the united states has never seen day after debate headlines like this pic.twitter.com/o7qIW3c4FX
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) June 28, 2024
NYT top #politics #presidentialdebate #usa pic.twitter.com/EgdyR6aSp0
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 28, 2024
Washington Post top #politics #usa #presidentialdebate #culturewatch #21stc pic.twitter.com/2vESy01m9g
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 28, 2024
Oceans help cool down the world. Startups are betting they can tweak the chemistry of seas to make them do even more.
It is a radical idea that has yet to be proven on a commercial scale and causes some to worry about potential risks. But at least a dozen young companies are embarking on the world’s first major projects to get oceans to soak up more carbon dioxide, encouraged by billions of dollars in federal and corporate funding for efforts that remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
A startup that uses an electrochemical method to remove carbon from seawater is building its first commercial-scale plants in Singapore and Quebec. Removing the carbon boosts the ocean’s ability to soak up more from the atmosphere. The U.S. government recently awarded it and a competitor with a similar approach some of the first federal funding for carbon removal.
Another startup is set to pour about 9,000 tons of sand mixed with a yellow-green mineral called olivine near the waters off North Carolina’s Outer Banks. When the sand dissolves in water, it triggers a series of chemical reactions that drive carbon removal.
Oceans absorb about 30% of the carbon from the atmosphere. Startups are developing technologies to rev up that power. https://t.co/oM5JP6VR7H via @WSJ
— WSJ Science (@WSJscience) June 25, 2024
US consumer confidence eased this month on a more muted outlook for business conditions, the job market and incomes.
The Conference Board’s gauge of sentiment decreased to 100.4 from a downwardly revised 101.3 reading in May, data out Tuesday showed. June’s measure of expectations for the next six months fell nearly 2 points to 73, while present conditions increased from a downwardly revised May reading.
Confidence has been subdued over the past few years as consumers contend with a higher cost of living, elevated borrowing costs and, more recently, a softening in the labor market. Only 12.5% of consumers expect business conditions to improve in the next six months, the smallest share since 2011.
US consumer confidence eased this month as Americans’ outlook for the economy deteriorated. https://t.co/Ma7ORsFUwm
— Bloomberg (@business) June 25, 2024
The breathtaking events unfolding in France expose all the old deformities of the half-finished euro project. They revive the poisonous internal politics that have long bedeviled monetary union, pitting Teutonic creditors against Latin debtors with conflicting morality tales.
The ECB’s untested Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI) allows the governing council to buy distressed bonds on its own authority, but only for countries that pursue (a) “sound fiscal and macroeconomic policies”; (b) are not “subject to an excessive deficit procedure”; (c) do not have “severe macroeconomic imbalances”; (d) where the “trajectory of public debt is sustainable”; and (e) where stress is “not warranted by country-specific fundamentals”.
France fails on most counts, and is on course to fail on every single one under any of the scenarios likely to emerge on July 7, including the pre-insurrectional chaos of a state with no functioning government at all.
Macron has killed fiscal union stone dead, and without fiscal union the euro cannot work over the long run. It will lurch from crisis to crisis until Germany finally loses patiencehttps://t.co/PgRl8XRzb0
— Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (@EvansAmbro84839) June 25, 2024
The number of Islamic jihadist terrorists in Africa has increased tenfold, the head of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has told Fox News Digital. U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, commander of AFRICOM, sat down on Sunday for an exclusive virtual interview with Fox News Digital ahead of this week’s African Chiefs of Defense Conference in Gaborone, Botswana.
Langley covered, in a wide-ranging interview, the threats from China, Russia, and Iran, and gave insight into an apparent shift in U.S. military policy, particularly in West Africa, following Niger’s order that 1,000 U.S. personnel must leave.
On Islamic terror, the general said, “we’ve been monitoring and identifying indications and warnings for a number of years. Just for statistics, back in 2008 Islamic jihadists on the global scene, only 4% was on the African continent. Now that number is up to 40%. So, in executing AFRICOM’s mission of being able to provide indications and warnings, monitor and respond, is all for protection of the homeland.”
