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Lachman: The U.S. economy’s Achilles heel

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

After the September 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggered the Great Economic Recession, Charles Prince, the former head of Citibank, was asked why his bank kept lending on the eve of the worst economic recession in the postwar period. He replied, “As long as the music is playing, you have to get up and dance.”Fast forward to today, we have to wonder whether financial markets are dancing on the eve of another financial market crisis that could trigger a meaningful economic recession. This time, the trigger might be a full-blown regional bank crisis caused by the lethal combination of high interest rates and a wave of commercial property loan defaults.The importance of the regional banks for the U.S. economy cannot be overstated. According to Goldman Sachs, banks with less than $250 billion in assets originate half of the loans made to businesses and corporations for capital expenditures. These smaller banks also account for 60% of all U.S. mortgages, 80% of all commercial real es...

Artist Bashi responds to hate with music & film

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

Composer Kaoru Ishibashi, who performs under the name Kishi Bashi, is as musically eclectic as it gets: He’s studied film scoring at Berklee, he’s played jazz and classical violin, he’s toured with pop stars and played in celebrated indie-rock bands. But he’s done his most ambitious work with “Omoiyari,” a multimedia project that he’ll present at Berklee this week, as both a set of live music and a “song film” which he co-directed.The music is based on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the film documents his visits to the camps and related locations. The Berklee show on Tuesday night will feature a screening of the film, followed by a performance of the musical piece.Bashi says he was first drawn to the topic after seeing an influx of anti-Asian sentiments during COVID shutdown. “At first everything I wrote was quite angry, aggressive and agitated,” he said this week. “But that is not really my brand of music. After hearing about the Muslim ban I start...

Editorial: Biden failing as steward of public money

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

When it comes to spending other people’s money, the Biden administration has only one setting: more, more, more.Lost amid recent world events and the $100 billion White House spending proposal for aid to Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere, was an administration demand last month that Congress approve $56 billion in “emergency” spending on various domestic initiatives.This request comes on the heels of trillions in previous spending that has triggered the highest inflation in four decades and resulted in soaring interest rates and $2 trillion in annual red ink. But it’s never enough. Yet as Americans struggle to pay elevated prices at the grocery store and the pump, President Joe Biden remains mystified that voters haven’t embraced “Bidenomics,” which clearly involves pushing the country to the fiscal brink in an effort to buy political support.The new spending is disguised as an effort to beef up disaster relief, expand child-care programs and subsidize rural internet service. But it als...

Graham: Rashida Tlaib’s lies skipped by ‘fact checkers’

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

On Nov. 7, the House of Representatives (212 Republicans and 22 Democrats) voted to censure radical Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) because she has “levied unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7.”One of those outrageous falsehoods was clinging to the false claim that Israel bombed the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. But guess what? Our professional “fact-checkers” haven’t located that lie … or any other nutty utterance, like her laughable claim that “from the river to the sea” isn’t a Hamas slogan about the eradication of Israel, it’s an “aspirational call for freedom” and “peaceful coexistence.”With Democrats, the so-called independent fact-checkers rush to correct Tlaib critics, and not Tlaib — just as they rush to correct Biden critics, and not Biden. Maybe those critics deserve correction — but so do Democrats, especially when they lie about alleged “war...

Orioles sign Jorge Mateo, 3 others to 2024 deals, tender contracts to remaining 13 arbitration-eligible players

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

The band is staying together.The Orioles entered Friday’s nontender deadline tied for the most arbitration-eligible players in MLB with 17. With a number that high, it was expected that at least one player — perhaps more — would be let go and become a free agent.Instead, Baltimore signed four players, including shortstop Jorge Mateo and outfielder Ryan McKenna, and tendered contracts to the remaining 13, including slugger Anthony Santander, starting pitcher John Means and outfielders Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays.Mateo was seen as the most likely candidate to be nontendered given his struggles in 2023 (.607 OPS), the Orioles’ logjam of young infielders and his projected salary of approximately $2.6 million. But Baltimore values Mateo’s speed and glove at shortstop, agreeing to a one-year deal for the 2024 season to avoid arbitration. The club did the same with McKenna, whose versatility as a right-handed hitter against lefties, pinch-runner and late-in...

