Category: US

DEMOCRAT-RUN TOURIST TOWN IN NORTH CAROLINA SEES VIOLENT CRIME SPIKE AS POLICE DWINDLE: ‘PERFECT STORM’

Raleigh, North Carolina, just had its bloodiest year in recent history, and it is likely that a police staffing crisis and ongoing anti-cop sentiment led to the spike in violence, one expert told Fox News Digital.

“Raleigh, like police forces all over the country, has had staffing problems,” said Jon Guze, senior fellow in legal studies at the John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based conservative think tank.

Raleigh recorded 49 homicides in 2022, a more than 48% increase from the 33 homicides reported in 2021. Last year’s tally was the highest in a single year since at least 1995, according to FBI data that tracks violent crimes, WRAL reported this month.

“The evidence has just been piling up now for more than 20 years that police presence deters crime,” Guze said. “And if you don’t have enough officers, especially in high-crime, high-disorder neighborhoods, you’re going to get more crime of all kinds, and especially homicides.”

Skyline of downtown Raleigh, N.C.
(Walter Bibikow via Getty Images)

The 49 homicides happened in 43 incidents, according to WRAL. They included two officer-involved shootings, four cases in which there were no arrests, 26 cases cleared by arrests and 11 pending cases. The data show the police department has a clearance rate of 74%.

“Our clearance rate has typically been over 95%, and we are confident that we will continue that trend,” Raleigh Police Lt. Jason Borneo told WRAL.

Various cities across the country have been rocked by violent crime increases since 2020, when protests and riots exploded across the country following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns upended day-to-day life. Nationally, murders increased by nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the prior year, marking the largest single-year increase in killings since the FBI began tracking such crimes.

AFTER 2020’S RECORD BLOODY YEAR, LARGE CITIES ACROSS THE NATION STILL FACE SKY-HIGH MURDER RATES 2 YEARS LATER

Some experts have attributed the murder spike to a range of issues that collided that year, including anti-police rhetoric voiced by Black Lives Matter and defund the police proponents, the pandemic, a culture of lawlessness promoted by liberal district attorneys and the “Ferguson effect,” when police pull back and violent crimes spike.

Riot police advance toward protesters in Minneapolis May 30, 2020.
(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Before the pandemic and riots of 2020, Raleigh had 29 homicides in 2019, 17 homicides in 2018 and 27 homicides in 2017.

MASSIVE INCREASE IN BLACK AMERICANS MURDERED WAS RESULT OF DEFUND POLICE MOVEMENT: EXPERTS

Guze said he penned a report after Floyd’s death predicting crime would skyrocket as calls to defund the police rang out from coast to coast.

Demonstrators hold a sign saying “defund the police” during a protest over the death of a Black man, Daniel Prude, after police put a spit hood over his head during an arrest in Rochester, N.Y., Sept. 6, 2020.
(REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

“Far from solving problems like police misconduct and over-incarceration, spending reductions will make those problems worse and will, moreover, inflict additional harm on the communities that have already been harmed the most by the turmoil that followed Floyd’s death,” Guze wrote June 11, 2020.

“If we want to improve conditions in those communities and ensure there are fewer instances of police misconduct and less incarceration, we need to hire more police officers. And we need to pay them more.”

FBI’S NATIONAL CRIME DATA FOR 2021 INCOMPLETE, LACKS DATA FROM NEARLY 40% OF POLICE NATIONWIDE

He told Fox News Digital this week that “of course we have” had that crime spike and it has “affected many, many cities now.”

Raleigh Police fire tear gas to disperse a crowd of demonstrators in front of the First Baptist Church at the corner of South Wilmington and East Morgan streets May 31, 2020, in Raleigh, N.C.
(Robert Willett/Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

For Raleigh, Guze said the homicide figure is a “little puzzling” because the city never defunded its police, and the homicide spike is occurring years after other cities already saw increases take hold.

“It’s worrying, of course, but the other thing I think is important to keep in mind is we’re starting at a very low base compared to an awful lot of cities. North Carolina has been lucky. None of our cities have got homicide rates that compare with places like my own hometown St. Louis.”

Guze said North Carolina’s capital, which has a population of roughly 469,000 people, is far smaller than cities often in the news for murders, such as Chicago or New York City. And since Raleigh is starting from a lower base of murders, “that means that any increase can look more significant than it is.”

NORTH CAROLINA PREGNANCY CENTER DEFIANT AFTER PRO-ABORTION VANDALISM: ‘SPIRITUAL WARFARE’

“That said, though, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we’re just lagging a little bit,” the legal fellow said, explaining neighboring Durham saw a spike in murders happen sooner after 2020. “And it may just be that Raleigh is catching up with the rest of the country as far as the impact of changes in policing and reactions to the death of George Floyd and so on.”

A police officer parks in front of the home of a suspect of a shooting that left five people dead and two others injured Oct. 14, 2022, in Raleigh, N.C.
(Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

Raleigh has been grappling with staffing shortages with its police department in recent months, reporting it is 100 officers short as of December, Spectrum 1 News reported.

“They’ve been short-staffed. And that’s going to have an impact,” Guze said. “Even if your staffing levels are where you want them, it makes a difference how proactive the policing is.

