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1 killed, 3 injured in shooting at mall in El Paso

One person died and three people were injured in a shooting at a mall in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday night, police said.

One person was in custody after the shooting at the Cielo Vista Mall, while one person that may have been involved in the shooting has yet to be detained, but police offered no description of the possible outstanding suspect.

“We don’t have any active shooters at this time,” El Paso Police Department spokesman Sgt. Robert Gomez said. “All we know right now it’s isolated to Cielo Vista Mall.”

On top of the one confirmed casualty, the three injured individuals were transported to local hospitals, according to Gomez.

Gomez said that there were indications that the shooting occurred “in the approximate area of the food court, but that was not confirmed.”

Cielo Vista Mall is located across the street from a Walmart where, in 2019, a 24-year-old shooter killed 23 individuals after targeting Hispanic people. That shooter pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and gun charges one week ago.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said he had been in contact with the mayor of El Paso.

“I spoke to Mayor Leeser about the shooting tonight in El Paso,” Abbott said on Twitter. “I offered the full support of the State of Texas, including the assistance of the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Division of Emergency Management to help the city of El Paso respond to this tragic event.”

The shooting also comes on the same day that a white gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racially-motivated shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store was sentenced to life in prison.

Source: TEST FEED1

What recession? Americans are still powering the economy despite high inflation

Key economic indicators, such as huge retail sales and historic job gains, are painting the picture of a robust economy that shows few signs of slowing down.

But a smaller-than-expected drop in January inflation has some economists worried that the Federal Reserve is going to prolong its interest rate hikes, which could tip the economy into a recession that puts millions of people out of work.

The consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of inflation, has fallen for seven months in a row, dropping to 6.4 percent annually in January off a high of 9.1 percent last June.

Markets had been expecting the CPI to land at 6.2 percent, cueing a chorus of economists who want the Fed to press ahead with its rate hikes.

While the Fed says it’s pursuing a “soft landing,” meaning lower inflation without a serious recession, it currently expects its rate hikes to boost the unemployment rate by 1.2 percentage points, according to December projections, which would likely mean losing at least 1 million jobs.

Here’s a look at how the economy is fighting off a recession amid a grueling battle with stubborn inflation.

Americans haven’t stopped spending despite higher prices

Retail sales rose 3 percent in January, according to Commerce Department data released Wednesday, the biggest monthly gain in nearly two years. 

The increase, driven by an uptick in auto sales and spending at restaurants and department stores, indicates that U.S. consumers are powering through even as inflation and higher borrowing costs hinder their purchasing power.

It’s yet another indicator that the U.S. economy isn’t in a recession and may actually be gaining steam. Analysts predicted that retail sales would rise just 1.8 percent after falling 1.1 percent in December. 

Read more: ‘You just can’t really afford to live like you were before’: Here’s how Americans are feeling the strain of inflation

“If you look at the consumer, they keep spending money,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said at an investment conference Tuesday. 

But the data is sure to worry Fed officials, who want consumers to spend less so that companies are forced to bring prices down. 

“Although resilient consumer spending is a positive sign for the health of the economy, renewed demand for supply-constrained categories could add to inflation pressures, potentially eliciting more aggressive action from the Fed,” Kayla Bruun, economic analyst at Morning Consult, wrote in a Wednesday research note.

The country has the strongest job market in a half-century

The U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs in January, blowing past expectations and cutting the unemployment rate to 3.4 percent, its lowest level since 1969.

Wage growth can heavily influence the prices businesses charge, so higher levels of unemployment are generally associated with lower costs for consumers.

The decline in inflation amid low unemployment has left economists searching for which parts of the economy are preventing prices from falling faster.

One increasingly cited area is the “core services excluding housing” category, which includes labor-intensive businesses like nail salons, restaurants and barber shops.

Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, described this sector as “very tied to the labor market,” and the White House recently analyzed it with a new, specially calibrated wage statistic.