Top US general says Islamic jihadist terrorism in Africa has soared tenfold over 26 years: "back in 2008 Islamic jihadists on the global scene, only 4% was on the African continent. Now that number is up to 40%"https://t.co/ZDBMgsnsCC
— Andrew Bostom, MD, MS (@andrewbostom) June 24, 2024
Americans are getting older. By 2032, about a quarter of the US population will be over 65, up from 10% in 1970. And while it’s true that people are both living and staying healthier for longer, many will eventually need someone to care for them. A report by Wells Fargo in March estimated that an additional 1.7 million people will need some form of elder care in a decade.
This is hard on families for so many reasons — emotional, logistical — but today I’ll focus on the economic ones. First, the good news: The rise in the need for elder care means there will also be an increase in the number of elder care jobs available. The Department of Labor projects that the elder care industry will add 22% more jobs by 2032, and the majority of them will probably go to women. (Currently 82% of home health and personal care aides are women.)
Now the bad news: the pay for elder care is notoriously low, with a median salary of just $33,530 per year. That’s less than what preschool teachers ($37,130) and secretaries make ($46,010), and roughly on par with that of a childcare worker. The rise in demand has led to an increase in wages, but the pay is still pretty bad. That’s why, much like child care, the elder care industry is beset by staffing shortages and a high turnover rate.
Also like child care, elder care is incredibly expensive.
America’s ‘Silver Tsunami’ Crisis Is Only Just Beginning @markets https://t.co/Hnn7PVN9Kl
— Amb Antonio Garza (@aogarza) June 21, 2024
It is 70 years since at&t’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places. It also realised that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round.
Today solar power is long past the toy phase. Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over.
To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact. Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade. Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.
Solar cells will in all likelihood be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet by the mid 2030s.
An energy-rich future is not just some environmentalist fever dream. Our special issue explores how the exponential rise of solar power will change the world https://t.co/4rJ2lJfF2t pic.twitter.com/YLSXWNKraj
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 20, 2024
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)…[recently] released new ten-year budget and economic projections – an update from its February baseline – again confirming that the national debt is on an unsustainable path. According to CBO’s new projections:
Debt held by the public will reach a new record by the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 – 106.2 percent of GDP – and rise to 122.4 percent of GDP by the end of 2034.
The budget deficit will rise to $1.9 trillion (6.7 percent of GDP) in FY 2024 and $2.9 trillion (6.9 percent of GDP) by 2034, totaling $22.1 trillion over the 2025-2034 budget window.
Interest costs will reach a near-record 3.1 percent of GDP this year – exceeding defense and Medicare spending – set a new record next year and grow to 4.1 percent of GDP by FY 2034.
Under CBO’s latest baseline, federal debt held by the public will grow by $23 trillion through FY 2034, from over $27 trillion today to nearly $51 trillion by the end of 2034. As a share of the economy, debt will rise from 97.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the end of 2023 to 106.2 percent by 2027 – surpassing the prior record set just after World War II – and 122.4 percent of GDP by 2034. Debt in 2034 will be $2.4 trillion and 6.4 percent of GDP higher than projected in February.
📈 In its latest budget and economic projections released today, @USCBO again confirmed that the national debt is on an unsustainable path:
— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) June 18, 2024
➤ Debt held by the public will reach a new record by the end of FY 2027, rising to 122.4% of GDP by the end of 2034.
➤ The budget… pic.twitter.com/22RnFOTbDh
Amber and Devin Weise lived in distant states when they met in an online social media group for Christian singles. They quickly became a couple, spending hours texting or talking on video chat. After several months of long-distance dating Devin wanted to propose, but thought it was proper and more romantic to do it in person.
Amber hinted she’d be OK with a proposal on a video call. Devin proposed and sent the ring in the mail.
It wasn’t until after they married that they learned the federal disability benefits program Amber relied upon penalizes couples who marry. Amber lost her monthly income check and the health care that came with it.
Amber is one of 7.4 million people who rely upon Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, a federal program that provides monthly cash assistance to disabled and older people with little income and resources. And for Amber and others, being on SSI is also the way they get health insurance.