“We’ve known that for a long time, too. This goes all the way back to the ‘90s, that proactive policing — what some people nowadays would call community policing — that gets the police on the street in high-crime neighborhoods and sometimes even making stops. This makes a big difference.”

Guze added that, unlike some other cities seeing crime spikes, soft-on-crime prosecutors are not playing a role in Raleigh’s murder spike and that he’s not aware of any laws at the state level that would encourage this type of lawlessness.

Guze advised that city and state leaders should not “just wait and hope this mood changes at a national level” regarding police feeling welcome in communities again following the anti-police sentiment that erupted in 2020.

“I think showing the police that we appreciate them, providing enough funding so that we can hire good officers and lots of them, I think will make a big difference,” he said.

Scammers posed as tech support to hack employees at two US agencies last year, officials say

January 26, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
—

Cybercriminals hacked employees of at least two US federal civilian agencies last year as part of a “widespread” fraud campaign that sought to steal money from individuals’ bank accounts, US cybersecurity officials revealed Wednesday.

In one case, the unidentified hackers posed as tech support, convinced a federal employee to call them and then instructed the federal employee to visit a malicious website, according to the advisory from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency and a threat-sharing center for state and local governments known as MS-ISAC.

The goal of the scam, which appears to have hit both private sector and government agencies, was to trick victims into sending the scammers money. It was unclear if that happened in the case of the federal employees.

The episodes underscore how federal officials, like others, can be duped into sharing sensitive financial information – and that they might not find out about it for weeks or months afterward.

CISA discovered the activity in October 2022, but the hackers had been sending phishing emails to federal employees’ personal and government email accounts since at least June, according to the advisory.

Forensic analysis “identified related activity” on many other federal networks in addition to the two initial agency victims, the advisory said.

While financially motivated crooks were apparently behind this campaign, the US agencies said they were concerned such hackers could sell stolen data to government-backed spies. The legitimate tech-support software used in the scam is useful for hackers looking to maintain covert, long-term access to a network, officials said.

Prince Harry's 'Spare': Meghan Markle's attempt to 'distance' herself amid Hollywood fallout

KING CHARLES III CORONATION DETAILS REVEALED; NO INSIGHT INTO PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE’S ATTENDANCE

Meghan Markle was noticeably absent from the spotlight as Prince Harry embarked on a media tour for his latest tell-all.

The Duke of Sussex’s explosive memoir, “Spare,” which was published on Jan. 10, sold 1.43 million copies during its first day on sale in the U.K., U.S. and Canada, making it the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time.

Despite the book’s overwhelming success, sources recently told The Telegraph that the duchess, 41, “may have raised gentle concerns about whether it was the right move.” The mother of two, who was described as “media-savvy,” was “more wary than the duke about this particular project.”

GB News host Dan Wootton called the Telegraph report “absolutely fascinating” because he felt “it was the first sign of Meghan trying to distance herself from all of the collateral PR damage caused by ‘Spare,'” U.K.’s Express reported.

Several royal experts have wondered why the Duchess of Sussex was absent while her husband went on a media tour to promote his explosive memoir ‘Spare’.
(Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Royal author Christopher Andersen, who recently wrote a book about King Charles III, told Fox News Digital that he was not surprised the former American actress is nowhere to be seen following the book’s release. He suspected that she is sending a clear message – this was Harry’s work alone.

“Meghan clearly doesn’t want to make it look as if she’s somehow manipulating Harry, or that she’s had a hand in shaping his memoirs,” Andersen explained. “The Sussexes are very sensitive to the fact that their critics believe she has some mesmeric sway over him. The fact is, this is Harry’s story, and for better or worse he has to own it.”

Andersen also believes there’s a good reason why the former “Suits” star may have allegedly been wary about some of the contents in “Spare.”

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Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ hit bookshelves on Jan. 10, quickly becoming a bestseller.
(Random House)

“What may be most concerning to both Harry and Meghan is the blowback they’ve gotten from people in the military who feel he was ill-advised to write about killing 25 enemy combatants while serving in Afghanistan,” said Andersen. “I can’t imagine if they’d had it to do over, that Meghan in particular would just as soon have had him leave those kinds of statistics out of the book.”

To promote “Spare,” Harry, 38, made solo appearances on ITV, CBS’ “60 Minutes,” “Good Morning America” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

In comparison, when Markle launched her “Archetypes” podcast, Harry made a comical cameo in the episode featuring Serena Williams. Additionally, when she promoted her children’s book “The Bench” at a New York school, her husband was on site to support his spouse. The outlet also pointed out that when Markle spoke to The Cut magazine, Harry “appeared from somewhere in the house” to tell the journalist that his wife “had complained after her photoshoot that she was a mom, not a model.”

“You can be both,” he said.

MEGHAN MARKLE, PRINCE HARRY REACT TO JEREMY CLARKSON’S PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR SCATHING ARTICLE ‘SHARED IN HATE’

Prince Harry previously made a guest appearance on Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast.
(Photo by Dominic Lipinski – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

“The book was always Harry’s thing, in the same way the podcast was always hers,” royal expert Shannon Felton Spence told Fox News Digital. “We didn’t see him in podcast promotion. Their PR strategy has never made sense to me, but they are clearly trying to build a Harry and Meghan brand and a Harry brand and a Meghan brand.”

