Latest News
See the latest news and get GPT analysis of articles
The biggest fights of the 2024 election are all converging in Arizona 2024-04-10 20:45:00+00:00 - Tuesday’s Arizona Supreme Court ruling upholding a 160-year-old, near-total ban on abortion sent a shock through the state — and cemented its place at the center of politics in 2024. Arizona and its 11 electoral votes will be critical in the race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Voters will decide critical races for Senate and House with both chambers closely divided. The state looks set to have an abortion measure on the November ballot, putting a stark policy choice directly before voters. All of this will be happening amid years-long fights over election procedures and immigration that are still running hot. And the state’s rapidly changing demographics highlight many of the major trends buffeting U.S. politics Arizona has the largest Latino population share of any core battleground state, according to the Census Bureau; the nation’s biggest battleground county in Maricopa County, a former Republican stronghold where more than 2 million people voted in 2020 and Biden narrowly won; increasingly MAGA-fied rural counties racing in the other direction; and the nation’s biggest university by in-person enrollment in Arizona State University. In short, Arizona will show how different groups are grappling with the most pressing issues in the 2024 election — and could decide the balance of power in Washington next year and beyond. The presidential campaign there was decided by just 10,000 votes in 2020, and Biden and Trump’s campaigns already have their eyes on the state: Vice President Kamala Harris announced a Friday trip to Arizona hours after the state Supreme Court’s abortion decision. “You understand how important that majority is in the U.S. Senate, right?” Republican Kari Lake asked the crowd at a March rally in Cave Creek. “We want President Trump to hit the ground running in January of ‘25,” she continued, casting her campaign as the one that could tip the balance. Donald Trump in Mesa, Ariz., in 2022. Mario Tama / Getty Images file In a fundraising email Tuesday afternoon, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego laid out the stakes for the Senate race just as clearly. “If Ruben wins Arizona we are that much closer to holding the Senate. And we need control in the Senate to stop any attempt at a national ban on abortion,” the email read. The campaigns The already feisty battle to replace retiring independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — Gallego’s a “swamp rat,” Lake says; she’s “heartless,” Gallego retorts — comes after three straight Democratic Senate victories in Arizona. A fourth would make clear just how much the state (and the Republican Party) has shifted since Arizona sent the likes of GOP Sens. Barry Goldwater and John McCain to Washington. With Democrats barely holding onto a slim majority in the Senate and playing defense in states Trump overwhelmingly won in 2020, like Ohio, West Virginia, and Montana, the outcome of the Arizona race will have far-reaching repercussions outside the Southwest. And in the House, Arizona is also capable of shifting the balance of power. Democrats need a net gain of just four seats to take control of the House, and Republicans representing seats Biden carried in 2020 are at the top of their target list. Two of those Republicans are from Arizona: David Schweikert, whose 1st District includes Phoenix suburbs such as Scottsdale, and Juan Ciscomani, who represents the 6th District in the southeast corner of the state, around Tucson. Democrats have targeted Schweikert in the past, and viewed him as vulnerable following multiple ethics violations for misusing campaign funds. After redistricting in 2022, Schweikert won a seventh term by just 1 percentage point, while Biden carried the district by nearly 2 points in 2020, according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections. Sensing an opportunity, multiple Democrats are competing to take on Schweikert in November, and his opponent won’t be clear until the July 30 primary. Five Democrats have raised more than $800,000 so far, including former state Democratic Party chair Andrei Cherny, state Rep. Amish Shah and former TV news anchor Marlene Galan-Woods. Two more candidates, orthodontist Andrew Horne and investment banker Conor O’Callaghan, have largely self-funded their campaigns. Ciscomani, who worked as a top aide to former GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, won his first term by nearly 2 points in 2022. He could face a rematch against former state Sen. Kirsten Engel, who is running again in the closely divided district, which Biden carried by one-tenth of a percentage point in 2020. Both Schweikert and Ciscomani condemned the Arizona state Supreme Court’s abortion ruling on Tuesday, but Democrats were quick to highlight their past support for state action on abortion and their past votes on the issue. Republicans are also trying to hold state legislative majorities that could not be thinner: a 31-29 advantage in the Arizona state House and a 16-14 seat advantage in the state Senate. The issues Every single one of those candidates is likely to share Arizona’s ballot this fall with a proposed constitutional amendment which would create a “fundamental right” to receive abortion care up until fetal viability, or about the 24th week of pregnancy, with exceptions after that if a health care professional decides it’s needed to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.” And after the state Supreme Court upheld what’s now one of the strictest bans in the country, the ballot measure could potentially drive an influx of otherwise disengaged young voters to the polls. The single biggest source of them could be the tens of thousands of Arizona State University students in Tempe. The Biden campaign has already started engaging youth voting groups on the ground, with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff phone-banking alongside Keep Arizona Blue, a student coalition focused on voter turnout, earlier this week. It may not be on the ballot in the same way as abortion, but with Arizona sharing the most border with Mexico of any state besides Texas, immigration isn’t an abstract issue for voters in the state. Recent NBC News polling shows Trump with a huge lead over Biden when it comes to which candidate voters believe is better suited to control immigration, which could provide a boost down the ballot for Republicans. But Arizona’s rapidly shifting demographics could also play a key role. If Trump is making further inroads with Latino voters in 2024, as he did in 2020, Arizona may be the battleground state that will feel it most. NALEO Education Fund projected close to one-quarter of the Arizona electorate in 2024 will be Latino. As the population changes, so are the voting patterns. Maricopa County, which takes in the metro Phoenix area and includes about 60% of the state’s voters , backed McCain and Mitt Romney in their presidential bids over Barack Obama by double digits. By 2016, Trump won the county by just a 3.4-point margin and hemorrhaged support four years later, losing the pivotal county even more narrowly to Biden in 2020. Arizona has also been a hotbed for the issue of election denialism for the past four years, and it will once again feature many of the same voices prominently in 2024. That includes Lake — who made her support of Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen a centerpiece of her failed run for governor in 2022 — as well as Abraham Hamadeh, the GOP’s 2022 attorney general nominee who is now running for U.S. House, and Mark Finchem, the Republican secretary of state candidate in 2022 who is now running for the state Senate. While Lake has largely avoided focusing on election denial in her Senate campaign (instead pushing for the importance of “honest elections”), Hamadeh, who focused most of his unsuccessful state attorney general race on false claims about the 2020 election, has maintained his focus on the issue in his race this year. (He’s also repeated false claims about his own narrow 2022 loss to now-state Attorney General Kris Mayes.) That campaign — decided by just 280 votes — underscores the hyper-competitive landscape that will play host to so many pivotal races again this year. And it punctuates the huge policy differences and consequences at stake in the campaigns. Just this week, Mayes vowed to not enforce the abortion ban upheld by the state Supreme Court — a position she ran on in 2022 that Hamadeh opposed.