Couples say they can't get married because of this government program's outdated rules. – Social Security's SSI program for people with disabilities requires couples to have no more than $3,000 in assets via NPR https://t.co/WZnjFejpUz
— Olav Mitchell Underdal (@omunderdal) June 20, 2024
Even more striking to me are the political, social, and cultural resemblances I detect between the U.S. and the USSR. Gerontocratic leadership was one of the hallmarks of late Soviet leadership, personified by the senility of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko.
But by current American standards, the later Soviet leaders were not old men. Brezhnev was 75 when he died in 1982, but he had suffered his first major stroke seven years before. Andropov was only 68 when he succeeded Brezhnev, but he suffered total kidney failure just a few months after taking over. Chernenko was 72 when he came to power. He was already a hopeless invalid, suffering from emphysema, heart failure, bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia.
It is a reflection of the quality of healthcare enjoyed by their American counterparts today that they are both older and healthier. Nevertheless, Joe Biden (81) and Donald Trump (78) are hardly men in the first flush of youth and vitality, as The Wall Street Journal recently made cringe-inducingly clear. The former cannot distinguish between his two Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. The latter muddles up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. If Kamala Harris has never watched The Death of Stalin, it’s not too late.
Another notable feature of late Soviet life was total public cynicism about nearly all institutions. Leon Aron’s brilliant book Roads to the Temple shows just how wretched life in the 1980s had become.
"Are We the Soviets?" After four happy years at @opinion, it was time for a change. So here's my first column for @TheFP, with thanks to @bariweiss for recruiting me to her happy band. https://t.co/Zwxj3ChLLb pic.twitter.com/cyK0xHX7tQ
— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) June 18, 2024
The Group of 7 countries might have set a record when they met in Italy last week. Has there ever been a less popular assemblage of leaders of the free world? Approval ratings ranged from Giorgia Meloni of Italy’s about 40 percent to Emmanuel Macron of France’s 21 percent to Fumio Kishida of Japan’s 13 percent. Last year the Edelman Trust Barometer found that only 20 percent of people in the G7 countries thought that they and their families would be better off in five years. Another Edelman survey, from 2020, uncovered a broad distrust of capitalism in countries across the world, “driven by a growing sense of inequity and unfairness in the system.”
Why the broad dissatisfaction with an economic system that is supposed to offer unsurpassed prosperity? Ruchir Sharma, the chairman of Rockefeller International and a Financial Times columnist, has an answer that boils down to two words: easy money. In an eye-opening new book, “What Went Wrong With Capitalism,” he makes a convincing case.
“When the price of borrowing money is zero,” Sharma told me this week, “the price of everything else goes bonkers.” To take just one example: In 2010, as the era of ultralow and even negative interest rates was getting started, the median sale price for a house in the United States hovered around $220,000. By the start of this year, it was more than $420,000.
Nowhere has inflation (in the broad sense of the term) been more evident than in global financial markets. In 1980 they were worth a total of $12 trillion — equal to the size of the global economy at the time. After the pandemic, Sharma noted, those markets were worth $390 trillion, or around four times the world’s total gross domestic product.
How Capitalism Went Off the Rails
— Stefan Michaelsen (@stefanmichaelse) June 19, 2024
By Bret Stephens, Opinion Columnist @nytimes
"The social consequence of this is rage; the political consequence is populism."