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex is seen leaving “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Jan. 9, 2023, in New York City.
(Gotham/GC Images)

“The question is… What about an Archewell brand?” she asked, referring to the couple’s nonprofit. “The book has definitely hit their brand. In my estimation, they had everything they wanted one month ago after the Netflix documentary. Their story was out and garnered massive sympathy from even the most apathetic American viewers. The memoir undid all that goodwill, and the press tour has been an absolute cringe-fest.”

“Spare” is the latest in a string of public pronouncements by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since they quit royal life in 2020. At the time, they cited what they saw as the media’s racist treatment of the duchess and a lack of support from the palace.

Following their exit, the couple sat down with Oprah Winfrey for an interview that was viewed by 50 million people globally. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spoke out again in a six-part Netflix documentary released last month.

PRINCE HARRY, MEGHAN MARKLE ‘SPARE’ FALLOUT THREATENS HOLLYWOOD FUTURE: EXPERTS

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a six-part Netflix docuseries last month.
(Netflix)

Following the book’s publication, several royal experts wondered whether “Spare” and its shocking claims would threaten the pair’s chances of becoming a power couple in Hollywood. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex reside in the wealthy, coastal city of Montecito, California.

“Since few would refute the assumption that Meghan is rather smart, perhaps she has witnessed their plummeting popularity in both the U.S. and the U.K.?” Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital. “She can see that the ever popular, and by some claims her rival, Catherine, Princess of Wales is ‘rising above the drama’ [as several outlets reported]. She has been seen ‘keeping calm and carrying on’… She was back visiting a hospital in Liverpool and a nursery in Luton. While she’s ‘onward and upward’ Meghan is sliding downward and dejected perhaps?”

A detail from the children’s book “The Bench” by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, which is inspired by her husband Harry and her son Archie, is pictured on display in a bookshop in London on June 8, 2021, following its release. The Duke of Sussex was seen supporting his wife as she read her book to children during a visit to a New York City school in Harlem.
(Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Perhaps Meghan, in addition to reading the polls, has heard of the great greeting Catherine received with huge cheers from the awaiting crowd when she arrived in Liverpool?” Fordwich shared. “So, while Harry is whining and complaining, Catherine is focusing on others, working hard doing her duty and raising her family.”

“Catherine has not been complaining and perhaps Meghan has seen how well this has served both her and the Queen Consort, Camilla,” Fordwich continued. “Being a dedicated mother, wife, daughter-in-law, public speaker and community worker – in other words, doing one’s duty – are greatly admired on both sides of the Atlantic, as polls have shown. Meghan might be watching?”

PRINCE HARRY SAYS 400 PAGES CUT FROM BOOK ‘SPARE’ BECAUSE WILLIAM, CHARLES WOULD NEVER FORGIVE HIM

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are seen attending the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Awards a month ago in New York City. The couple reside in California with their son Archie and daughter Lilibet.
(Mike Coppola)

“Spare” exposes deeply personal details about Harry and the British royal family. The prince made damning allegations of a toxic relationship between the monarchy and the press, describing how family members would leak unflattering information about other members in exchange for positive coverage of themselves. He specifically singled out his stepmother Camilla, accusing the Queen Consort of feeding private conversations to the media as she sought to rehabilitate her image after her longtime affair with his father.

Harry’s story is dominated by his rivalry with his elder brother Prince William, who is heir to the British throne, and the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Harry, who was 12 at the time, described how then-Prince Charles broke the news of his mother’s accident but did not hug his son. Harry added that he and William both “begged” their father not to marry Camilla, worried she would become a “wicked stepmother.”

Tom Bradby and Prince Harry chatted ahead of the release of “Spare.”
(ITV)

The many claims in Harry’s book sparked nonstop headlines. Harry alleged that during an argument in 2019, William, 40, called Markle “difficult” and “rude,” then grabbed him by the collar and knocked him down. Harry said he suffered cuts and bruises from landing on a dog bowl. Harry also alleged that William and his now-wife Kate Middleton “howled with laughter” when he notoriously wore a Nazi uniform to a costume party.

Buckingham Palace officials have declined to comment on any of the allegations made in Harry’s book. A spokesperson for the king did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Kensington Palace, which represents the Prince and Princess of Wales, told Fox News Digital it doesn’t have a comment. Allies of the royal family have pushed back on Harry’s claims, largely anonymously.

KATE MIDDLETON SAYS ‘TALKING THERAPIES DON’T WORK FOR SOME PEOPLE’ FOLLOWING PRINCE HARRY’S ‘SPARE’ RELEASE

Prince Harry talked about his drug use, seeing Princess Diana’s crash photos and his stepmother’s status in a “60 Minutes” interview.
(CBS Photo Archive)

The Telegraph noted that despite the book’s popularity, approval ratings have fallen on both sides of the pond for the couple. Palace sources insisted that with Markle backing her husband’s attempts in seeking peace with his family, she may not attend the king’s coronation on May 6.

Harry told ITV that he wants his father and older brother back, adding that he wants “a family, not an institution.”

During his press tour, Harry also defended his decision to write a memoir that lay bare rifts inside Britain’s royal family, saying it was an attempt to “own my story” after 38 years of “spin and distortion” by others.