New EPA limits on 'forever chemicals' in drinking water could cost $1.5 billion to implement 2024-04-10 20:43:00+00:00 - Signage is seen at the headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 10, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, released long-awaited regulations Wednesday on some toxic "forever chemicals" found in drinking water. Known as PFAS, the chemicals are per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances. They are made by attaching two carbon molecules to fluorine, Tom Neltner explained to CNBC in 2023, when he was working as Environmental Defense Fund's Senior Director, Safer Chemicals. The bonds are incredibly strong and take a very long time to break down, earning them the nickname "forever chemicals." The chemicals are helpful for many modern-day applications from weather-proofing clothing to creating non-stick pans. Over time, they can leach into the environment and end up in the water supply. At least 45% of tap water in the US is known to have PFAS in it, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. PFAS exposure over long periods may be carcinogenic and can result in serious illnesses that decrease a person's quality of life and even result in death, according to the EPA. Exposure during pregnancy and early childhood can also have adverse health impacts. The EPA's new final rule sets limits on 5 individual PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA (also known as GenX Chemicals.) The EPA also set a Hazard Index level for PFAS when two or more of four are mixed: PFNA, PFHxS, HFPO-DA, and PFBS.
Sierra Space CEO unveils new satellite product ahead of Dream Chaser launch, possible IPO 2024-04-10 20:33:00+00:00 - Amid preparations for its spaceplane's maiden flight and an initial public offering as soon as next year, Sierra Space is expanding its satellite offerings. Ahead of the much-anticipated solar eclipse, the commercial space unicorn unveiled its aptly named Eclipse line of satellite buses — the main structures of satellites — to serve a wide range of missions in orbits ranging for low Earth to cis-lunar. "We've actually been waiting for six months, so it's like, this [name], we really thought about it," Tom Vice, Sierra Space chief executive said in an interview for CNBC's "Manifest Space" podcast. "I think the name is very appropriate, because I think it will change everything in terms of the affordability of building the next generation buses for the next generation satellites." Valued at $5.3 billion as of September, Sierra Space was spun out of defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation three years ago. Touting a three-decade spaceflight heritage, the independent subsidiary is the result of an ambitious early bet by SNC's billionaire husband and wife team, Fatih and Eren Ozmen. Sierra Space touts a diverse space and defense tech portfolio spanning space transportation, space habitation, propulsion and satellites. It's perhaps best known for its NASA-contracted, reusable spaceplane Dream Chaser which will run cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station and eventually carry humans to and from orbit. It's also working on a commercial space station with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin called Orbital Reef, and in January landed a $740 million high-profile Pentagon contract to develop a constellation of missile tracking satellites for the U.S. The Eclipse offerings bring it further into the spacecraft subsystem business. On Dream Chaser, Vice said he's "very confident" it will make its first flight in the fourth quarter of this year. He added the spaceplane passed the first phase of environmental testing in March and said since it will be carrying cargo to the ISS on this first demonstration, the company is dependent on NASA's manifest and it's working with the FAA to get a reentry license.
The 'supercore' inflation measure shows Fed may have a real problem on its hands 2024-04-10 20:25:00+00:00 - US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a "Fed Listens" event in Washington, DC, on October 4, 2019. Eric Baradat | AFP | Getty Images A hotter-than-expected consumer price index reading rattled markets Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading. Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend. The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further. Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a gauge of underlying prices. Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months. Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O'Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you're looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve's 2% goal. "As we sit here today, I think they're probably pulling their hair out," Fitzpatrick said. An ongoing problem CPI increased 3.5% year over year last month, above the Dow Jones estimate that called for 3.4%. The data pressured equities and sent Treasury yields higher on Wednesday, and pushed futures market traders to extend out expectations for the central bank's first rate cut to September from June, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool. "At the end of the day, they don't really care as long as they get to 2%, but the reality is you're not going to get to a sustained 2% if you don't get a key cooling in services prices, [and] at this point we're not seeing it," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Santander U.S. Wall Street has been keenly aware of the trend coming from supercore inflation from the beginning of the year. A move higher in the metric from January's CPI print was enough to hinder the market's "perception the Fed was winning the battle with inflation [and] this will remain an open question for months to come," according to BMO Capital Markets head of U.S. rates strategy Ian Lyngen. Another problem for the Fed, Fitzpatrick says, lies in the differing macroeconomic backdrop of demand-driven inflation and robust stimulus payments that equipped consumers to beef up discretionary spending in 2021 and 2022 while also stoking record inflation levels. Today, he added, the picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes. "They are so scared by what happened in 2021 and 2022 that we're not starting from the same point as we have on other occasions," Fitzpatrick added. "The problem is, if you look at all of this [together] these are not discretionary spending items, [and] it puts them between a rock and a hard place." Sticky inflation problem
Inflation is sticking around. Here's what that means for interest rate cuts — and your money. 2024-04-10 20:23:00+00:00 - The war against inflation was never going to be easy, but the latest consumer price index data demonstrates just how tough a fight the Federal Reserve is facing. In the months ahead, the outcome of that battle will have major implications for your finances. New labor data shows that U.S. prices in March rose 3.5% from a year ago, hotter than economists expected and the third straight month that inflation has accelerated. Gasoline prices and rent contributed over half the monthly increase, the government said on Wednesday. The upshot: The Fed's ongoing campaign to tame inflation is far from over. That has left consumers and investors wondering if the central bank, who until recently were widely expected to cut its benchmark interest rate in June, could push back that timeline several months, or even into 2025. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has underscored that policy makers are closely monitoring inflation data to assess their progress in nudging it back toward their 2% annual rate, its level prior to the pandemic-fueled surge in prices. A premature move to cut the federal funds rate risks uncorking additional inflationary pressures, he has warned. Addressing those concerns, another Fed official said last week that the central bank might not cut rates at all in 2024 "if we continue to see inflation moving sideways." Why is inflation inching higher? Two main factors contributing to stronger-than-expected inflation in March were gasoline prices and rent. Rising prices at the pump stems partly to growing U.S. demand, according to the AAA, which said the current national average of $3.62 a gallon is about 6.6% higher than a month ago. Gas prices are also rising because of mounting geopolitical tensions in Russia and the Middle East, with Brent crude earlier this month surging beyond $90 a barrel and the U.S. benchmark topping $86. Rents also remain sticky amid the nation's tight housing supply. A few other items also contributed to the acceleration, including car insurance, which surged a whopping 22.2% from a year earlier. Insurers have been hiking premiums to offset their rising costs due to extreme weather and the higher cost of new automobiles. Why could that impact the Fed's decision to cut rates? Hiking interest rates is the Fed's most effective weapon against inflation. That's because businesses and consumers put the brakes on spending when it costs more to borrow money, and that effectively dampens demand for goods and services, which in turn can help lower inflation. But with inflation so far refusing to dissipate in 2024, economists say the Fed has less of a reason to cut rates, at least in the near term. What is the current Federal Reserve interest rate? The current federal funds rate — what banks charge each other for short-term loans — is in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%. The Fed has hiked its rate 11 times since March 2022 in its battle to curb inflation. That's made it more expensive to borrow money, with rates for credit cards, mortgages and other loans sharply rising over the last two years. When will the the Fed cut rates in 2024? Prior to Wednesday's inflation report, most economists had penciled in the Fed's June 12 meeting as the likely date for its rate cut in four years. Economists had also predicted several cuts over the rest of 2024. But due to the latest inflation reading, those experts are pushing back their forecasts. "June is probably off the table" for a rate cut, noted Elyse Ausenbaugh, global investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Global Wealth Management, in an email. If the Fed doesn't cut in June, policy makers are unlikely to reduce rates until September because little economic data is released between their June and July meetings that could alter their thinking, noted Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, in a research note on Wednesday. How could a delayed rate cut impact your money? The initial impact was felt Wednesday in the stock market, with Wall Street sending shares sharply lower. Expectations the Fed would soon cut rates had fueled a 20% surge in the S&P 500 since Halloween. That's because lower rates would help bolster spending from consumers and corporations, which in turn would encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other investments. But with that looking less likely in the near-term, investors pulled back on Wednesday. If rate cuts come later in 2024 than expected, consumers could face higher borrowing costs for a longer period. Auto loans, credit card rates and other loans are based on the Fed's benchmark rate, so a higher rate means that consumers won't get a break anytime soon. Mortgage rates, which are hovering at about 7%, are also influenced by the Fed benchmark rate, although they also reflect other factors, like bond yields and inflation. Rates for home loans are likely to be unchanged in the near-term due to factors like the strong job market and housing demand, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. Is there an upside to interest rates remaining high? If there's a silver lining, it's for savers given that some high-interest savings accounts, certificates of deposit and other savings vehicles now offer interest rates of 5% or more. If the Fed delays cutting rates, it's likely savers will be able find favorable rates for longer in 2024. That means consumers could sock away some cash in a high-interest savings account or CD and earn a rate that's 1.5 percentage point to 2 percentage point higher than the current inflation rate. That's better than leaving the money in a checking account that might be providing little to no interest, which effectively erodes the value of your money due to the impact of inflation.