https://t.co/yD7bmUnqDw
“The profoundly suffering people of Sudan continue to be in my prayers with each passing day. Following the return of the Bishops of Leeds and Bradford from the country last week, I am again in mourning for the millions of innocent people who have been killed, displaced or had their lives destroyed by this conflict. It is estimated that between 8 and 11 million people have been displaced, and that famine and other forms of insecurity are now inevitable. It is unconscionable that such immense suffering is allowed to continue, forgotten by most of the world.“As the violence intensifies with the siege and battery of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, I call on the countries supporting this destruction through weapons and financing to stop and channel their resources instead towards negotiations for peace. An honouring of the Jeddah commitments and UN Security Council’s call for a ceasefire is now of paramount importance. All those engaging in violence must cease.“The strong links between the Church of England, specifically the Dioceses of Leeds and Salisbury, and the Episcopal Church of Sudan are built on Christian solidarity with sisters and brothers in faith – and the conviction that all the people of Sudan are of infinite value before God. I stand in solidarity with my brother, the Most Revd Ezekiel Kondo, Primate of Sudan. We will continue to work and pray for peace and justice – and for a reconciliation that makes security and stability possible.”Archbishop of Canterbury urges end to violence in Sudan | The Archbishop of Canterbury #sudan https://t.co/NgNOgc184h
— Sudan's Doctors for Human Rights (@sudan_doctors) June 17, 2024
Global defence companies are recruiting workers at the fastest rate since the end of the cold war as the industry seeks to deliver on order books that are near record highs.
A Financial Times survey of the hiring plans of 20 large and medium-sized US and European defence and aerospace companies found they are looking to recruit tens of thousands of people this year. Three of the largest US contractors — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics — have close to 6,000 job openings they need to fill, while 10 companies surveyed are seeking to increase positions by almost 37,000 in total, or almost 10 per cent of their aggregate workforce.
“Since the end of the cold war, this is the most intense period for the defence sector with the highest increase in order volume in a rather short period of time,” said Jan Pie, secretary-general of ASD, the European aerospace and defence trade association.
Read it all (registration or subscription).
An FT survey of 20 industry groups has found that they are looking to recruit tens of thousands of people this year, as order books near record highs. https://t.co/ZCOnyOaJCK pic.twitter.com/in7XIqZByA
— Financial Times (@FT) June 17, 2024
The composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours list, published late on Friday evening.
Sir John, who is 78, has composed hundreds of choral anthems, carols, and extended compositions, including opera and orchestral pieces. He has conducted orchestras around the world (Interview, 9 September 2005).
He is a vice-president of the Joyful Company of Singers, president of the Bach Choir, and president of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD).
Sir John was educated at Highgate School, where he was a chorister. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was also a choir member, and as an undergraduate had his first compositions published. He served as director of music at Clare from 1975 to 1979. In 1981, he founded the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with whom he has made several recordings of sacred choral repertoire, including his own works.
The composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours list, published late on Friday evening https://t.co/hID4df2HsL
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 14, 2024
US consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell to a seven-month low in early June as high prices continued to take a toll on views of personal finances.
The sentiment index dropped to 65.6 in June from 69.1, according to the preliminary reading from the University of Michigan. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for the measure to rise to 72.
Consumers expect prices will climb at an annual rate of 3.1% over the next five to 10 years, up slightly from the 3% expected in May, the data out Friday showed. They see costs rising 3.3% over the next year, the same as in the previous month.
Read it all (registration or subscription).
Pretty rotten UoM Consumer Sentiment reading. Expectation was for 72.1, and we got 65.6 instead:
— Markets & Mayhem (@Mayhem4Markets) June 14, 2024
"Assessments of personal finances dipped, due to modestly rising concerns over high prices as well as weakening incomes." pic.twitter.com/Lpl8CXbJqQ
For the first time, researchers have detected a significant dip in atmospheric levels of hydrochlorofluorocarbons — harmful gases that deplete the ozone layer and warm the planet.
Almost 30 years after nations first agreed to phase out these chemicals, which were widely used for air conditioning and refrigeration, scientists say global concentrations peaked in 2021. Since then, the ozone-depleting potential of HCFCs in the atmosphere has fallen by about three-quarters of a percentage point, according to findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Though small, that decline comes sooner than expected, scientists say — and it represents a significant milestone for the international effort to preserve the layer of Earth’s stratosphere that blocks dangerous ultraviolet sunlight.
Read it all.The world agreed to ban this dangerous pollutant — and it’s working – The Washington Post https://t.co/Qfa9bSUAii
— Steve Berkowitz (@steveberkowitz) June 12, 2024
Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food. Only two years ago Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria is projected to drop to fourth place this year.
