In Oct. 10, 2018, file photo, Dodger Stadium is seen after sunset in Los Angeles. Dodger Stadium will serve as a vote center for the presidential election in November 2020, making the Dodgers the first Major League Baseball team to make their venue available for voting. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
Dodger Stadium will serve as a vote center for the presidential election in November, making the Dodgers the first Major League Baseball team to make their venue available for voting.
Any registered voter in Los Angeles County can visit the stadium over a five-day period. Parking will be free.
Further details will be announced later. The team said Thursday that all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health guidelines will be followed regarding social distancing.
The stadium site is a joint effort between the Dodgers and More Than A Vote, a nonprofit coalition of Black athletes and artists working together to educate, energize and protect young communities of color by fighting systemic voter suppression.
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James helped created More Than A Vote.
"We are all in this together," James said in a statement. "This is exactly why we created More Than a Vote. A lot of us now working together and here for every team who wants to follow the Dodgers lead and turn their stadium into a safer place for voting."
Dodger Stadium has been closed to the general public during the shortened 60-game season. However, the stadium and surrounding property have hosted the county's largest COVID-19 testing site and been a staging ground for emergency equipment and a food distribution site for those experiencing food insecurity.
Matt Hayden, vice president of govtech solutions at Exiger and a former assistant secretary of cyber at Department of Homeland Security, joined Cheddar to discuss the surprise phone call initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin to President Joe Biden, ahead of January security talks about the rising tensions over Ukraine. "We're hoping to hear that we're able to talk about the aggression and the leadup of the Ukrainian militarization," Hayden said. "But we're also looking to hear is how the Kremlin leveraged their talking points to try to test their negotiation stance with the United States leading into this January 10th meeting."
The No Surprises Act begins implementation on January 1, 2022. The legislation is meant to curb the practice of unexpected billing for care from providers the patient was unaware were out-of-network from their insurance. Patricia Kelmar, director of health care campaigns for U.S. PIRG joined Cheddar to describe the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars charged to unsuspecting patients and how things will change under the new law. "If we are picking an in-network doctor and an in-network hospital, we should not see those added costs from anesthesiologists, radiologists, scrub-in surgeons," she said. "The other area it protects you is in air ambulances — not ground ambulances, unfortunately — but the helicopters or the airplanes you might need to transport you in an emergency situation."
President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladmir Putin are expected to have another conversation surrounding escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Ariel Cohen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar's Ken Buffa to discuss the ongoing tensions and why Putin's request for a conversation with Biden comes now. "This is very serious. This is the worst security crisis we had since the collapse of the Soviet Union," Cohen told Cheddar.
Stocks closed mixed on Wednesday, but two indexes - the Dow and the S&P 500 - ended the session with a new record. Akshata Bailkeri, Equity Analyst at Bruderman Asset Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she says there is a consensus for robust consumer spreading in 2022, especially as the Omicron variant is proving to be milder than other COVID-19 strains.
John Quelch, Dean of Miami Herbert Business School, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the retail giant is acting in accordance to President Biden's new law banning goods from China's Xinjiang region. Quelch also elaborates on the importance of China in Walmart's overall strategy.