Student Aid Woes Stalk Education Secretary in Appearance on Capitol Hill 2024-04-10 20:22:51+00:00 - As Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, appeared before lawmakers on Wednesday to make his agency’s case for funding next year, members of both parties had something else on their minds: this year’s chaotic college admissions process. Republicans peppered him with questions about the botched rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, which has derailed college admissions this year. Several of them asked whether the agency had diverted resources away from the project in its pursuit of canceling student debt. “There’s nothing more important right now at the Department of Education,” Mr. Cardona told the House Appropriations Committee of the aid form, saying that the agency was successfully juggling multiple priorities with the resources available. “We’re working on this around the clock.” While Mr. Cardona was testifying, the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a separate hearing where lawmakers from both parties said the problems with the aid form had harmed aspiring college students.
I spent over $1 million on a Victorian house that hadn't been touched in 70 years. It was crumbling and rotting, but I have no regrets. 2024-04-10 20:22:06+00:00 - In 2023, Natalie Glaze bought a Victorian house that hadn't been touched in 70 years. The 32-year-old business owner said the house cost more than $1 million, but was falling apart. Despite crumbling walls and rotten floors, Glaze said she doesn't regret buying a historic home. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Natalie Glaze, 32, owner of a jewelry brand and a sustainable swimwear business, who bought a Victorian townhouse in southwest London in 2023. Glaze and her partner are in the process of renovating the house, which has cost them more than £50,000, around $63,300, so far. They purchased the home after renovating and selling an apartment they previously bought for over $500,000. Glaze is documenting the renovation on TikTok and she said she's been able to earn some additional income from her content. This essay, which also incorporates quotes from emails between Glaze and BI, was edited for length and clarity. We weren't planning on getting a house that needed much work. Advertisement It was the classic story of: You fall in love with the house, and then you look past some of the issues. You're like, "Oh, that'll be fine. We'll just paint it. It'll be all good." Before you know it, you realize the whole house is falling apart. I always knew I wanted to live in a house with character. I like having a project. When we walked around, I just fell in love with the potential. The house cost seven figures. It's very rare that you get a house that hasn't been touched in over 70 years. I knew that with a lot of love and care, you could bring it back to life. Advertisement The house was covered in soot and dust when Glaze and her partner moved in. Courtesy of Natalie Glaze My dad's an architect. When I was talking to my dad, who gave us advice, he was like, "You're buying a house that's old. There are going to be issues. It's a bit of a can of worms." We moved in the coldest week that we'd had for months. There was snow on the ground, ice everywhere. There was no central heating, basically no electricity. We thought there would be hot water because there was a shower. When we turned on the shower, we realized there wasn't any hot water. I remember lying in bed — I had about 10 jumpers on, all the blankets, and a hot water bottle — and saying to my boyfriend, "Have we made a massive mistake?" After, we stayed with multiple friends for two months. We were really grateful. Advertisement The only way out of the renovation was through The first couple of months, everything ended up happening a lot quicker because of necessity. Everything was covered in soot because it had coal fires as its central heating. It was very dusty — marks all over the walls, which were crumbling. A lot of the wallpaper had big black smears all over it. I'm a very visual person, and every time I walked into the house, I thought, "Oh my gosh, there's so much to do." I couldn't see past the mess of the house. So I just thought, "Let's get it clean and tidy, get rid of all the soot, get rid of all the manky carpets, and make it a space that doesn't feel depressing." Advertisement The couple is doing most of the aesthetic renovations themselves. Courtesy of Natalie Glaze We had to do a mad rush of trying to find electricians and plumbers in a very short space of time. It felt like a huge amount of pressure because this is a beautiful old house. I don't want to make a decision that I'll regret and do something that ruins it. Related stories When it was like big structural stuff, we thought, "Let's get builders in." But all the painting, the priming, the sanding of the floors, the building of wardrobes — we've done ourselves. It helps keep the costs lower and connects you to a house. Advertisement We're about 40% done with the renovation We were cooking on the camping stove for the first six months, and there were holes in the walls. The whole house is basically lath and plaster. It's super soft, and the ceilings had cracks all the way through. I remember the structural engineer said, "Those ceilings are going to go." I was like, "When?" He was like, "At any moment." We've replaced four ceilings. The amount of dust when those ceilings came down is wild. We've got two fully finished rooms: the dressing room and the main bathroom. Then the living room, bedroom, and spare bedroom are part of the way there. They look nice, but they're not finished. Currently our kitchen is a building site. Advertisement The living room. Courtesy of Natalie Glaze We're very much doing it room by room. I can see it taking many years, but that's part of the fun. That has massively helped how overwhelming and big of a project it feels like. This house is full of treasures. When we pulled up the carpet, we found so many old newspapers with hand-drawn advertisements, like vintage Nivea adverts from the 1970s. I want to frame some, showcasing the house, its past, and how long it's been here. Ninety percent of the downstairs floor was rotten. It had old woodworm damage. I fell through about five floorboards. Advertisement When we were falling through, we found old medicine bottles. I'll keep those and display them somewhere. I love that it's a piece of history. We're mixing vintage finds with modern furniture Old houses like this are so special. I need to make sure I'm honoring it. It's a fine balance of having the old original features — having vintage antique pieces — and then bringing in a bit of modern. I like to scour the internet and find stuff that I fall in love with. It can take years. We've also brought in a lot of old stuff. We've got a mirror on the wall in the living room that my dad bought 35 years ago at Portobello Market. It's come with me to every house I've lived in. Advertisement Glaze estimates she and her partner are about 40% finished with the renovation. Courtesy of Natalie Glaze The cornice is original. We've restored all the baseboards because they don't make them like that anymore. For me, it's very important that it still feels like a Victorian home. We have an old coal cellar in the house. I remember when I first looked at it, I was like, "Am I going to be scared in this house by myself? Will it feel haunted?" But everyone who comes in just says this house has a lovely feel. The granddaughter of the lady who lived here before us saw some of my TikTok videos. She contacted me and said, "My whole family have lived here. We were so happy here. I'm so glad it's gone to you. It looks like you're taking care of it." Advertisement Who knows with life and circumstances, but I can see myself living here for a very long time and being very happy.