The pain is widespread. Unions strike to protest salaries of around $20 a month. People die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spasms from calcium deficiencies.
The crisis is largely believed to be rooted in two major changes implemented by a president elected 15 months ago: the partial removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the currency, which together have caused major price rises.
A nation of entrepreneurs, Nigeria’s more than 200 million citizens are skilled at managing in tough circumstances, without the services states usually provide. They generate their own electricity and source their own water. They take up arms and defend their communities when the armed forces cannot. They negotiate with kidnappers when family members are abducted.
Read it all.Nigeria Confronts Its Worst Economic Crisis in a Generation , with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food https://t.co/umLRRrmPTv
— Xavier Delcourt (@x_delcourt) June 12, 2024
A proud city of gleaming high rises, oil wealth and five-star hotels lies in ruins. Millions have fled. A famine threatens. The gold market is a graveyard of rubble and dog-eaten corpses. The state TV station became a torture chamber. The national film archive was blown open in battle, its treasures now yellowing in the sun. Artillery shells soar over the Nile, smashing into hospitals and houses. Residents bury their dead outside their front doors. Others march in formation, joining civilian militias. In a hushed famine ward, starving babies fight for life. Every few days, one of them dies.
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan and one of the largest cities in Africa, has been reduced to a charred battleground.
A feud between two generals fighting for power has dragged the country into civil war and turned the city into ground zero for one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
As many as 150,000 people have died since the conflict erupted last year, by American estimates. Another nine million have been forced from their homes, making Sudan home to the largest displacement crisis on earth, the United Nations says. A famine looms that officials warn could kill hundreds of thousands of children in the coming months and, if unchecked, rival the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
Fueling the chaos, Sudan has become a playground for foreign players like the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Russia and its Wagner mercenaries, and even a few Ukrainian special forces.
Read it all.Great reporting and photographs by @declanwalsh and @ivorprickett : A War on the Nile Pushes #Sudan Toward the Abyss
— Paulo Nunes dos Santos (@pdossantos) June 5, 2024
https://t.co/8oyxZrUptC
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces:
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
Read it all (audio link also available).
6th June 1944
— World War II Today #OTD #WW2 (@WW2Today) June 6, 2024
The U.S. Airborne assaults by the 101st Airborne Division – the 'Screaming Eagles' in Operation Albany – and the 82nd Airborne Division – the 'All American' in. A thick bank of fog meant that many missed their drop zones. #DDay #DDay80 #WW2 #OTD #history pic.twitter.com/OTOZUezVvP
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
D-Day, exactly 80 […] years ago. The fight for freedom and democracy was brought to North-West Europe. (#OTD in 1944, Utah Beach. Two medics from American 4 Infantry Division, administering a saline drip. #WW2 #HISTORY) pic.twitter.com/CLy4QA1tpw
— RG Poulussen (@rgpoulussen) June 6, 2024
“My Fellow Americans:
“Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
“And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
“And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
“Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
“Thy will be done, Almighty God.
“Amen.”
You can listen to the actual audio if you want here and today of all days is the day to do that. Also, there is more on background and another audio link there.–KSH.
Take a moment, and remember you don't need to face this at 6am tomorrow, but they did… on the longest day #dday80 #dday #rememberandhonor pic.twitter.com/5lZc4ufFWk
— Tom Rogers (@RogersHistory) June 5, 2024
Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war after months of escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group, adding pressure on Israel’s government to secure its northern border.
Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization closely aligned with Iran, opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the deadly Hamas-led raid inside Israel sparked the current war in Gaza.
Hezbollah says that its attacks are in support of the Palestinians and that it won’t stop until Israel ceases its war in Gaza. Reluctant to open a second front, Israel initially responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat attacks, trying to calibrate its actions to avoid sparking a full-scale war.
But in recent weeks, both sides say there has been a sharp rise in hostilities. Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as well as senior military officials in the group.
Read it all.BREAKING
— World Affairs Eye (@WorldAffairsEye) June 5, 2024
Risk of War Between Israel and Hezbollah Builds up as Clashes Escalate. pic.twitter.com/CcXRcPdqQ7
Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship and don’t anticipate a change for the rest of their lives, according to a poll commissioned by the National True Cost of Living Coalition.
