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Antoni: Expect more rate hikes if spending continues

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

The Federal Reserve’s rapid interest rate hikes over the last year have caused credit to become more expensive for consumers and businesses. The monthly mortgage payment on a median price home has more than doubled since January 2021 and credit-card interest rates are at a record high.Worse, the economy is stuck with these high interest rates because the government can’t control its spending.Interest rates are the price for borrowing money and, like all prices, they’re determined by supply and demand. The supply of loanable funds is provided by savers and the demand is generated by borrowers. Interest rates will rise if there is either a decrease in savings or an increase in borrowing. And the Treasury Department has increased its borrowing in spades.Because of runaway spending by Congress and the White House, the federal deficit has exploded. Consequently, the Treasury borrowed $2.8 trillion and $1.4 trillion in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, respectively. The current fiscal year’s de...

Yandle: Consumers ignored by labor & posturing pols

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

In an unprecedented move by a sitting president, Joe Biden joined a United Auto Workers picket line in Michigan on Tuesday in a strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre indicated the president wants to make it clear that he stands on the side of workers.This oversimplification suggests just two sides to the controversy — labor and management. But there is at least one other important side: consumers, and lots of them. Some families and communities suffer when a major employer is shuttered, with ramifications for schools, churches and governments.Why would a sitting president — one who promised to be the president of “all Americans” when taking office — decide to favor the UAW alone? Yes, workers have every right to strike and negotiate with their employers. And, yes, Biden has long supported labor. But the cold shoulder to consumers and affected communities across America still feels blatant.Speaking of blatant, Biden’s picket...

Hewson hits all the right notes in ‘Flora and Son’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

Irish writer-director John Carney, the genius behind the unique mix of cinema, romance and music known as “Once” (2007), has done it again. He has made a film that understands how music operates in the world as an expression of our passion, delight, despair and depression, soothing us or filling us with sadness or anger or rebelliousness. Music both brings us together or separates us into opposing camps. Music is, of course, also often an invitation to fall in love.In “Flora and Son,” Flora (a delightful Eve Hewson) is a savage beast, indeed. A 31-year-old Dublin single mother of a rebellious 14-year-old named Max (Oren Kinlan), who has been in trouble with the garda and on the verge of being sent to a juvenile detention center, Flora is at her wit’s end. She is almost a child herself. Max’s father Ian (Jack Reynor, “Midsommar”) is a bass playing ne-er-do-well with a wife and little time for his son. Flora lives in a box-sized council flat with Max and impulsively Dumpst...

Lowry: Kamala Harris worst VP pick in 50 years

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

Poor Kamala Harris. The alleged misogyny that is tearing at her vice presidency apparently extends to highly partisan Democratic leaders such as Jamie Raskin and Nancy Pelosi.Both of them caused ripples when their praise for Harris in recent TV interviews was notably cool, as if they were at a high-end fundraising dinner and hated the escargot but had to try to convince the hostess that they really loved it.The Biden campaign reportedly contacted both Raskin and Pelosi. The Maryland congressman revised his remarks to say that Harris is “unquestionably the best running mate for President Biden in 2024,” while the former House Speaker’s office pointed to the favorable things she said about Harris in her initial interview.What Raskin and Pelosi clearly know, if they can’t say it out loud, is that Joe Biden botched his vice-presidential pick; it is the worst pick in half a century and easily one of the worst in the last 80 years.As Democrats begin to realize Bide...

‘PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie’ will be hot with tots

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

Why review a film for toddlers? Well, parents might want to know how much pain to expect. As it turns out, not much. Preceded by a computer-generated (partially in Spanish) Dora adventure short (Where’s the “Dora” feature sequel?), the computer-generated “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” is a sequel to the 2021 release “PAW Patrol: The Movie” based on the Canadian computer-generated TV series.Once again, the film features a tech-savvy 10-year-old boy named Ryder (Finn Lee-Epp, “Let Him Go”), who leads a group of search and rescue dogs. The smallest among them is the cockapoo Skye (Mckenna Grace), who handles all things related to flight and is hung up about being “the smallest pup.” Also among the pups are Marshall (Christian Carrao), a Dalmatian who is a firefighter and paramedic; Chase (Christian Convery), a German Shepherd, who is a police pup and second in command; Rocky (Callum Shoniker), a mixed breed dog who is the handyman.Did I mention that each pup has a vehicle that ca...