Google launching AI photo eraser for iPhone and Android phones in May 2024-04-10 20:08:00+00:00 - Rick Osterloh, Google's senior vice president, Devices & Services, speaks during a product launch event for the Google Pixel 8, and Pixel 8 pro phones, Pixel Watch 2, and Pixel Buds Pro earbuds, in New York on October 4, 2023. Google announced Wednesday that it will make several of its photo-editing tools powered by generative artificial intelligence free to all users of Google Photos. The company said in a blog post that starting May 15 and over the following weeks, it will expand access to AI-powered editing features previously only available to its Pixel phones and via its Google One cloud storage subscription service. The Google Photos AI features include Magic Eraser, which removes unwanted objects from photos; Photo Unblur, which sharpens out-of-focus images; and Portrait Light, which can rebalance a photo's lighting. Google said the expansion will also bring those features to more devices including Pixel tablets. Desktop users on Google's operating system must use a Chromebook Plus with ChromeOS version 118+ or have at least 3GB RAM, while users on a mobile device must use Android 8.0 or iOS 15 or higher, Google said. As part of next month's roll-out, Google is also broadening access to its Magic Editor feature to all Pixel devices. All Google Photos users on Android and iOS will receive 10 Magic Editor photo saves per month, according to the announcement. Pixel device users and premium Google One subscribers who pay for 2TB of storage will have unlimited saves. The Magic Editor tool, which launched with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro last fall, uses generative AI to produce various photo edits such as repositioning subjects, removing items or changing the sky's color, while creating new imagery that fills in the gaps.
In fight for rape exception to abortion ban, Louisiana legislator draws on mother’s painful past 2024-04-10 19:57:00+00:00 - When state Rep. Delisha Boyd was born in September 1969, abortion was illegal in Louisiana. Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision, was still more than three years away. So when her 15-year-old mother conceived her after a statutory rape by a 28-year-old man, Boyd said, she had few options. She could carry the pregnancy to term or flee to a state that allowed abortions. Today, a girl in Louisiana could face a similar choice. Understanding that reality prompted Boyd, a Democrat who has represented Orleans Parish since 2021, to launch an uphill political crusade to add exceptions for rape and incest to Louisiana’s abortion ban. Despite broad support for such measures in the state and nationally, Boyd’s first attempt failed last year, amid opposition from Republican legislators and anti-abortion groups, like Louisiana Right to Life. “Every person deserves the same protection under the law, no matter the nature of their conception,” the group recently wrote on its website. Some Republicans nationally have softened their hard-line stances on abortion amid the electoral backlash to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. But Louisiana’s current religious and political landscape is one in which even Democrats don’t universally support exceptions for rape and incest. Louisiana is now one of at least 11 states that have either severely restricted or banned abortion without exceptions for rape or incest. The ban allows abortions only for certain fetal conditions or if a pregnant patient’s life is in danger. Doctors can be imprisoned for up to 15 years and fined $200,000 for violating the law. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, there were three abortion clinics in Louisiana. Out of the 7,444 abortions reported in the state in 2021, the last full year before the abortion ban went into effect, at least 37 patients, some of them under age 15, said rape or incest was the reason for their abortions, according to the Louisiana Health Department. The three clinics shut down in 2022, and last year only three abortions total — for any reason — were reported statewide, according to an agency spokesperson. Today, Boyd said, she’s concerned about survivors without the means to travel out of state for abortion care and the actions they may take in desperation. In an interview, Boyd said her mother’s experience drove her to self-medicate with drugs. She was only 28 when she died from an overdose. “She didn’t die in childbirth,” Boyd said, “but ultimately she lost her life because of what happened to her.” The man who raped her mother has also since died. In February, Boyd reintroduced her bill, despite the odds. “If I don’t do it, who will?” she said. Boyd said her mother, a rape survivor who died at 28, "lost her life because of what happened to her." Akasha Rabut for NBC News In the wake of the Dobbs decision, doctors, advocates for rape survivors and abortion-rights supporters have shared concerns about what it means for victims of rape and incest. Dr. Nicole Freehill, an OB-GYN based in New Orleans, has treated at least two pregnant rape survivors since the ban passed. “Pregnancy is not a benign condition,” she said. “Why should you make somebody go through a dangerous medical condition for nine months if it was not something they ever intended or tried to have happen?” Freehill recalled treating an adolescent who became pregnant after her uncle raped her. She came into the emergency room with stomach pain and didn’t know the cause until an ultrasound examination showed she was about 19 weeks pregnant. Another had taken emergency contraception after having been date-raped but still became pregnant. Freehill believes both were ultimately able to go out of state for abortion care. But that option has its own barriers. Some of the abortion clinics nearest to New Orleans are more than 300 miles away in Florida. And access in the Southeast will plunge next month when Florida’s six-week abortion ban takes effect. Abby Ledoux, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which serves Louisiana and part of Texas, said the nonprofit group has patient navigators, who help connect clients, including some rape and incest survivors, to abortion resources. She said exceptions for rape and incest don’t guarantee that survivors will find providers willing to perform the procedure. In Mississippi, where the state’s sole abortion clinic closed in 2022, a 13-year-old rape victim was unable to get an abortion, despite the state’s exception for such cases. Their doctor said the nearest abortion provider was in Illinois; the family did not have funds for travel. Still, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast supports Boyd’s bill. It would be far better to overturn the abortion ban, she said, but “any care in this state is important and a step in the right direction.” Last May, Boyd shared her mother’s experience publicly for the first time at a committee hearing. She said she felt compelled to help her colleagues understand the harm that could come from having no exceptions. Boyd told them that she didn’t know what her mother would have done if she had had a choice — and that she couldn’t speak for other survivors. “It is not my right to decide how that woman chooses,” she said. During the public comment period, Dr. Damon Cudihy, an OB-GYN and military veteran, argued against the bill. “It would be more just to apply the death penalty to rapists, not to the innocent children,” he said. Democratic Rep. Alonzo Knox, a former Marine, fired back. “When you served, you fought for freedom, right?” he asked. “So can you help me understand as you sit here today why do you want to take freedom away, particularly for women?” At the end of the hearing, the bill failed along party lines. This year’s bill may fare no better. Boyd said she spoke with Democratic Rep. Patricia Moore, who has also spoken publicly about having been conceived by rape, about the bill. Asked for comment, however, Moore said she plans to vote no. Louisiana state Rep. Patricia Moore. Louisiana House of Representatives In sharing her position, she referred to her religious beliefs. “I do believe every child that comes into this world, every pregnancy, if God allowed it, it was for a purpose,” Moore said. “It’s not like it’s a mistake.” Boyd knows the bill’s passage is unlikely. It has yet to be scheduled for a committee hearing, which is required before a vote. Still, she refuses to back down. “I’m too old to be afraid of what might happen and too young not to do anything about it.”