The White House analysis found that despite sticky inflation in this sector, wages there have been rapidly decreasing, suggesting that wages aren’t the primary driver of inflation.

“I’ve been a server for many years … and servers are not making as much,” Kianna Quann, a manager at the City Cafe diner in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told The Hill in a phone interview. “The most I know a server makes is $2.13 [an hour], because they depend on tips.”

Quann said that despite the lower take-home pay she’s observing at her workplace, server jobs are still in high demand and that people want to be working.

“We’re getting a lot of applications right now, and it varies in age. Not just young people, everybody, I guess. People are getting back to work, and the most appealing job is a job where you can take home cash every day. So people are gravitating toward server jobs.”

Strong profits and GDP signal a growing economy

Companies have been posting record profits in the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, another sign that the U.S. economy isn’t close to a recession.

Corporate profits before the pandemic generally stayed between $1.6 and $2 trillion dollars annually, without being adjusted for inventories and capital consumption, according to federal data.

But since the pandemic, profits have climbed above $2.8 trillion and even topped $3 trillion in the second quarter of 2022. Inflation-adjusted profit as a share of value added to the economy has gone up from about 12 cents on the dollar before the pandemic to 17 cents in the third quarter of 2022.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.2 percent in the third quarter of last year and 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter.

Here’s who is losing out on the nation’s booming economy

Not all Americans are sharing in the prosperity of the new post-pandemic era of higher profits.

Kimberly Martin, a resident of Newark, New Jersey, who had to move into a homeless shelter after she lost her job, told The Hill she thought the commercial real estate sector was crowding out opportunities to build housing for people who actually need it.

Housing woes are pressing: Biden barely mentioned the deflated housing market. What’s next for renters, buyers and owners?

“Every time they put up an apartment building, it’s a luxury two or three-bedroom [apartment building], and there’s people who have been in shelters for years,” she said.

“I know men who hold down jobs, but they still have to go look for a rooming house. Why can’t you dedicate a building with nothing but studios, just studios?” Martin said. “Just something that we can afford,”

High inflation could still force Fed’s hand

Prices are coming down, but not fast enough to bring relief to working families or satisfy the Fed. 

Core prices, which excludes food and energy prices and is closely watched by the Fed, rose 0.4 percent in January, unchanged from December and an uptick from November. The increase was driven by higher housing costs, with rent rising 0.8 percent in January.

The Fed, eager to avoid high prices from becoming the new normal, has said it is willing to boost rates high enough to cause an economic downturn or even a full-blown recession.

Financial markets are predicting that the Fed will implement two additional 0.25 percentage point interest rate hikes, minor moves meant to slowly cool the economy, during its next two policy meetings. 

But several Fed officials said this week that stricter measures may be in order, even if they raise the risk of a recession later in the year.   

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said Tuesday that the central bank “must remain prepared to continue rate increases for a longer period than previously anticipated.”

Some economists remain hopeful that a “soft landing” is still possible, noting that the government’s data on rents is typically delayed by several months, and private sector data shows that rents are falling. 

“It could be the tale of two halves for inflation this year. Stronger than expected inflation in the first half and a more significant deceleration in the second half,” Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist Ryan Sweet said in a research note.

Source: TEST FEED1

Frustration builds over response to Ohio train derailment as officials urge patience

The cleanup process after the derailment and explosion of a train carrying hazardous chemicals in Ohio is sparking frustration among locals and environmentalists, who worry the state and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) response has been insufficient and confusing. 

On Feb. 3, a freight train owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway and carrying several cars of hazardous materials derailed in the town of East Palestine on the border with Pennsylvania. Two days later, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) ordered the town evacuated, and the following day, an emergency crew conducted a controlled burn to prevent a possible explosion.  

Locals and activists say they have since received mixed messages from both federal and state officials about the safety of the area.

Residents have been cleared to return the area by the federal EPA since Feb. 9, for instance, but the agency indicated in a letter to Norfolk Southern this week that hazardous chemicals remain present — and that more may be released.

