he is forced to swap bodies with Anti-Vision — basically an alternate universe version of Vision. So our Vision ended up in another universe while Anti-Vision was on Earth in the white Vision body.

Eventually they fight, of course, and the real Vision wins.

It’s tempting to point out the multiverse possibilities here with Anti-Vision and Immortus. Especially since Immortus is better known by another name: Kang the Conquerer, who will be played by Jonathan Majors in the next “Ant-Man and the Wasp” movie.

Also Read: 'WandaVision': Yes, That Was Kathryn Hahn Singing the Agatha Theme Song

But “WandaVision” has just refused to get into multiverse stuff so far. That doesn’t mean we won’t get some big reveal about that in next week’s finale, but it would be unreasonable to expect Marvel to get super deep into all that at the same time that they’re making the multiverse official. It would just be too many new things for the audience to deal with.

Plus, the MCU traditionally is more about taking inspiration and aesthetic stuff from the comics than it is about adapting storylines. So in that vein I expect that the white Vision will simply be Vision without the humanity. An actual robot who approaches things very clinically and doesn’t really have morals.

And I think Wanda, when she meets this new Vision, will (after they fight) imbue him with his old personality somehow. Meaning Vision will be back, though he won’t be quite the same without the Mind Stone. And he might be more like a Vision Jr, in the sense that he would be a recreation of Vision rather than a revival of the old Vision. It’ll just depend on how much of him is in the body and how much was in the Stone, as they discussed in Wakanda back in “Avengers: Infinity War.”

Seriously, though, I wouldn’t look to these comics to help you guess what will happen in the “WandaVision” finale beyond those more surface elements. They might tease Kang’s involvement or something, but this show simply has not laid any groundwork for crazy multiverse stuff.

Also Read: Is 'WandaVision' About to Introduce Fantastic Four Leader Reed Richards to the MCU?

So if we do finally get a multiverse reveal in the “WandaVision” finale, I wouldn’t expect it to go too deep right off the bat.

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Akwesasne Man Pleads Guilty to Driving Away from Port of Entry - Department of Justice

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PLATTSBURGH, NEW YORK – Brennan J. Thompson, age 43, of Cornwall Island, Ontario, pled guilty today to driving away from the Massena Port of Entry while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers attempted to search his vehicle.

The announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon and Robert Dwyer, CBP Director of the Massena Port of Entry.

Thompson pled guilty to a high-speed flight from an immigration checkpoint. As part of his guilty plea, Thompson admitted that on May 13, 2020, he was operating a silver Lincoln sedan when he approached the Massena Port of Entry, seeking to enter the United States from Canada.  When asked to open the vehicle’s trunk for inspection, Thompson quickly accelerated away from the inspection booth, made a U-turn and sped back into Canada.  Thompson was arrested on June 28, 2020 and has been in custody since that date.

Chief United States District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby is scheduled to sentence Thompson on June 24, 2021.   Thompson faces up to 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to 3 years of post-imprisonment supervised release.  A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors. 

This case was investigated by CBP and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Collyer.

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Port traffic: Two new companies bringing 100 jobs to Mobile - AL.com

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Two new companies promise to bring more than 100 new jobs and $30 million in capital investment to the landscape around the Port of Mobile, according to announcements Thursday from the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce.

According to information released by the Chamber, Ray-Mont Logistics will develop a high-tech logistics park near the port, and Ren Seafoods will capitalize on the existence of a new cold-storage facility at the port by locating a processing and distribution center on the I-65 beltline.

The developments bear out some predictions made over the last year by Jimmy Lyons, the recently retired director of the Alabama State Port Authority, and John Driscoll, his successor.

In the summer of 2019, MTC Logistics broke ground on a new cold storage facility near the port’s growing container terminal. Lyons said at the time that it would be a game-changer, partly because it would vastly expand the port’s capacity to blast-freeze container-loads of domestic product -- such as poultry raised by Alabama farmers -- and prepare it for shipping.

More recently, Driscoll said that a cornerstone of MTC Logistics’ business model is balancing imports and exports. Imports create a local supply of specialized refrigerated shipping containers, which are then available for exports.