By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product growth. But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being.
In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.
Read it all.Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship, according to a poll. In the survey, 65% of people who earn at least $60,000 for a family of four said they are struggling financially https://t.co/hwHmjJCI6y
— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 4, 2024
The American worker is making peace with a longer ride.
Big shifts in the way people live and work are making commutes of over an hour into the office more common—and even more palatable. Rising housing costs have prompted many to move farther away from city centers, while the staying power of hybrid work means they don’t have to drive into work every day.
The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most and are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University.
Craig Allender’s family of four felt they had outgrown their three-bedroom home in Novato, Calif., and wanted to upgrade. They found a five-bedroom one 30 miles north in Sonoma County where lower housing costs put a 3,000-square-foot house in reach.
Read it all.America’s Commute to Work Is Getting Longer & Longer: "The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most & are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University" https://t.co/dfQsXWei1x
— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) June 4, 2024
Never has it been so cheap to inflict a world of economic pain.
That stark point was underscored last week by Maximilian Hess, a principal at London-based Enmetena Advisory, a political risk consultancy. Speaking to a webinar of supply-chain managers, he showed a slide of a canoe-size naval drone and said such jury-rigged weapons have the ability to redirect world trade.
“Nowhere is this more clear than in the conflict in the Red Sea,” Hess said, referring to attacks launched from Yemen toward commercial ships trying to use the Suez Canal.
Nearly six months into the Houthis’ relentless campaign to protest Israel’s war in Gaza, the economic fallout is widening. As ships sail around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, their unpredictable schedules are clogging major Asian ports, creating shortages of empty containers in some places and pileups in others. Delivery times to the US and Europe are getting longer, and freight rates are surging.
Read it all.🌎 Ships Diverted From Red Sea Send Ripple Effects Across the Globe – Bloomberghttps://t.co/1A8HVOJVKX pic.twitter.com/6fFCf9asLJ
— Christophe Barraud🛢🐳 (@C_Barraud) June 3, 2024
Coastal areas up and down the East Coast are sinking at the same time sea levels are rising. Parts of Beaufort, Colleton and Charleston counties sank more than 2 inches since 2007, and some areas on St. Helena Island sank more than 3 inches, The Post and Courier previously reported.
Sinking land — a problem also called subsidence and settlement — can make flooding worse, cause septic tanks to fail, damage underground infrastructure, and cause buildings and bridges to crack.
So can we slow it down? Here’s what we found out.
Read it all.Parts of South Carolina are sinking, and quickly. Can we slow it down? https://t.co/xVQX3VRcFk
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) June 3, 2024
[Henry] Sacheverell’s analysis was clear: the Church had taken into its bosom, or — worse — given positions of power to, people who were totally inimical to the worship, doctrine, and position of the Church of England itself. It had got into bed with a governing class that, in fact, hated it and sought its destruction. A misplaced attempt to broaden the Church’s appeal meant giving place and precedence to those who in their practice were antithetical to how the Church had always acted.
They were now calling the shots, and were dismantling from the inside all that had, “in living memory” — a reference to the horrors of the Civil War — been fought for so painfully. She had taken “into her bowels” those who “neither believe her faith, own her mission, submit to her discipline, or comply with her liturgy”. As he put it, “if the Church can’t be pulled down, it may be blown up.”
What Sacheverell found particularly repugnant was the dishonesty of those who sought to do this. While there was a certain grim integrity to Roman Catholic or Presbyterian attempts to do down the Church of England, Sacheverell viewed the “religious Trojan Horse” that he discerned at the heart of early-18th-century Anglicanism as wicked first and foremost because of its dishonesty: “What they could not do by open violence, they will not fail by secret treachery to accomplish.” Nobody could accuse him of not being plain-speaking, and it was the verbal dissembling of the powers that were which so riled him.