Milei, the president of cash-strapped Argentina, starts another US tour and plans to meet Elon Musk 2024-04-10 19:54:27+00:00 - BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — President Javier Milei of Argentina kicked off a visit Wednesday to the United States, where he’ll meet with tech billionaire Elon Musk, as his government seeks an infusion of cash to overhaul Argentina’s embattled economy. The populist president started his four-day trip in Miami, home to one of the largest populations of Argentines in the U.S., where he received an honor from the Jewish community Wednesday at an Orthodox synagogue. Milei will meet with Musk on Friday in Texas, his spokesperson said, where he will also tour a factory for Tesla, Musk’s electric car company. Milei’s third trip to the U.S. in merely four months as president comes as he reshapes Argentine foreign policy in line with Washington. Standing beside Gen. Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, at the southernmost tip of South America last week, Milei vowed to boost the nations’ “strategic alliance” — underscoring how he sees U.S. support as vital to the economic overhaul on which he has staked his presidency. “We took advantage to present a new foreign doctrine for Argentina,” Milei wrote Wednesday on social media platform X of his meeting with Richardson. In the same post, apparently directed at Musk — a self-declared free speech absolutist — Milei said he promoted “true freedom of expression” and slammed journalists critical of his administration as trying to “stop us from speaking.” “We are not going to remain silent in the face of slander, insult or defamation,” he wrote. Milei’s plan to drastically cut public spending has inflicted economic pain and encountered resistance in a nation where annual inflation tops 276%. On Wednesday, police forcibly dispersed anti-government protestors blocking a main Buenos Aires artery. Not only is the U.S. the biggest investor in Argentina, it also has the most influence over the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes $42 billion. The IMF has endorsed Milei’s shock therapy for Argentina, agreeing to disburse $4.7 billion from a bailout package the country took out six years ago. The State Department’s investment climate statement last year noted “capital controls, trade restrictions, and price controls” as factors hampering investors in Argentina. Milei has vowed to roll back those interventionist policies with market-oriented changes favored by business leaders, like Musk, one of the world’s richest men who leads rocket company SpaceX, social media platform X and Tesla. Milei and Musk — who both share a brash personality-driven style and distaste for government overreach — have expressed mutual admiration. Ahead of his inauguration last December, Milei praised Musk as an “icon of freedom in the world.” Musk gushed over Milei’s speech lambasting socialism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, commenting “So hot” with a meme of a couple having sex while watching Milei speak. With its vast lithium reserves, Argentina has much to offer Musk, a dominant player in the electric auto industry who has dubbed the metal, an indispensable ingredient in electric car batteries, “the new oil.” Milei’s free-market policies have raised hopes in the U.S. that the metal and other badly needed raw materials can be extracted closer to the U.S., breaking China’s dominance of the battery supply chain. The Biden administration said it was exploring investment opportunities in Argentine lithium earlier this year.
City of Marshall getting $1.7M infrastructure grant to boost Arkansas manufacturing jobs 2024-04-10 19:44:12+00:00 - MARSHALL, Ark. (AP) — A rural Arkansas city has been tapped to get a $1.7 million federal infrastructure grant designed to boost manufacturing jobs in the state. The U.S. Department of Commerce announced Tuesday that Searcy County would receive the grant to renovate an existing building in Marshall to be used as a frozen food manufacturing facility, KARK-TV reported. Searcy County Chamber of Commerce Director Darryl Treat said obtaining the grant was the joint effort of the Chamber of Commerce, Northwest Arkansas Development District, County Judge Tony Horton and Marshall Mayor Kevin Elliot. The grant will be used to renovate the county-owned former Flintrock Shirt Company building on Highway 65, Elliot said. The plant, which once employed hundreds, shut down in 2019. Treat said Ozark Food Group would use the building to manufacture pie shells and sandwiches to be resold by grocery stores. The new plant is expected to bring between 70 and 80 jobs to the city, something Treat said the city and county have needed for a long time. In addition to the shirt factory closing, a fiberglass company in the city closed about two years ago and a furniture manufacturer in the northern part of the county recently closed, he said. “The Ozark Food Group is the best economic news we have received in a long time,” Treat said. “We need jobs.” Building renovations will soon begin, with manufacturing expected to begin in 2025, Treat said. Marshall is the largest city in and county seat of Searcy County. It is located in the Ozarks at the foot of the Boston Mountain Range 10.5 miles (16.9 kilometers) south of the Buffalo National River.
What Marjorie Taylor Greene’s standoff against Mike Johnson is really about 2024-04-10 19:37:31+00:00 - It sure looks like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t bluffing. The MAGA firebrand from Georgia released a furious five-page letter Tuesday detailing why she filed a motion in March to oust Rep. Mike Johnson from his position as House speaker. At the time, she had described the filing as a “warning.” Her letter marks a new escalation. Capitol Hill observers see her missive as a serious threat to put Johnson’s speakership to a vote. At this point, it appears that if Johnson goes ahead in the coming weeks with a bill providing aid to Ukraine, Greene might just pull the trigger. House Republicans are struggling to function as a party, with hard-liners threatening to tear the whole thing down. That vote could cause chaos. If Johnson is toppled from his post, Republicans could be fighting over picking their third speaker in six months — and during an election year. Greene’s standoff with Johnson underscores her own political evolution as she returns to playing the role of rabble-rousing activist after trying to play the inside track. And it illustrates how House Republicans are struggling to function as a party, with hard-liners threatening to tear the whole thing down if a leader makes even the most minimal attempts to cooperate with the Democrats. It might be counterintuitive to think of Greene as a strategic player. Her first months as a representative in 2021 were mostly defined by the discovery of her racist conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers and support for violent threats against Democrats online, which resulted in her being stripped of her committee assignments. When Republicans became the majority last year, however, she not only won back her committee assignments, but also became a player in Congress in part by aligning herself with the establishment of the party — specifically, developing close ties with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. While she did not moderate her views much ideologically, she evolved as an institutional actor in the way she positioned herself close to the leadership as a path to more influence in Congress. But after McCarthy’s ouster in October, Greene has appeared to be trending back toward outside agitator. She does not see his successor, Johnson, as a new ally, but as an adversary. And she’s garnering massive amounts of attention for leading the charge against him, arguably reclaiming the mantle of the most pugnacious MAGA lawmaker on Capitol Hill. The manner in which Greene’s letter hammers Johnson seems to be more about her burnishing her credentials as a MAGA mutineer than it is about critiquing Johnson in a productive manner. She blames him for a trend in Republican lawmakers retiring, as if he is personally responsible for their departures even though he just recently became speaker. She slams him for the expulsion of former congressman George Santos — even though Johnson opposed it and Santos dug his own grave. She described Johnson’s cooperation with Democrats on bills to keep the government funded as a “complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda.” Greene seems to think that working with Democrats to keep the government running constitutes the betrayal of a conservative agenda. And she slams Johnson for failing to pass legislation that would’ve secured the U.S.-Mexican border, even though everyone knows it is Trump, not Johnson, who demanded Republicans torpedo what would’ve been a decisive policy win for the GOP on immigration. What emerges from Greene’s letter is not a vision for conservative governance but a vision of government in which MAGA hard-liners hold the government hostage and render it dysfunctional in an extended tantrum. Nowhere in her manifesto is there a realistic reckoning with the fact that Democrats control both the White House and the Senate. She concludes her letter lamenting how Johnson’s tenure marks the GOP succumbing to “self-inflicted destruction.” It’s an ironic statement. If she really attempts to oust Johnson in the coming weeks for daring to defy her demands, and succeeds, she will be the one responsible for pushing the party into another historic display of chaotic internal strife. But it seems that Greene would be happy to leave the House GOP in ruins if she can stand tallest amid the rubble.