Kinsey Schofield, a royal expert and host of the “To Di For Daily” podcast, told Fox News Digital she believes there are elements of “Spare” “that have Meghan’s fingerprints all over it.”

MEGHAN MARKLE, KATE MIDDLETON’S ROYAL TAILOR SPEAKS OUT ON FALLOUT AMID PRINCE HARRY’S ‘SPARE’ RELEASE

Prince Harry detailed tense texts allegedly between Kate Middleton, left, and Meghan Markle, right.
(Max Mumby/Indigo)

“The most obvious would be providing Harry with private correspondences she received from Catherine, the Princess of Wales,” she explained about the excerpts that detailed alleged tense texts between the royal wives. Schofield insisted “Harry and Meghan both knew that this book would ruffle some feathers.”

“Not wanting Meghan to be seen as the instigator, she might have been advised to stay in the shadows for this brief period of time,” she added.

Sources have told The Telegraph that it was Harry alone who made up his mind to share his story, spending two years working with ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer. They claimed the duchess stood back and instead, “offered her full support. They noted she “is immensely proud of his achievements.”

“Is this the way she would have approached things? Possibly not,” a source told the outlet. “But she will always back him and would never have got involved in promoting such a personal project. This was about his own life, his journey and his perspective.”

PRINCE HARRY SLAMS BRITISH PRESS, ‘SALACIOUS HEADLINES’ ON ‘THE LATE SHOW,’ CLAIMS HIS WORDS HAVE BEEN SPUN

Royal experts insist it won’t be long until the Duchess of Sussex makes an appearance again.
(Photo by Anwar Hussein/WireImage via Getty Images)

Schofield believes it won’t be the last tell-all for the Sussexes. According to Schofield, she would not be surprised if Markle released her own book in time as part of her brand. She noted that “correcting the narrative seems to be Harry and Meghan’s top priority – to an exhausting degree.”

“Did they anticipate becoming such a punchline in the states over ‘Spare?’ I don’t think so,” said Schofield. “But I think Meghan calls the shots and probably signed off on the book… I doubt Harry buys a stick of gum without his wife’s approval at this point. Or a new dog bowl.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com.

Meta says it won't punish Trump for attacking the 2020 election results. But the 2024 vote is a different story

January 26, 2023 Published by CNN

New York
CNN
—

Nine minutes after Meta announced that it will allow Donald Trump back on its platforms, the disgraced ex-president was on his own Truth Social app posting about supposed election fraud in the 2020 election.

It’s nothing unusual for Trump. A research report published earlier this month by the watchdog group Accountable Tech found that Trump had written more than 200 posts containing “harmful election-related disinformation” since he was banished from Meta’s platforms.

But now, once again, Trump is Meta’s problem. The social media giant announced on Wednesday, unsurprisingly, that Trump will be permitted back on Facebook and Instagram, setting the stage for some thorny content moderation calls in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

And those content moderation calls are likely to be contentious.

For instance, a Meta spokesperson said Trump will be permitted to attack the results of the 2020 election without facing consequences from the company. However, the spokesperson said, if Trump were to cast doubt on an upcoming election — like, the 2024 presidential race — the social giant will take action. In those cases, Meta might limit the distribution of the violative post or restrict access to advertising tools.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

But attacks on the 2020 election will only serve to cast doubt on the integrity of future elections. And Meta will undoubtedly face scrutiny for its high-stakes decisions on the issue as Trump inevitably approaches the line.

But this is only one aspect of the murky content moderation waters that Meta will find itself in. As Accountable Tech noted in its report, Trump has posted a number of things in recent years on Truth Social that would seemingly violate the company’s community standards. Accountable Tech found that Trump had attacked racial minorities (remember when he posted that racist attack last year on Elaine Chao?) and amplified the deranged QAnon conspiracy theory to his followers more than 100 times.

And then there will surely be reprehensible, antidemocratic comments that Trump will make on Facebook that perhaps don’t outright violate the company rules, despite how ugly they may be, but which ignite outrage and throw Meta into the spotlight. For example, last week, Trump raged on Truth Social that he believed the reporters, and perhaps editors, of Politico’s scoop on the leaked Roe v. Wade decision should be jailed until they disclose their source(s).

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, previewed how the company will respond to those sorts of nasty posts when he — and notably not Mark Zuckerberg — announced the return of Trump. Clegg argued that “the fact is people will always say all kinds of things on the internet.”

“We default to letting people speak, even when what they have to say is distasteful or factually wrong,” Clegg added. “Democracy is messy and people should be able to make their voices heard. We believe it is both necessary and possible to draw a line between content that is harmful and should be removed, and content that, however distasteful or inaccurate, is part of the rough and tumble of life in a free society.”

House Republicans announce major shakeup for key committee that oversees energy, health, technology policy

REPUBLICANS’ SPR BILL LEAVES DEMOCRATS SQUIRMING OVER OIL LEASING: ‘IT’S THE PROCESS OF BALANCE’

FIRST ON FOX: House Republican leaders announced a shakeup of the structure of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a key panel that oversees a wide-range of energy, health care and technology-related issues.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who recently assumed the role as chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, announced the change Wednesday, saying the panel would be “reoriented” to help it succeed at its mission. The shakeup mainly impacts the responsibilities of the panel’s subcommittees and shifts how the committee will be equipped with addressing its priorities.