“Refrigerated equipment isn’t just sitting around waiting,” Driscoll said in a November interview with AL.com. “It sits in high demand throughout the world. So the MTC Logistics concept, they have the base of customers for inbound … Once that box is here, you have the supply, it’s going to be a natural gateway.”

Driscoll has also said that one of his priorities as director and CEO of the Port Authority was to help develop logistical facilities to make the most of the assets the port already had, including its rail, water and interstate connections. A dedicated logistics park would be a big step in that direction, he said.

Thursday’s news bears that out. Ray-Mont is launching the logistics park in partnership with the Alabama Export Railroad and Canadian National railroad. According to information released Thursday, Ray-Mont expects to export 20,000 TEUs’s worth of goods annually to Asia and Latin America, including plastic resins and agricultural products. A TEU is an industry measure based on the capacity of a standard 20-foot container.

The company operates facilities in Montreal, Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle. Jonathan Hebert, Ray-Mont’s vice president of finance and corporate development, said adding Mobile to that list is “good commercial strategy. There is a great chemistry between our partners and the character of the terminal, with its vast infrastructure, will help us reach international destinations.”

Ray-Mont will invest $15 million in equipment, and Alabama Export Railroad will invest another $4 million. It is expected to open in early 2022, with room eventually to expand to five times its initial capacity. It’s expected to create 50 new jobs with average annual pay of $70,000.

David Rodgers, the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of economic development, said county, state and local incentives offered on the project included a sales tax abatement estimated at $969,000 over 10 years and a property tax abatement worth $736,000 over the same span. The economic impact of the project was estimated at $21 million over 20 years, he said.

Ren Seafoods, meanwhile, plans to utilize the old Smith’s Bakery facility on the west I-65 Service Road. While this isn’t at the port, executives with Ren and MTC left no doubt about the connection to the MTC cold-storage facility that will be open for business later this year.

“We are following their path,” Ren Seafoods CEO Javier Infante said of MTC, “and its vicinity allows us to combine product deliveries to have a unique logistics operation. In addition, there is high-quality, local seafood in this region that we will be able to access for our customer base.”

“Most national seafood companies are concentrated in New England, Miami, Seattle, etc., said Infante. “We are creating a hub for seafood distribution covering the Southeast region.”

Brooks Royster, vice president of international supply chain solutions for MTC Logistics, said Ren Seafoods is the first customer to come to Mobile expressly to be near the MTC facility, but said he expects more to follow. “It is further testament to Mobile being successful as a logistics hub and able to attract new international players,” he said.

Ren Seafoods will invest $12.4 million in the site, with construction expected to begin this spring and be finished before year’s end. It’s expected to create 54 jobs.

Rogers said the project received a sales tax abatement worth $415,000 and a property tax abatement worth $711,000 over 10 years, with the project’s impact estimated at $3.3 million over 20 years.

Local officials hailed the developments.

“To have MTC Logistics partner with this new seafood facility expands our growing footprint as a logistics hub and provides much needed support for an industry still rebounding from the Deepwater Horizon event,” said Mobile County Commission President Merceria Ludgood.

“This announcement is a huge step for the future growth of container traffic in Mobile,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said of the Ray-Mont project. “This logistics hub will put previously vacant property into production to create jobs, add product diversity, and turn the intermodal flywheel at the Port of Mobile.”

“Ray-Mont’s new investment positions Alabama’s seaport into the fast growth resin market, while providing shippers a near-port gateway equipped with new ocean carriage services into key export markets” said Driscoll.

Rodgers said the Ray-Mont logistics park is “an example of how Mobile is a growing destination for distribution operations.” The Ren Seafoods project, he said, “further cements Mobile as a prime location for logistics and warehousing.”

Rodgers said other major developments that have paved the way for projects such as those announced on Thursday. The creation and ongoing expansion of a container terminal operated by APM Terminals made the area much more appealing as a site for distribution hubs, he said, and Walmart’s decision to locate a massive distribution hub west of the city has served as a stamp of approval for other companies.