Dear Abby: BF is stuck in the low-priority zone

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

Dear Abby: My girlfriend and I started dating a couple years ago after getting out of long-term relationships. We have kids from those relationships, and she is still in court over custody. We haven’t been able to buy a house yet, mostly because of the cost of the court battle, so we live apart and can’t spend as much time together as we’d like. However, when we do have the time, she usually wants her kids to join. She says she wants her kids everywhere with her.She has also told me I will never come first. I have custody of my son and want to spend time with him, too, but I think we need to spend time as a couple and make our relationship important. I feel both the relationship and the kids should be priorities, but not always one over the other.Recently, we learned a band we both love and grew up listening to is coming to our town. We were excited about going, but she wants to buy tickets for herself and her son, because he said he likes the band when he hears hi...

Power restored to Donovan State Prison after three-day outage

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

SAN DIEGO — Power has been partially restored to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility after one of the facility's main transformers malfunctioned nearly three days ago, leaving inmates without working lights or toilets.The outage began Wednesday morning around 8:35 a.m., leaving the 780-acre prison without electricity, air conditioning and running water. Large generators and portable toilets were brought in to help with some operations.According to the CDCR, San Diego Gas & Electric crews determined the loss of power was caused by damage to one of the primary transformers that supplies power to the majority of the facility.Officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told FOX 5 in a statement that all housing units and clinics resumed full power through generators around 7 p.m. on Friday. All toilets and electronic tablets given to inmates are also up and working again."(RJD) continues its progress toward resuming normal operations," CDCR spokes...

Three major Louisiana statewide offices to be decided by voters Saturday

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In Louisiana, where there has been a Democratic governor for eight years and Donald Trump won the past two presidential elections, runoffs on Saturday will decide whether Republicans control all five of the Deep South state’s top executive branch positions. The gubernatorial election was decided in October when Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Trump, won outright and avoided a runoff. Voters will cast ballots this weekend to determine the winners of a slew of other races, including three vacant, statewide offices: attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer. The election will shape Louisiana’s executive branch of government, where most incumbents didn’t seek reelection and opened the door for new leadership in some of the state’s most powerful positions. Democrats hope to gain a statewide office in the reliably red state as the GOP tries to retain its current offices. No matter the winners, the state will hav...

The world’s attention is on Gaza, and Ukrainians worry war fatigue will hurt their cause

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When Tymofii Postoiuk and his friends set up an online fundraising effort for Ukraine, donations poured in from around the globe, helping to purchase essential equipment for Ukrainian armed forces.As the fighting with Russia wore on and war fatigue set in, the donations slowed down, but money continued to come in steadily. Then the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7.With the start of another major conflict, social media networks including X, formerly known as Twitter, were flooded with news from the Middle East. “Our fundraising posts and updates simply get lost in between those tweets,” Postoiuk said.The result has been a broad shift in the world’s attention away from Ukraine to the fighting in Gaza — a trend that worries many Ukrainians. They fear that a combination of global fatigue, competing political agendas and limited resources will result in less aid for their military, hurting the country’s ability to sustain its confrontation with Russia...

Officials stock up on overdose antidote naloxone after fentanyl-laced letters disrupt vote counting

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:21:13 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — The suspicious letters sent to vote centers and government buildings in six states this month were undeniably scary, some containing traces of fentanyl or white powder, accompanied by not-so-veiled threats and dubious political symbols.Harkening back to the anthrax attacks that killed five people in 2001, the mailings are prompting elections officials already frustrated with ongoing harassment and threats to reach out to local police, fire and health departments for help stocking up on the overdose reversal medication naloxone.Even if there’s little risk from incidental contact with the synthetic opioid, having the antidote on hand isn’t a bad idea amid an addiction epidemic that is killing more than 100,000 people in the U.S. every year — and it can provide some assurance for stressed ballot workers, election managers say.“My team is usually in the direct fire just because we’re opening up thousands or millions of ballots depending on the election,” said Eldon ...