“For 227 years, the Energy and Commerce Committee has led on solutions to keep the promise of America, where we have lifted more people out of poverty and led the world in raising people’s standard of living,” McMorris Rodgers told Fox News Digital in a statement. “This Congress, Republicans will continue to honor the committee’s rich history to improve people’s lives and ensure America leads a new era of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

“That is why we are reorienting our subcommittees to ensure our work tackles the greatest challenges and most important priorities of the day, including lowering energy costs, beating China, and building a more secure future,” she continued.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in 2019.
(Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Under the changes, the Energy Subcommittee will change to the Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee; the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee will switch to the Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Minerals Subcommittee; and the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee will now be the Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee.

The Communications and Technology, Health and Oversight Subcommittees will remain unchanged.

REPUBLICAN LEADERS PROMISE AGGRESSIVE ENERGY-RELATED OVERSIGHT: ‘WE INTEND TO PULL BACK THE CURTAIN’

Overall, the alterations to the committee’s structure highlight how committee Republicans, who have promised to aggressively tackle hot-button issues on energy, climate, Big Tech and health, aim to address those key issues.

Under the changes, the newly-named Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee will notably have jurisdiction of climate change issues. Republicans have argued that solutions to climate change go hand-in-hand with boosting energy security.

House Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., speaks during a hearing on April 6, 2022.
(Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Minerals Subcommittee will seek to pursue policies that broadly reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains, including critical mineral supply chains which are vital for green energy development. The name change comes as Republicans continue to seek permitting reform that would remove regulations they say hamper domestic manufacturing and mining.

And the Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee is set to seek solutions to the vulnerability of Americans’ data to abuse from Big Tech companies and the Chinese government.

“Trust and confidence in representative government is broken,” McMorris Rodgers said earlier this month. “Accountability in federal agencies is nonexistent, so the Biden administration is pushing radical policies to please its political allies. And the American people are paying the price for it — at the pump, at the grocery store and at the doctor’s office.

“The Energy and Commerce Committee is at the center of solving the most important issues facing hardworking Americans — lowering costs, promoting free speech and preserving free markets.”

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Exclusive: Goldman Sachs says even a near-default on US debt could spark a recession and market mayhem

January 26, 2023 Published by CNN

New York
CNN
—

A full-blown debt ceiling crisis has the potential to stop the US economy in its tracks, according to the top economist at Goldman Sachs.

“If there were any doubt about the US government’s ability or willingness to make interest and principal payments on time, that could have very, very adverse consequences,” Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, told CNN in an interview.

The United States hit the debt ceiling last week, forcing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to make accounting maneuvers to avoid breaching that $31 trillion borrowing limit.

If Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling in time, Hatzius said investors will worry there is a chance of a missed payment on US Treasuries – which are “maybe the most important asset in the global economy.”

Unlike many of its peers on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs is relatively bullish on the US economy, with Hatzius telling CNN that America will likely avoid a recession through the 2024 presidential election.

However, a debt ceiling crisis is a key risk to that optimistic outlook.

Asked if a default or even a near default could cause a recession, Hatzius said yes.

“That is the worry: That you get turmoil in financial markets, a big tightening in financial conditions and that adds to downward pressure on economic activity,” he said. “That is certainly the worry. It’s not our expectation.”

Economists and US officials have previously warned of dire consequences if the federal government exhausts the extraordinary measures being used to avoid a default.

Yellen told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last week that a “global financial crisis” could result if Washington fails to make payments. Economist Mark Zandi once described an actual default as “financial Armageddon.”

History shows Congress eventually reaches a deal to raise the debt ceiling, although there have been close calls in the past. In 2011, the United States had its perfect AAA credit rating downgraded by S&P Global Ratings as lawmakers struggled to find a compromise. That episode helped set off turbulence on Wall Street and dented business confidence.

Leaders on Wall Street and Washington have warned that this debt ceiling negotiation could be especially challenging.

The historic dysfunction that preceded House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s election earlier this month underscored how hard it will be to get contentious legislation through the House of Representative. Not only is McCarthy presiding over a razor-thin majority, but he agreed to concessions that give the most extreme corner of the GOP considerable influence.

Still, Goldman Sachs is expecting a deal on the debt ceiling will be reached, eventually.

“We think ultimately a solution will be found,” Hatzius said. “These solutions are often found at the very last moment.”

Assuming the United States gets through the debt ceiling episode, Goldman Sachs is optimistic about the prospects for the US economy.

“We don’t expect a recession,” Hatzius said, noting his firm sees a still-significant 35% chance of a recession, compared with the consensus on Wall Street of roughly 65%. “Our baseline is a soft-landing.”

And yet a wave of major companies have announced layoffs in recent weeks, including tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon as well as financial firms like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs itself.

Goldman Sachs expects the red-hot labor market will continue to cool down, but only gradually. Hatzius does not see the economy losing jobs on a monthly basis at all this year, though he said monthly payroll growth could slip below 100,000.

That deceleration, combined with the housing slowdown, unwinding of supply chain turmoil and impact from the war in Ukraine should help bring down inflation without causing a downturn.