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California’s congested ports expose the root problem of e-commerce shipping delays - Glossy

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Brands and retailers across the U.S., along with UPS and FedEx, struggled with a surge of e-commerce orders over the holidays, and the logistical strain of shipping millions of packages at once. Despite being well past Christmas, those problems persist. But the root of shipping problems lies well before any actual orders are made. Ports in California where over a million cargo shipments are processed every year have been backed up for months, with no slowdown in imports and a growing backlog of cargo to dig through. 

Fixing that problem will take a coordinated effort from the federal government and brands across the country, according to Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka, 

Seroka said that, while the LA port’s overall import volume for 2020 was only 1% higher than 2019, that includes a four month period between February and May when imports virtually halted. The second half of 2020 saw 908,000 shipments processed per month, an increase of more than 50% from the first half of the year. Over Christmas, the Port of Los Angeles took in 94% more imports than the previous year.

“There are a few factors at play,” Seroka said. “Everyone is spending money on tangible goods instead of services. Because of Covid, we have fewer workers on the floor, which means we sort through cargo slower and there’s a lack of exports out of the country, which makes it harder for the shipping companies who rely on round trip economics.”

Seroka added that retailers are also slow in digesting cargo, leaving it to sit at the docks for extra days, taking up space for cargo that is still incoming.

Pre-pandemic, the Port of LA saw less than 10 ships coming in per day, now it’s more than 15 per day. Wait times are also increasing, from an average of two days for shipment processing to more than eight days, said Seroka. Exports are down 20% while imports are up 11%. Out of the 15,000 or so port workers, around 800 are currently on leave due to Covid illnesses or for quarantining purposes.

Those issues are all being deeply felt by brands. Meera Bhatia, president of expert services at TechStyle, the parent company of Fabletics, said the backups have made inventory planning for brands difficult. She is preparing for shipping delays and backups that will persist for at least the next six months.

“If you rewind all the way to March and April, it was really tough to get inventory into the country,” she said. Most products from TechStyle’s brands are produced in factories in Asia. “The LA ports were backed up then and they still are now as brands try to get stuff into their warehouses. The carriers had to throttle volume. I know it has required a lot of capital investment on the part of the shipping companies for new trucks and ships. That stuff takes time.”

That backup has affected the price of shipping for brands, as well. Donny Greenberg, COO of intimates manufacturer Gelmart, said he typically pays $1,200 for a 40-foot shipping container of product, but nowadays the same container can cost more than $4,000. A 40-foot container can carry around 20,000 pairs of jeans, for example.

“What I’m most worried about is the supply chain,” said Adeela Hussain Johnson, Adeela Hussain Johnson of luggage brand Beis. “In Long Beach, where we get our shipments, the ports are delayed by one or two months already. Our shipping partners there have told us to prepare for these issues to last throughout the entire year.”

Johnson added that imports from China, where Beis’ bags are made, are slower right now because of Lunar New Year when a significant portion of the country is on holiday. Some U.S. companies like Peloton have moved manufacturing in response to shipping delays. Last month, Peloton acquired a U.S. factory and began moving production from Asia to the states

For the end consumer, they have already felt the impact of similar delays over the holidays. But Seroka hopes companies and the U.S. government can work together to achieve a better end goal.

“If we stopped all shipments now, we would still have months of work to get through everything that’s already there,” Seroka said. “First, we need to get workers vaccinated so we can have max capacity out on the docks and ships.” To that end, Seroka said the LA port has a vaccination center on site to vaccinate port workers, but is waiting on an increase in supply from the government.

“We have to implore importers to do their best to empty the containers as soon as they arrive and bring them back to the port. Finally, this isn’t very popular, but we’ve talked to industry people about metering cargo to help us dig through the backup. Really it just comes down to us needing a break to catch our breath and dig through what we have already, so we can get back on track.” 

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Scene of violence is fake, but problem is real - KATC Lafayette News

CROWLEY — A scene of violence on the streets of Crowley Thursday night was fake, but it's meant to highlight a very real problem. An Acadiana pastor says he hopes to inspire others to take action on gun violence by showing them something close to the real thing.