Dear Abby: Adult daughter refuses to talk to grandma

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

Dear Abby: My 23-year-old daughter, “Chloe,” lives with me and refuses to acknowledge her grandmother’s emails and letters, which are delivered to our home. It has been four years since my mother has even seen Chloe. My mother is growing increasingly disappointed and is grieved by Chloe’s apparent distancing. (We live 20 miles apart.)Over the past year or so, I have calmly asked Chloe to reply to her grandmother’s kind emails and letters. She generally hears me out and then turns and walks away. I have a close and loving relationship with my mother. To me, she’s the world’s greatest mom and grandmother. I also have a warm and loving relationship with my daughter. There’s little that I wouldn’t do to ensure her a safe and comfortable home, a good education and, in general, items that aren’t unreasonable.My problem is, I am starting to feel caught in the middle of this widening communication gap. It’s embarrassing when ...

SeaWorld San Diego to welcome new jellyfish exhibit in 2024

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A SeaWorld first is coming to San Diego as the theme park will be home to a new jellyfish exhibit."Jewels of the Sea: The Jellyfish Experience" showcases jelly species "glowing with an ethereal light" including Moon Jellyfish, Pacific Sea Nettles, Upside-Down Jellyfish and Comb Jellies, SeaWorld San Diego said in a press release Thursday.Guests will be able to experience an immersive and interactive aquarium that greets guests with a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes in three unique galleries."Visiting the new Jellyfish Experience is an amazing opportunity like no other – a chance for our guests to see up close the spectacular details of these underwater marvels and witness how they live their lives in astonishing clarity," said Dr. Chris Dold, Chief Zoological Officer of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. "Guests will walkthrough striking habitats and view vivid displays to learn more about these wonderful creatures. This new exhibit aligns with our mission of educati...

Hawaii authorities search for man with handgun he gets into scuffle on Army base and flees

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii authorities were looking for a man who fled with a handgun after getting into a scuffle while trying to talk to soldiers at an Army base on Thursday, officials said. No shots were fired but the Army treated it as an “active shooter situation” and two military bases on Oahu went into lockdown for several hours, said Michael Donnelly, a spokesperson for U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii. The Army issued a shelter-in-place order for Schofield Barracks, which was later lifted. The Army was working with the Honolulu Police Department to find the suspect, who was still at large, Donnelly said. The Army said the man was 5 feet, 10 inches (177 centimeters) tall, wearing an aloha shirt and jeans and had a mohawk-type haircut. The man was last seen near the Schofield commissary on a bike. He was “trying to allegedly talk with soldiers,” Donnelly said. “I don’t know if he was bartering or selling stuff, but someone confronted him, and they got into a scuffle. There was a handgun...

Michigan judge to decide whether Oxford High School shooter gets life in prison or chance at parole

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A teenager who killed four students at Michigan’s Oxford High School will learn Friday whether he will spend his life in prison or get a chance for parole in the decades ahead.Judge Kwame Rowe will announce his decision over video conference, weeks after hearing from experts who clashed over Ethan Crumbley’s mental health and witnesses who described the tragic day in 2021 in sharp detail.First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence for adults in Michigan. But the shooter was 15 at the time, and the judge has the option of choosing a shorter term that would mean an eventual opportunity for freedom.The actual sentence won’t be formally imposed in Oakland County court until Dec. 8, a day when survivors and families can tell the judge about how the shooting affected their lives.“Even if the defendant changes, and he finds some peace and some meaning in his life beyond torturing and killing, does not mean that he ever gets the right to li...

As China censors homegrown feminism, a feminist scholar from Japan is on its bestseller lists

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:45:08 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — In the last few years, China’s government has promoted increasingly conservative social values, encouraging women to focus on raising children. It has cracked down on civil society movements and made laws to drive out foreign influence.So a 75-year-old Japanese feminist scholar who’s not married and does not have children is an unlikely celebrity on the country’s tightly censored internet.But Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, is a phenomenon. She leapt to fame in China in 2019 with a speech that criticized social expectations for women to act cute and the pressure they face to hide their success.Ueno’s popularity reflects a surge in interest in women’s rights, said Leta Hong Fincher, a research associate at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute who has written about gender discrimination and feminism in China.About a decade ago, China had a rambunctious feminist movement that staged protests like occupying a men’s restroom to demand...