Hatzius expects inflation will go from 9.1% last summer to the 2% to 3% range by late this year or 2024.

“I think inflation has pretty clearly peaked,” Hatzius said, adding that he has “relatively high confidence” on that call.

The Goldman Sachs economist said his forecast is for the US economic expansion to continue through the 2024 presidential election, though that’s not a slam-dunk.

“The further out you go in time…the bigger the risk that something bad hits you along the way and you do get a recession,” Hatzius said. “By the time you get to November 2024, it becomes a closer call.”

NYC bike path terror attack: Jury to start deliberating in trial for Sayfullo Saipov

DRAMATIC NEW VIDEO SHOWS MOMENTS BEFORE NYC TRUCK ATTACK DRIVER SAYFULLO SAIPOV IS SHOT BY POLICE

Closing arguments wrapped Tuesday in the trial for New York City bike path terror attack suspect Sayfullo Saipov, accused of murdering eight people and injuring many more.

The jury was set to begin deliberating on Wednesday, CBS News reported.

In the three-hour closing argument Tuesday, prosecution said Saipov turned the “bike path into his battlefield” on behalf of ISIS, according to the outlet.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Richman said Saipov was smiling when he asked to hang the flag of the Islamic State group in his Manhattan hospital room after the Oct. 31, 2017, attack he carried out with a speeding rental truck. Prosecutors say it was the worst terrorist attack to strike New York since 9/11.

Saipov, 34, steered the truck onto a bike path along the Hudson River and the West Side Highway that is popular with tourists and Manhattan residents, mowing down bike riders.

Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Sayfullo Saipov
(St. Charles County, Mo., Department of Corrections / KMOV via AP / File)

Earlier in the trial, the jury was played shocking video that showed the rental truck barreling toward the bike path at high speed, striking a yellow school bus filled with children.

Richman urged jurors to convict Saipov of all charges in a case that could result in the death penalty. If the jury returns a guilty verdict on all charges after starting deliberations, a penalty phase of the trial will begin a week later. Unless jurors unanimously choose death, the sentence would be life in prison.

Individuals who were injured or lost loved ones at the hands of the Uzbek man were among those who testified during the trial.

A law enforcement officer walks by a crime scene, Nov. 1, 2017, after a driver mowed down people on a riverfront bike path near the World Trade Center in New York.
(AP Photo / Mark Lennihan / File)

“He targeted his victims without mercy,” Richman said. That night, the prosecutor added, “he smiled. He was proud. He was happy with what he had done that day. He was happy about the terrorist attack. … He had done what he came to do.”

Richman said Saipov only stopped his motorized rampage when he struck a small school bus, injuring children. Otherwise, he said, Saipov planned to head to the Brooklyn Bridge and kill as many people as he could there. He was arrested after he pointed black pellet and paintball guns at a police officer, who shot him.

In this courtroom sketch, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Richmond gives the government summations in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in New York, holding up a knife that defendant Sayfullo Saipov allegedly possessed during his attack.
(Elizabeth Williams via AP)

During the trial, defense lawyers haven’t contested that Saipov carried out the attack.

But they say he should be acquitted of a racketeering charge because prosecutors were wrong to claim that he carried out the attack so that the Islamic State group would let him become a member.

Defense lawyer David Patton said Saipov was expecting to die in the attack.

In this courtroom sketch, defendant Sayfullo Saipov listens during closing statements in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in New York.
(Elizabeth Williams via AP)

“He did not expect to be here before all of you and did not expect to be joining any organization,” Patton said. And that, he added, means Saipov is not guilty of racketeering.

Patton said that to do something “as awful” as what his client did, he had to already consider himself a member of the Islamic State group.

He said Saipov had an “expectation that he would die by police shooting.”

Saipov, who has been imprisoned without bail since the attack, legally moved to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010. He lived in Ohio and Florida before joining his family in Paterson, New Jersey.

Fox News’ Maria Paronich and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @danimwallace.

Michael Bloomberg Fast Facts

January 26, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
—

Here is a look at the life of Michael Bloomberg, former New York mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Birth date: February 14, 1942

Birth place: Boston, Massachusetts

Birth name: Michael Rubens Bloomberg

Father: William Henry Bloomberg, bookkeeper

Mother: Charlotte (Rubens) Bloomberg, office manager

Marriage: Susan Brown (1976-1993, divorced)

Children: Georgina, 1983; Emma, 1979

Education: Johns Hopkins University, B.S. in electrical engineering, 1964; Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1966

Religion: Jewish

One of four New York City mayors to serve three terms.

Left the Democratic party in 2001 and won his first two mayoral terms as a Republican. His third mayoral term was won as an independent, and then he rejoined the Democratic party in 2018.

Diana Taylor has been his companion for more than 20 years.

As mayor of New York, Bloomberg made sweeping changes to city schools, transportation, including extending subway lines, and public health, implementing extensive regulations targeting smoking and obesity.

Since 2006, Bloomberg Philanthropies, an umbrella organization of Bloomberg’s charities which includes the nonprofit Bloomberg Family Foundation, has donated billions to political interests and causes such as education, the environment and public health.

1966-1981 – Works as a clerk, and later partner at Salomon Brothers in New York.

