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The next big threat hovering over the US economy

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

As the federal government strives to contain financial market turmoil, the next risk looming over the nation’s banks is in plain sight: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market.Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates and spiraling office vacancies push down property values.And because 70 percent of bank-held commercial mortgages sit on the balance sheets of regional and smaller lenders, a write-down in commercial loans could spell big trouble for the financial system and spill over into the larger economy just as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway.With the country careening toward a possible recession, the financial system is especially vulnerable to shocks as the turbulence sparked by the collapse of three regional banks showed. Adding a commercial real estate market slide to the mix would be particularly perilous. It’s a concern that’s top of mind for policymakers in Washington — even as th...

Totally ducked up! Dutch celebrate Dead Duck Day

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

It was the splat heard round the world.On the afternoon of June 5, 1995, an unfortunate male mallard met his untimely end after flying into the newly inaugurated glass façade of Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum.While the duck’s death was unremarkable — billions of birds die flying into windows and other reflective glass surfaces around the world every year — what happened next guaranteed his spot in the history books: Seconds after his corpse hit the ground, another male duck appeared, mounted the deceased waterfowl and proceeded to have sex with it for an impressive 75 minutes.The entire episode was observed by biologist Kees Moeliker, who quickly realized he was witnessing a unique event: The first documented case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.“I’d never seen anything like this before,” said Moeliker, who currently serves as the director of the museum. “Ducks are notoriously aggressive while reproducing and rape is part of their str...

Stock market today: Wall Street drifts after tepid report on economy

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

By STAN CHOE (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting Monday to begin what could be a quiet stretch following its best week since March.The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 81 points, or 0.2%, at 33,681, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.The indexes were listless after a report showed businesses in the accommodation, construction and other U.S. services industries grew in May for a fifth straight month, though by less than economists expected. It’s the latest mixed reading on the U.S. economy, which has begun to slow under the weight of higher interest rates but has defied forecasts for a recession so far.More stocks were falling in the S&P 500 than rising, but a gain for market heavyweight Apple helped to steady Wall Street. It rose 1.5% ahead of an event where it’s expected to unveil a long-rumored headset that will place its users be...

Guatemala’s presidential hopefuls channel heavy-handed tactics of El Salvador’s leader

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Candidates to be Guatemala’s next president are taking a cue from the leader of neighboring El Salvador and promising their voters they will build mega-prisons and hammer criminal gangs into submission.The formula of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has become well-known to citizens across Latin America, and the tough-talking, Bitcoin-loving leader enjoys approval ratings the envy of any world leader — even a year after suspending key rights to wage war against his country’s gangs.“It would be good to adopt his program” in Guatemala, said 48-year-old Lucrecia Salazar, a government worker who lives in a neighborhood in the capital known as a hotspot for gangs and crime. “We have the resources. What we lack is the will.”Now, many top candidates for president in Guatemala are vying to demonstrate such a will, saying ahead of June 25 balloting that, if elected, they would emulate Bukele’s heavy-handed tactics.Former First Lady Sandra Torres of the National Unity o...

Supreme Court rejects case of woman on Alabama death row

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place the sentence of a woman on death row in Alabama who helped her boyfriend kill his two young children.The high court on Monday rejected an appeal from lawyers for Heather Leavell-Keaton. As is typical, the court rejected the case without comment.Leavell-Keaton was convicted of murder in the death of 3-year-old Chase DeBlase and manslaughter in the death of his sister, 4-year-old Natalie DeBlase. Prosecutors said she poisoned the children with antifreeze. There was also evidence the children’s father, John DeBlase, strangled them. The children’s remains were found in the woods in Alabama and Mississippi.Leavell-Keaton was originally sentenced to death in 2015. A new sentencing hearing was ordered, however, after a court found that the judge who sentenced Leavell-Keaton to death erred by failing to give her a chance to speak on her own behalf before sentencing. She was sentenced to death again in 2021.Leavell-Keaton ‘s lawye...