Read it all.I wrote a piece about the most important celebrity Vicar you’ve never heard of, who died 300 years ago this week. https://t.co/diESz7aRS2
— Fergus Butler-Gallie (@_F_B_G_) May 31, 2024
For more than a year, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has warned about a wave of election interference that could make 2016 look cute. No respectable foreign adversary needs an army of human trolls in 2024. AI can belch out literally billions of pieces of realistic-looking and sounding misinformation about when, where and how to vote. It can just as easily customize political propaganda for any individual target. In 2016, Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s digital campaign director, spent endless hours customizing tiny thumbnail campaign ads for groups of 20 to 50 people on Facebook. It was miserable work but an incredibly effective way to make people feel seen by a campaign. In 2024, Brad Parscale is software, available to any chaos agent for pennies. There are more legal restrictions on ads, but AI can create fake social profiles and aim squarely for your individual feed. Deepfakes of candidates have been here for months, and the AI companies keep releasing tools that make all of this material faster and more convincing.
Almost 80 percent of Americans think some form of AI abuse is likely to affect the outcome of November’s presidential election. Wray has staffed each of the FBI’s 56 field offices with at least two election-crime coordinators. He has urged people to be more discerning with their media sources. In public, he’s the face of chill. “Americans can and should have confidence in our election system,” he said at the International Conference on Cyber Security in January. Privately, an elected official familiar with Wray’s thinking told me the director is in a middle manager’s paradox: loads of responsibility, limited authority. “[Wray] keeps highlighting the issue, but he won’t play politics, and he doesn’t make policy,” that official said. “The FBI enforces laws. The director is like, ‘Please ask Congress where the laws are.’”
Read it all.Gift Article
— K_Conner (@kvconner) May 30, 2024
Why this year’s election interference could make 2016 look cute
The first big AI crisis isn’t some hypothetical far off in the future. It’s coming on Election Day.
Opinion By Josh @Tyrangiel
May 30, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. EDT https://t.co/tVtkR6qJMe
Prior to joining T. Rowe Price, Poppy Allonby spent more than twenty years at Blackrock, predominately in equity investment roles and latterly as Managing Director, Head of Global Product Group, EMEA & APAC. Between 2014 and 2022, she was on the Church Commissioners’ Board of Trustees and a member of its Assets Committee.
“I am delighted and honoured to join the Church Commissioners as its CIO, an organisation globally recognised as a leader in sustainable investment,” said Poppy Allonby. “My focus will be on delivering strong, consistent returns to meet the Commissioners’ core purpose, which is to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England – and to do so in an ethical, sustainable way.”
The Church Commissioners has provided the Church with over £3.5bn in funding since 2009, with £1.2bn to be distributed during the current 2023-2025 triennium – a 30% increase on the previous triennium, thanks in large part to the excellent investment returns generated by the Commissioners’ Investment team. The fund has delivered 14 years of positive returns, while building a reputation as a global leader in responsible investment.
Read it all.Exciting news @ccsforengland! Poppy Allonby is their new #endowment CIO. Poppy brings +21 years of expertise to the #CIO role. @Matttoledo1 @ChiefInvOfficerhttps://t.co/XCcQDVITtG#alts #privatemarkets #energytransition #duediligence #compliance #ESG #Vidriofinancial
— Vidrio Financial (@VidrioFinancial) May 31, 2024
Twenty-two percent of Americans describe current U.S. economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” down slightly from the prior month, marking the lowest figure recorded since December’s 22%.
Since early 2022, Americans have consistently been most likely to describe the economy’s current conditions as “poor.” The latest measure finds 46% of Americans viewing the economy this way, only slightly higher than the April reading but the highest since November.
The net effect of these changes is that the index’s current conditions component dipped to -24 from -20 in April and is the lowest score for this component since November (-31).
Read it all.GALLUP POLL: Right now, do you think that economic conditions in the country are getting better or getting worse?
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 31, 2024
May 2024
Getting better: 26% [-7]
Getting worse: 70% [+7]
October 2020
Getting better: 42%
Getting worse: 53%
[+/- change vs March]
—
% who described the… pic.twitter.com/q8YoBY1L9C