Oklahoma attorney general sues natural gas companies over price spikes during 2021 winter storm 2024-04-10 19:37:11+00:00 - OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed lawsuits on Wednesday against two Texas-based natural gas companies over their role in soaring gas prices during Winter Storm Uri in 2021. The lawsuits, the first by the state against natural gas operators over profits reaped during the storm, were filed in Osage County, Oklahoma, against Dallas-based ET Gathering & Processing, which acquired Enable Midstream Partners in 2021, and Houston-based Symmetry Energy Solutions. The lawsuits allege Enable and Symmetry used various tactics to reduce natural gas supplies and drive up the price during the devastating storm that sent temperatures plummeting across the country and left millions of people without power. “I believe the level of fraud perpetrated on Oklahomans during Winter Storm Uri is both staggering and unconscionable,” Drummond said in a statement. “While many companies conducted themselves above board during that trying time, our analysis indicates that some bad actors reaped billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.” Messages seeking comment left with ET and Symmetry were not immediately returned. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in December against a natural gas marketer operating in that state. In Texas, which was also hard hit by Winter Storm Uri, the electric utility Griddy Energy reached a settlement with state regulators there over crushing electric bills its customers received during the deadly winter storm.
Woodford Reserve tried to undermine unionization effort at its Kentucky distillery, judge rules 2024-04-10 18:53:19+00:00 - Woodford Reserve undermined unionization efforts at its Kentucky distillery by awarding pay raises, relaxing its vacation policy and handing out bottles of whiskey to workers before a vote on whether to unionize, a federal judge ruled. The sweeteners the prominent bourbon maker offered to workers were timed to influence the outcome of the unionization vote, Andrew S. Gollin, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board, wrote in his decision Monday. The 2022 unionization effort failed, but Gollin set aside the election results and said Woodford Reserve and its parent company should recognize and bargain with a local Teamsters union. Woodford Reserve is part of spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp., based in Louisville, Kentucky. “Overall, the timing and circumstances surrounding these actions are more than sufficient to infer unlawful motivation,” Gollin wrote in his decision. The company said it took each of the actions in question for legitimate business reasons that were unrelated to the union campaign. But the judge disagreed, saying the company engaged in unfair labor practices in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. The company failed to prove that the pay raise, relaxed vacation policy and whiskey giveaway would have occurred in the absence of the union campaign, he said. Brown-Forman said it is reviewing the ruling and determining its next steps. The judge’s order can be appealed to the NLRB. The decision also was significant because it was the second administrative law judge bargaining order since the NLRB set a new framework for union elections last year, said Kayla Blado, a spokeswoman for the board. Joe Lance, vice president and business agent for Teamsters Local 651, said the judge made the “right call.” “This is a clear cut example of unlawful interference in what should have been a free and fair election,” Lance said in a statement. “We hope this serves as a deterrent to other employers, who will hopefully think twice before they violate federal labor laws.” Episodes of labor unrest have occurred in recent years in Kentucky’s renowned bourbon industry, including strikes that involved prominent producers including Jim Beam, Four Roses and Heaven Hill. The union-organizing campaign at Woodford Reserve began in August 2022 at the historic distillery in the heart of Kentucky’s picturesque bluegrass region. The primary motivation was to seek higher wages. Ahead of the election, distillery managers told employees they would receive a $4 per hour across-the-board pay raise. Workers started seeing the increase on their paychecks about a week before the election. Once the pay raise was announced, employee interest in the union waned, the judge noted. Woodford also changed its merit raise and vacation policies and then handed out a bottle of its Double Oaked whiskey, valued at around $30, to each production employee a week before the election. Once the election took place, the tally showed 14 votes in favor of unionization and 45 against. The union responded by filing an unfair labor practice charge. After the pay raise, one employee told a union organizer that he was taking “the bribe” and was no longer supporting the union, the judge noted. Another employee indicated he was taking the raise and “backing down.” The company said the pay increase was meant to deal with worker retention and recruitment issues. Woodford had given a $1 per hour, across-the-board wage increase earlier in the year. Interest in organizing a union grew after that as employees viewed the increase as inadequate, the judge noted. The decision to relax merit pay and vacation policies was due to a change in human resources leadership, the company said. And gifting a bottle of whiskey was nothing more than a morale booster routinely given to Woodford employees for a variety of reasons, including meeting production goals, it said. The judge saw it differently. He said the wage and vacation actions were meant to undermine support for the union organizing campaign, while the whiskey handout was intended to influence the vote.
Stocks tumble as hot inflation numbers douse hopes of June interest rate cut 2024-04-10 18:30:00+00:00 - U.S. stocks are sinking Wednesday following new inflation data that showed prices accelerated for a third consecutive month. The hotter-than-expected report further dashed hopes for Fed rate cuts this year amid fears that progress may be stalling in taming elevated price levels. The S&P 500 slumped 1.1% in early trading and is on track for one of its worst days of the year so far. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 451 points, or 1.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. EST, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% lower. "There are still embers of inflation here and there in the economy," said Joe Davis, chief global economist at Vanguard. For shoppers, that's painful because of the potential for even higher prices at the store. For Wall Street, that's painful because it could convince the Federal Reserve to hold back on delivering the cuts to interest rates that traders are craving and have been betting on. The S&P 500 had already leaped more than 20% since Halloween in part on expectations that the Federal Reserve would lower its benchmark interest rate, which is sitting at its highest level in more than two decades. Such cuts would relax the pressure on the economy and encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other investments. But the Fed has been waiting until it saw more evidence inflation was heading sustainably down toward its goal of 2%. After an encouraging cooling last year, the fear now is that inflation may be stuck after January's, February's and March's inflation reports all came in hotter than expected, along with data on the economy generally. Everything from bonds to bitcoin to gold fell immediately after the morning's release of CPI data. Gasoline prices and rent contributed over half the monthly increase, the government said on Wednesday. "This report puts into focus whether the Fed can initiate an easing cycle at the June FOMC meeting," Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, said in a research note on the latest inflation numbers. "Still, there are many more inflation-related data releases by then, and the Fed may still be able to cut in June but the narrative is getting increasingly difficult," he added. That investors perceive the road ahead as more complicated is evident. Traders sharply cut back on bets that the Fed could begin cutting rates in June. They now see just a 25% chance of that, down from nearly 74% a month ago, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool. Perhaps more importantly, traders shifted more bets toward the Fed cutting rates just twice over the course of this year. At the start of the year, they were forecasting six or more cuts through 2024. "Two data points don't make a trend, but maybe three do," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. "If we get one more reading like this, Fed chatter will shift from when to cut to whether to hike." More hikes? High interest rates work to undercut inflation by slowing the economy and hurting investment prices. The fear is that rates left too high for too long could cause a recession. Critics had already pointed out that the U.S. stock market looked too expensive by several measures. Either interest rates needed to fall or profits for companies needed to rally to make stock prices look more reasonable. The hope on Wall Street is that the resilient U.S. economy could help prop up profits, even if it does diminish hopes for rate cuts. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics, isn't quite convinced the latest CPI data, while painful, signifies an upward trend, rather than a bumpy road. "All the drivers of the post-COVID inflation boom are now heading in the right direction," he said in a recent note. "The path will not be smooth, but short-term disappointment has to be seen in the context of the benign bigger picture." Lydia Boussour, EY senior economist, also anticipates CPI numbers will soon start to tick down again. "The short-term inflation dynamics indicate a leveling off of disinflation, but we anticipate renewed downward momentum in the coming months," she said in a research note. "While we continue to expect the onset of the Fed easing cycle in June and believe the Fed is likely to proceed with three rate cuts this year, recent data will tilt a small majority of policymakers toward expecting fewer rate cuts in 2024 and a later onset of the easing cycle." Other analysts are stoutly pessimistic about the likelihood of impending rate cuts, and perhaps for good reason. Indeed, Chair Jerome Powell and other officials, such as Loretta Mester, president of the Cleveland Fed, have underscored that the main factor in the Fed's rate-cutting decision is when — or whether — inflation will resume its fall back to the central bank's 2% target. "You can kiss a June interest rate cut goodbye," Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, said in a research note. "Inflation came in higher than expected, the lack of progress toward 2% is now a trend, and with oil prices recently touching a 5-month high, the headline Consumer Price Index actually rose faster over the past year than it had in February." McBride views the latest inflation data as a red flag. "There is no improvement here, we're moving in the wrong direction," he said. Delta Air Lines and banking earnings Big U.S. companies, meanwhile, are lining up on the runway to say how much profit they earned during the first three months of the year, and Delta Air Lines helped kick off the reporting season by delivering stronger-than-expected results. The airline said it's seeing strong demand for flights around the world, and it expects the strength to continue through the spring. Its stock climbed 3.4%, and other airline stocks rose in concert. The banking industry will soon take the spotlight in earnings season, with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo among those reporting on Friday. Wall Street's biggest losers included real-estate investment trusts, utility companies and other stocks that tend to get hurt most by high interest rates. Real-estate stocks in the S&P 500 fell 3% for the biggest loss by far among the 11 sectors that make up the index. In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe. In Asia, In Asian trading, stocks rose 1.9% in Hong Kong but fell 0.7% in Shanghai after Fitch Ratings lowered its outlook for China's public finances.
Jessica Alba departs role as chief creative officer at Honest to pursue "new endeavors" 2024-04-10 18:29:00+00:00 - Jessica Alba, who shot to fame in the James Cameron television series "Dark Angel," as well as films such as "Sin City" and the "Fantastic Four," will step down as chief creative officer at Honest Company, a personal care company that she founded. Alba will keep a seat on the company board, but Honest said that she will now focus on "new endeavors." The actress founded Honest in 2012 after she suffered allergic reactions to baby laundry detergents. The company went public in May 2021, with shares soaring 44% in their stock market debut. Honest Co. brand shampoo, conditioner, and beauty cleanser. Jessica Alba founded the personal care company in 2012 but is stepping down to focus on "new endeavors." Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images Sales at Honest Co. have risen steadily, but the company has struggled to turn a profit. Late Thursday, the company put up its first profitable quarter since mid 2021. "Honest has been a true labor of love for me — one that showed me what's possible when you infuse purpose into business," Alba said in a prepared statement. Alba had early starring roles in Nickelodeon's series "The Secret World of Alex Mack," as well as the revival of the 1960s television series "Flipper." Shares of Honest Co., based in Los Angeles, fell slightly before the opening bell Wednesday.
Federal Reserve minutes: Some officials highlighted worsening inflation last month 2024-04-10 18:09:16+00:00 - WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Federal Reserve policymakers argued at their most recent meeting in March that inflation was likely worsening, even before the government reported Wednesday that price increases re-accelerated last month. According to the minutes of the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting released Wednesday, all 19 officials generally agreed that high inflation readings in January and February “had not increased their confidence” that inflation was falling steadily to their 2% target. Many economists had suggested that the outsize price increases in the first two months of the year probably reflected one-time moves that often happen at the start of a year as companies impose annual price hikes. But some Fed officials at the March meeting disputed that assessment, saying that the higher prices were “relatively broad-based and therefore should not be discounted as merely statistical aberrations.” On Wednesday, that assessment appeared to be confirmed. The government reported that for a third straight month, consumer inflation rose at a pace faster than is consistent with the Fed’s target level. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices jumped 0.4% from February to March. These core prices were 3.8% higher than they were a year earlier, the same reading as the previous month. The Fed closely tracks core prices because they tend to provide a good reading on where inflation is headed. Wednesday’s data raised fears that inflation appears, for now, to be stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. It has made little progress this year after having steadily dropped in 2023. The leveling-off of inflation makes it less likely that the Fed will implement the three quarter-point rate cuts that the officials had projected after their March meeting. The minutes indicated that there was “uncertainty” among the policymakers about inflation’s persistence and said they expected some “unevenness in monthly inflation readings.” “Almost all” the officials, according to the minutes, favored cutting their benchmark rate at some point this year. But the elevated inflation readings for March may upend those views before the Fed next meets at the end of this month. Wednesday’s inflation data roiled financial markets, sending stock prices sharply lower. Many economists had forecast that the Fed would begin reducing interest rates at its June meeting. But on Wednesday, several analysts pushed back their projections to July or September in light of the March inflation figures. Some economists suggest that the Fed may not cut rates at all this year. In addition to chronically elevated inflation, job growth was robust last month, evidence that the economy remains healthy despite the Fed’s raising its benchmark rate last year to a 23-year high.