Book Review: ‘Mozart in Motion’ by Patrick Mackie seeks to bring composer to life in new ways

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

“Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces” by Patrick Mackie (Macmillan Publishers).Writing a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart nowadays is no easy task. The daunting list of predecessors, which spans centuries, who have already undertaken the assignment complicates any efforts to find unique angles and inroads through which to tell the composer’s story.But Patrick Mackie exploits his background in both poetry and academia in an effort to bring Mozart to life in new ways. In addition to relying on letters and extant accounts for “Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces,” Mackie also incorporates academic theory and philosophical reflections on how we collectively experience music today into his thematically organized biography. The result is still a familiar portrait of Mozart, but one that is painted in new colors.His prose betrays a palpable reverence for and familiarity with the musician, an appreciation he takes for granted that readers share.Mackie somet...

GM to invest more than $1 billion in two Flint, Mich., plants

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

FLINT, Michigan (AP) — General Motors plans to invest more than $1 billion in two Flint, Michigan manufacturing plants for the production of the next-generation internal combustion engine heavy-duty trucks. Gerald Johnson, executive vice president, Global Manufacturing and Sustainability, said Monday that the company will build internal combustion vehicles throughout this decade, in addition to making electric vehicles.GM has a goal of building only electric passenger vehicles in the United States by 2035.The Detroit automaker reported a 38% year-over-year increase in heavy-duty pickup sales last year, with nearly 288,000 trucks sold. GM will invest $788 million in the Flint assembly plant, with updates including a body shop building expansion, general assembly conveyor expansion, and new tooling and equipment.The company will invest $233 million in the Flint metal center for new stamping dies to support production of its next-generation ICE heavy-duty trucks, as well as press refur...

Blinken takes aim at Israeli settlements; says US will press ahead with Israel-Saudi normalization

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the expansion of Israeli settlements and ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank are taking Israel further away from peace with the Palestinians. Yet, he stressed that the U.S.-Israel relationship remains “iron-clad,” lauded American security commitments to the Jewish state and said the Biden administration will continue to promote normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly with Saudi Arabia.At the same time, he made clear the administration’s displeasure with actions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has taken in expanding Jewish settlements and increasing Palestinian home demolitions.“Settlement expansion clearly presents an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek,” Blinken said in a speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.“Likewise, any move toward annexation of the West Bank, de f...

Casabe, Cuba’s little-known traditional bread, seeks world recognition

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

QUIVICÁN, Cuba (AP) — When Julio César Núñez was a child, he helped his grandmother make casabe from scratch, using artisanal tools — and an ancient cooking method — to turn grated yuca root into a thin, white, crispy flatbread.Today, Núñez, 80, and a younger generation of family members in this town south of Havana, continue the tradition of harvesting and preparing casabe the ancestral way, but it’s no longer just for their own consumption. They sell it to small businesses and restaurants in the capital.Casabe, a flatbread made of yuca root, which is also called cassava, is one of Cuba’s oldest Indigenous meals. It is making a comeback on the island nation, with promoters and restaurants hyping its benefits as a gluten-free alternative to bread and officials seeking its addition to the prized intangible cultural heritage list of UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency. “Casabe is an Amerindian tradition that came from northern South America and made its way to the Antilles,...

UN nuclear chief, facing Israeli criticism on Iran, says his agency ‘very fair but firm’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:11:44 GMT

VIENNA (AP) — The International Atomic Energy Agency will “never politicize” its work in Iran, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday, insisting after Israel’s prime minister accused it of capitulating to Iranian pressure that his agency has been “very fair but firm.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments came after a confidential report from the IAEA last week said that its investigators had closed off their investigation of traces of man-made uranium found at Marivan, near the city of Abadeh, about 525 kilometers (325 miles) southeast of Tehran.Analysts had repeatedly linked Marivan to a possible secret Iranian military nuclear program and accused Iran of conducting high-explosives tests there in the early 2000s.“Iran is continuing to lie to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency’s capitulation to Iranian pressure is a black stain on its record,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet in televised remarks on Sunday.“If the IAEA becomes a politi...