Earlier this week he was in Abbeville. Tonight he took his message to another Acadiana community grappling with gun violence.

"There is a child right now with bullets inside him in Lafayette General. It was not the white man that shot him, it was not the cop that shot him, it was not the KKK that shot him, it was another black man from Crowley," Pastor Lawrence Levy said to a crowd gathered on Hucthinson Ave.

More than a hundred people gathered around crime scene tape, including friends and family of 21-year-old Paul Dugas. They say Paul remains in a local hospital after he was injured in one of two shootings on Tuesday. His loved ones say the message was loud and clear.

"Everybody has been impacted, the person doing the shooting, and the person getting shot. It needs to stop. So people need to make better choices, period," Kimberly Harris, a friend of Paul's family, said.

During the re-enactment, Levy walks around bloodied bodies laying on the street, including a mother holding her son, a man holding a rifle, and a young boy being held down by a cop.

"You don't want to see your young black boy looking like this, but when he started having trouble in school, you didn't do anything about it" Levy said.

The crowd: a mix of all races and ages. His message for all of them: stop the violence, love each other, and put down the guns.

"They're scared to die, they don't think they are. They are scared of prison, they don't think they are, so they have to see it," Levy explained. "That's how were going to change their lives, by putting it in their face."

The pastor says he's been an advocate against gun violence for years, but recently started doing these new, dramatic, true-to-life demonstrations.

"A lot of people break down and tell me what's wrong, a lot of youth that comes to me, it's very helpful," he added.

Those watching nearby were listening and agreeing.

"This is a result of what's going on, they are hating each other," said Harris. "It doesn't have to be that way."

Levy also told the crowd he is continuing to share his message across the country. He says he has plans to do the demonstrations in other states, including California and Mississippi.

WATCH the full demonstration here.

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US Supply Chain Snagged at Port of LA Over COVID Spending Surge - Commercial Observer

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In February 2020, the first signs of economic trouble caused by COVID-19 were seen at the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach as inbound shipments dropped dramatically. One year later, it’s the opposite: too many shipments have caused an unprecedented bottleneck and put serious strain on the supply chain. 

The twin ports are the two largest in the Western Hemisphere and, together, handle more than one-third of all containers coming into the U.S., making them a vital part of the overall economic recovery. The new year brought the busiest January on record for the Port of Long Beach, and a 22 percent jump in shipments processed from the same month 2020 at the Port of L.A. — largely driven by the ongoing rise in online spending — according to port officials. 

But a record number of more than 60 container ships are now parked offshore as of last week, waiting to be processed, causing other shipments to be diverted to other ports along the coast, according to Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka. The backlogs are straining the industries that commercial real estate depend on, including raw materials needed for development. The delays have also reportedly caused many retailers to wait weeks for goods stuck on ships at sea.

Gene Seroka said the Port of L.A. has seen six consecutive months of year-over-year increases in processed shipment as people unaffected by coronavirus spend more money. Since they can’t pay for vacations, plane tickets, gym membership or concert tickets, consumers are spending money on cars, furniture and barbells, and it’s not expected to let up going into the second quarter. The National Retail Federation forecasts that retail imports will set new monthly records into the summer.

“American consumers have continued on their unprecedented buying surge that started last summer and hasn’t slowed yet,” Seroka said in a press conference last week. “All indications point toward a strong flow of imports over the next few months as consumers continue an unprecedented buying surge which began last summer. However, U.S. exports continue to lag, down 25 of the last 27 months. What we’re experiencing is one-way trade, which has created challenges for the entire supply chain.”

Severe staffing shortages at every point of the supply chain — from manufacturing factories to the ports to construction sites — have become more common, and are also adding to delays, The Wall Street Journal reported. Most companies have implemented stricter protocols that stipulate infected workers, as well as anyone who was in contact with an infected person, are required to quarantine.

The problems are accelerating the need and demand for industrial space and last-mile distribution facilities in Southern California. The industrial market initially shut down alongside the rest of the world last spring as consumers stopped spending. But it quickly ramped back up after consumer demand rose weeks later and never slowed down, significantly bolstering the industrial real estate market compared to other asset classes.

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