Ex-MP tells inquiry Post Office ran a ‘behind-the-scenes deception process’ 2024-04-10 17:38:00+00:00 - A former MP has told a public inquiry that the Post Office appeared to have been operating a “behind-the-scenes deception process” about the reliability of its faulty Horizon computer system. James Arbuthnot, who is now a Conservative peer, began campaigning for post office operators in 2009 after taking up the case of Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted of theft. Lord Arbuthnot told the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal that from 2009 onwards he was repeatedly “brushed off” by the Post Office executives and ministers over his concerns about the reliability of its Horizon computer system. The state-owned Post Office hounded operators for more than a decade alleging financial shortfalls in their branch accounts and demanding they pay back shortfalls often amounting to thousands of pounds. It has since emerged that these discrepancies were caused by IT bugs within the Post Office Horizon computer system in what has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Arbuthnot told the inquiry that he and five other MPs met Paula Vennells, the chief executive of Post Office; Alice Perkins, its chair, and two other senior Post Office executives in June 2012. A note of the 2012 meeting, shown to the hearing, showed that Vennells told MPs that “every case taken to prosecution that involves the Horizon system thus far has found in favour of the Post Office”. Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, told the hearing that this was “not true” and asked Arbuthnot whether he had been made aware that the Post Office knew at that time there were IT bugs in the Horizon system and that there had been three acquittals of post office operators in criminal trials. “We were all unaware,” Arbuthnot said, adding that the Post Office had reassured MPs in 2013 that the Horizon system was “robust” and he was not told that the Post Office knew by then that the computer system could be accessed remotely by Fujitsu, the Japanese company that developed the technology. Arbuthnot told the inquiry that if he had been aware in 2013 he would have said that “there had been a large number of miscarriages of justice and that convictions that had been secured by the Post Office were unsafe”. He said: “They knew there was a large number of bugs in the system which they had not told MPs about. They were operating … some sort of behind-the-scenes deception process which suggests to me now that they were stringing MPs along in order to preserve the robustness of Horizon, the existence of Horizon and possibly the existence of the Post Office. That’s what I know now but I didn’t know that at the time.” The peer told the inquiry that he was repeatedly told by ministers that the Post Office was “arm’s length” from the government, but said this was akin to owning a dangerous dog. “You cannot say that the dangerous dog has an arm’s-length relationship with you if the dangerous dog behaves badly,” Arbuthnot said. Arbuthnot also described a meeting between Post Office executives and MPs in November 2014 as a mediation scheme began to fall apart, when it tried to exclude convicted post office operators from taking part. He said the meeting was controlled by Angela van den Bogerd, a former people services director at the Post Office, and Chris Aujard, its former general counsel. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion “Paula Vennells seemed almost cowed by their stronger personalities and said little. I told her she was breaking her word. I sensed, rightly or wrongly, that she felt ashamed. The meeting broke up in acrimony,” Arbuthnot said in his witness statement, adding that after September 2013 the Post Office had become more “defensive, legalistic”. Sir Anthony Hooper, a retired court of appeal judge who became chair of the working group for the mediation scheme, told the inquiry he had warned Post Office executives “over and over again” that their case “did not make sense”. He said he could not understand “where the money had gone” and it was “very unlikely” the prosecuted post office operators were guilty of stealing cash. He called it the “greatest scandal I have ever seen in the criminal justice process” and said he “feared miscarriages of justice” but his mediation scheme was “never going to find a smoking gun” because he was looking at individual cases rather than investigating the Horizon system. More than 900 post office operators were convicted using evidence from the Horizon computer system, including 700 convictions secured by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015. So far 103 convictions have been overturned and new legislation is being introduced to quash the convictions of post office operators prosecuted between September 1996 and December 2018. The inquiry, which has been running since 2022 and is looking at what went wrong, continues.
By delaying Mayorkas’ impeachment trial, GOP proves its critics right 2024-04-10 16:58:40+00:00 - When former Rep. Ken Buck announced last month that he was resigning from Congress, the Colorado Republican made little effort to hide his disgust with the state of the institution. In fact, he pointed to one specific abuse — executed by his own party — that he found especially indefensible. “We’ve taken impeachment, and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept,” Buck declared. “This place keeps going downhill.” He was referring, of course, to House Republicans’ decision two months ago to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — the first-ever impeachment of a sitting cabinet secretary — despite the inconvenient fact that the GOP couldn’t find any evidence of high crimes committed by the DHS chief. Critics of the move accused Republican lawmakers of treating Congress’ impeachment power like a partisan toy, which the party was a little too eager to throw around as an election-season plaything. GOP officials keep proving their critics right. NBC News reported: House Speaker Mike Johnson will delay sending articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate until next week, his spokesman said, as Senate Republicans consider ways to inflict political pain on Democrats, including a threat to bring the upper chamber to a halt. House GOP leaders could’ve sent the matter to the Senate in February, and if Republicans genuinely believed this was an urgent concern, they likely would’ve done just that. Instead, they waited two months and planned to advance the process today. But those plans were delayed — not for substantive reasons, but because the party is still trying to figure out how to have the most fun with their toy. As a Washington Post report summarized: Republican senators are widely skeptical that impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas meets the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. But it’s an election year, after all, and Republicans have decided to rally around the border as an issue, using the impeachment trial as another cudgel against Democrats when voters are increasingly prioritizing border security as a top political issue. Under the original schedule, the Senate was going to receive the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas today, and Democratic members were set to vote tomorrow to either dismiss or table the articles. With 51 votes, the narrow Democratic majority was in a position to dismiss the matter swiftly — and since senators of both parties have a strong preference to leave Capitol Hill on Thursday afternoons, ahead of their three-day weekend, Republicans were unlikely to even try to drag the process out. With this in mind, a group of far-right senators reached out to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday, imploring the Louisiana Republican to push the matter to next week in order to give the party the best possible public-relations opportunities. Or as the Post’s report added, “[M]any Republicans want to draw out the impeachment process as long as possible and make it as painful as possible for Democrats facing re-election in red and purple states.” The question isn’t whether the Senate will remove Mayorkas from office. It won’t. That would require 67 votes, which is an impossibility given that (a) every member of the Democratic majority, including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, considers this charade ridiculous; and (b) several Republican senators have also conceded that this entire exercise is meritless. The question, rather, is whether GOP senators succeed in creating a pointless election-year spectacle, turning a serious constitutional power into a public-relations gambit.
Biden may not be on the ballot in Alabama this November. Here’s why. 2024-04-10 16:57:15+00:00 - Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said President Joe Biden may be left off the state's November ballot because of a scheduling issue involving the Democratic National Convention. In a letter Tuesday to the Alabama Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee, the first-term Republican wrote that the state requires "political parties to provide a certificate of nomination for President and Vice President" 82 days before the general election, setting the deadline on Aug. 15 this year. The Democratic National Convention, however, takes place Aug. 19-22. "If this Office has not received a valid certificate of nomination from the Democratic Party's candidates for President and Vice President following its convention by the statutory deadline, I will be unable to certify" the names on the Democratic presidential ticket, Allen wrote. A former state lawmaker, Allen questioned the results of the 2020 election, promoting lawsuits seeking to challenge Biden's win. He has also endorsed legislation inspired by conspiracy theories about the election, sponsored a bill banning private donations for election-related expenses and, as secretary of state, withdrew Alabama from the Electronic Registration Information Center, which helps maintain accurate voter rolls. A similar issue occurred in 2020 when the Republican National Convention took place a few days after Alabama's general election certification deadline. Alabama lawmakers found a simple solution: The GOP-majority Legislature passed a bill to accommodate the RNC's 2020 dates so that then-President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could be certified in time for Alabama's ballot. The Biden campaign pointed out as much. In a statement to news outlets about Allen's letter, it said that the president would be on every state ballot in November. “State officials have the ability to grant provisional ballot access certification prior to the conclusion of presidential nominating conventions," the campaign said. "In 2020 alone, states like Alabama, Illinois, Montana, and Washington all allowed provisional certification for Democratic and Republican nominees." Allen told CNN that state law does not allow "provisional certifications," leaving open the possibility of further fights over whether Biden could be on the ballot. The Ohio secretary of state's office sent a similar letter to the Ohio Democratic Party stating that the national convention would come after that state's 90-day deadline, according to the Washington Post. The state had a similar issue in 2020 with both the Republican and Democratic conventions, and state lawmakers responded with a one-time change to the deadline. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Colorado could not bar Trump from appearing on the ballot after the state Supreme Court found that he could not serve as president because he "engaged in insurrection" after the 2020 election. However, that ruling turned on interpretations of the 14th Amendment, which is not the case in the Alabama dispute.