1981 – Co-founds Bloomberg L.P. (formerly Innovative Market Systems) using a $10 million partnership buyout from Salomon Brothers.

1982 – Creates the Bloomberg terminal, a software system with a specialized keyboard used by financial professionals to trade stocks electronically and access live market data.

1990 – Co-founds Bloomberg News (formerly Bloomberg Business News).

1994 – Launches Bloomberg Television (formerly Bloomberg Information TV).

1996-2002 – Serves as chairman of the Johns Hopkins University’s board of trustees.

1997 – His memoir, “Bloomberg by Bloomberg,” is published.

November 6, 2001 – Is elected mayor of New York.

November 8, 2005 – Is elected to a second term.

November 3, 2009 – Is elected to a third term after spending more than $100 million on his reelection campaign. In October, the New York City Council voted to extend the city’s mayoral term limits from two four-year terms to three.

May 2012 – Announces a proposal to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants, food carts and any other establishments that receive letter grades for food service. On June 26, 2014, New York’s Court of Appeals rules that New York City’s ban on large sugary drinks, which was previously blocked by lower courts, is illegal.

July 27, 2016 – Endorses Hillary Clinton for president at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

November 24, 2019 - Announces his late-entry Democratic presidential bid, unveiling a campaign squarely aimed at defeating President Donald Trump.

November 24, 2019 – Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait releases a statement addressing how the network will cover the 2020 presidential campaign and reveals that it will not investigate Bloomberg or any other Democratic candidates.

February 10, 2020 – Audio is posted online of Bloomberg from 2015, defending his use of “stop and frisk” as mayor by describing the policy as a way to reduce violence by throwing minority kids “up against the walls and frisk[ing] them.” Bloomberg later says his 2015 comments about the controversial stop and frisk policing policy do not reflect the way he thinks or the way he led as mayor of New York City.

February 18, 2020 – Qualifies for his first Democratic presidential debate, by polling four times at or above 10% nationally.

February 18, 2020 – A campaign adviser tells CNN that Bloomberg would sell his financial information and media company if he’s elected president, in an effort to be “180 degrees away from where Donald Trump is on these issues.”

February 19, 2020 – Faces criticism in first presidential debate from other Democratic candidates regarding campaign spending, his record on policing tactics as mayor of New York and misogynistic comments he allegedly made about women at his company in the 1980s and 1990s.

March 4, 2020 – Ends his presidential campaign and endorses Joe Biden.

September 3, 2020 – Bloomberg’s charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, announces he is donating $100 million to the nation’s four historically Black medical schools to help ease the student debt burden for the next generation of Black physicians.

September 25, 2020 – Bloomberg announces $40 million in TV ads supporting Biden statewide in Florida.

February 2, 2022 – Joseph Beecher is arrested, accused of breaking into the Colorado ranch owned by Bloomberg and kidnapping a Bloomberg employee. Beecher demanded to know the location of Bloomberg’s daughters, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Beecher is awaiting a February 8 federal court hearing in Wyoming, where he was found with the employee, who was unhurt.

February 9, 2022 – Bloomberg is nominated to serve as the chair of the Defense Innovation Board.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney step out in New York City, reunite for new movie

BRAD PITT’S WILD YEAR: FROM LAWSUITS TO ABUSE ALLEGATIONS AND A NEW RELATIONSHIP

The boys are back in town.

Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney were spotted out in New York City on Tuesday filming their upcoming movie “Wolves.”

Pitt, 59, and Clooney, 61, were having a twinning moment as the two actors both sported leather jackets and gray pants with black shoes.

Despite the cold, winter weather, the “Ocean’s Eleven” stars appeared to be having a great time, as they were spotted at a Drive-In Hotel in Harlem.

Pitt, 59, and Clooney, 61, were having a twinning moment, both sporting leather jackets and gray pants with black shoes.
(Getty Images)

Pitt and Clooney were additionally seen laughing together as they sat in a dark blue vehicle on the set.

Clooney flashed his pearly whites behind the wheel, while Pitt smiled from the passenger seat.

Pitt and Clooney were additionally seen laughing together as they sat in a dark blue vehicle on the set.
(Getty Images)

In another photo, Pitt was seen in a teal velour jumpsuit. He wore a white shirt underneath with white sneakers and carried a yellow scarf with a red bag over his shoulder.

Brad Pitt was also seen in a teal velour jumpsuit. He wore a white shirt underneath with white sneakers and carried a yellow scarf with a red bag over his shoulder.
(Getty Images)

The Apple TV+ thriller “Wolves” is about “two lone fixers who are assigned the same job,” according to the streaming company. The film is written and directed by John Watts.

Despite the cold, winter weather, the “Ocean’s Eleven” stars appeared to be enjoying themselves on set.
(Getty Images)

GEORGE CLOONEY SAYS TWINS ‘DON’T REALLY CARE’ HE’S A STAR AT KENNEDY CENTER HONORS WITH WIFE AMAL CLOONEY

This isn’t the award-winning actors’ first time working alongside one another. They previously starred in the “Ocean’s” franchise and “Burn After Reading” together.

In 2022, both Pitt and Clooney were busy working on several films.

Pitt starred in the drama-comedy “Babylon,” which was released in theaters last December. He was also in the assassin comedy “Bullet Train” and was featured in Sandra Bullock’s “The Lost City.”

Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Andy Garcia attend the London premiere of “Ocean’s Eleven” in 2001.
(Dave Hogan/Mission/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Clooney recently worked with Julia Roberts on “Ticket to Paradise.” The coveted actor was also recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., last month.

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Clooney was one of five artists celebrated, including Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, Tania León, and members of the band U2: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.

His co-star Roberts showed support for her celebrity friend by wearing a black gown covered with framed photos of Clooney to the event.

“It’s cool to be out here with my friends, and you don’t have to sit and wonder if you’re going to win either, you already know… which is helpful,” Clooney told Fox News Digital.

Julia Roberts wore a dress covered in photos of her friend George Clooney at the 45th annual Kennedy Center Honors.
(Gail Schulman/CBS via Getty Images)

Stephanie Giang-Paunon is an Entertainment Writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @SGiangPaunon.

Updated boosters are cutting the risk of getting sick from Covid-19 by about half

January 26, 2023 Published by CNN

CNN
—

The updated Covid-19 boosters are cutting the risk that a person will get sick from the coronavirus by about half, even against infections caused by the rapidly spreading XBB.1.5 subvariant.

New studies, conducted by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are among the first looks at how the bivalent boosters have continued to work in the real world as the virus has evolved. The data shows that the boosters are continuing to offer substantial protection against currently circulating variants.

The near-real-time data was collected by the federally funded Increased Community Access To Testing program, which administers Covid-19 tests through pharmacies. It includes results for adults receiving tests at participating pharmacies from December 1 to January 13.

Of nearly 30,000 test results included in the analysis, more than 13,000 (47%), were positive for Covid-19.

More people who tested negative had gotten an updated bivalent booster compared with those who tested positive.

On average, people in the study who had not gotten a bivalent booster also had not had a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in more than a year. That’s about the same as the national average, the study authors said. Their protection against illness was probably very minimal, they said.

The study results show that the updated boosters are most effective for younger adults.

For adults between the ages of 18 and 49, the boosters cut the odds of getting a symptomatic infection caused by the BA.5 subvariant by 52%, and it cut the odds of getting an infection caused by XBB or XBB.1.5 by 49%. For adults 50 to 64, the new boosters cut the odds of getting sick with Covid-19 by 43% for BA.5 and 40% for XBB subvariants. For those 65 and older, the boosters cut the odds of an infection with symptoms by 37% and 43% for the BA.5 and XBB subvariants, respectively.

Ruth Link-Gelles, a senior epidemiologist at the CDC and lead study author, said at a news briefing Wednesday that these vaccine effectiveness numbers are averages. Because everyone is unique in terms of their underlying health, their past exposure to the virus and other factors, these estimates of vaccine effectiveness may not apply on an individual level. She said it’s important to think of them on population level.

For people who are wondering whether the protection from the bivalent booster they got in September has worn off by now, it’s too early to know how waning would work with these new two-strain shots, Link-Gelles said.

So far, there’s little evidence of waning effectiveness two to three months after people got their shots.

“It’s too early, I think, to know how waning will happen with the bivalent vaccine. We know from the older vaccines that we do see protection decrease over time, especially against symptomatic infection. Just like with overall protection, what we’ve seen in the past is, your protection lasts longer for more severe illness,” Link-Gelles said.

Researchers don’t have data past three months, she said, but based on experience, she would expect protection against severe disease and death to be higher and last longer than these results against infections.

“We will continue to monitor it over time in the coming months,” she said.

The study authors said that these are just estimates of how well the vaccines are protecting people against an infection that brings on symptoms like cough or fever. They are probably working even better against more severe outcomes like hospitalization and death.

“What we know from past experience is generally that the vaccines protect better against more severe disease. So these are estimates for symptomatic infection and we would expect that similar estimates for hospitalization and death would be higher,” Link-Gelles said.

Asked how well the two-strain vaccines may be working compared with the older one-strain shots, Link-Gelles said it was impossible to know.

“We can’t in the US do a direct, head-to-head comparison of the monovalent and the bivalent vaccines because they were never authorized at the same time,” she said. Because protection wanes over time, you’d need to compare groups of people who got each kind of shot at the same time.

“What this tells us is that people that had the bivalent vaccine were better protected than people that were up to date previously, had all their monovalent doses and had not gotten the bivalent vaccine,” Link-Gelles said.

The CDC said it was able analyze the data and publish it so quickly thanks to the use of a shortcut. Rather than sequencing the genomes of each positive result, the researchers relied on a different marker to distinguish between variants.

The tests used in the study rely on a series of probes, or markers, to identify a positive case. Some variants of the virus that causes Covid-19 have mutations in their spike protein that causes one of the test markers to fail. This is called an S-gene target failure.

In the study, test results that showed an S-gene target failure were considered to be an infection caused by a BA.5 subvariant. Those that were S-gene target positive were considered to be caused by the XBB or XBB.1.5 sublineage.

As the study continued, XBB.1.5 became a bigger player in the variant mix.

“Later in the study period, most would be XBB.1.5,” said Heather Scobie, an epidemiologist at the CDC.

This gave the researchers confidence that the vaccine effectiveness results reflect how well the vaccines are working right now.