“They’re talking out of both sides of their mouths,” activist and environmental whistleblower Erin Brockovich said of the EPA in a call with The Hill. “[They] clearly state in [their] first paragraph that it’s a known toxic substance that continues to be in the air, water and soil, but yet on the other hand, you tell everyone it’s safe to go back. So we’re still not getting full information yet.” 

“EPA has spent, or is considering spending, public funds to investigate and control releases of hazardous substances or potential releases of hazardous substances at the Site,” the agency wrote to Norfolk Southern in the letter. The Hill has reached out to the EPA for comment.

Substances identified in the release so far include: vinyl chloride, a flammable gas used in the production of plastics; butyl acrylate, a flammable liquid used for paints and sealants; and ethylhexyl acrylate, which is used in paint and plastic production.  

Additionally, the EPA’s state counterparts have said the town’s drinking water is safe, but multiple officials have seemed to undercut that assurance by advising residents to drink bottled water for the time being.

DeWine has maintained that officials continue to monitor the situation but has expressed confidence that the danger is minimal, saying on CNN’s Briefing Room Wednesday, “We told people in a certain area they needed to leave and outside that area, we never saw any really significant change in the air at all.”  

The governor, along with other officials, also recommended affected residents drink bottled water. Asked about the seeming mixed message, DeWine responded that officials remain optimistic but cannot be sure until testing is completed. “We’re testing [and] as we test, we’ll tell people exactly what we find,” he said.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, DeWine’s office said municipal testing had returned “no detection of contaminants in raw water from the five wells that feed into East Palestine’s municipal water system.”

Gregg Brown, who lives outside the limits of East Palestine but works in the city and has children enrolled in its school district, said residents have been frustrated by the pace and transparency of the response so far. 

“It’s been very poor; I think that’s the nicest way to put it,” Brown told The Hill. “You have people testing the air and water and you’re getting air quality updates and saying this is what we found how many particles are in the air [but] not specifying what they’re finding in the air.” 

He also pointed to the delay in the public release of manifests from the derailed train, which took more than a week following the accident.  

Brown contrasted the response with the one that followed a similar accident in Paulsboro, N.J., in November 2012, which also led to the leakage of vinyl chloride. In that case, evacuation orders remained in place for longer than in East Palestine despite a smaller quantity of the chemical being spilled. 

Emily Wright, organizing development director at the organization River Valley Organizing, who lives miles from the derailment site in the town of Columbiana, suggests officials have so far focused on air quality because the risk level of other potential areas of contamination — such as the water — is less clear.

“When the governor tells you on a press conference that he would be drinking bottled water if it was him or his family, but then there’s no boil orders in effect, and no one’s been [formally] advised to get bottled water … that’s why all the focus is on the air,” Wright said. “It’s focused on air, but we’ve got all these other contamination points that are just starting to really show that’s why we need a federal emergency here”

River Valley Organizing is among several organizations that have petitioned DeWine to formally declare a state of emergency and request Federal Emergency Management Agency funds from the White House. 

But DeWine has so far pushed back on such requests.

“The president called me and said ‘anything you need.’ I will not hesitate to call him if we see a problem, but I’m not seeing it,” DeWine said in a press conference on Wednesday. DeWine’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Hill on whether he would consider imposing a state of emergency. 

Brown speculated the nature of East Palestine itself likely contributed to officials appearing to have less of a sense of urgency than they might if the derailment had occurred in a major population center in the state, such as Cleveland or Columbus.

“The fact that it happened on the state line where it’s a lower income area … especially the area where the derailment itself [occurred], it’s not heavily populated, no injuries happened. … It’s not going to be an immediate ‘oh, what’s happened,’” he said. “When there are reports of people who are finding these fish dead, [the state] giving us kind of a runaround, it just really didn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially in the community.” 

EPA Administrator Michael Regan, meanwhile, defended both the state and the agency’s handling of the situation to CNN Wednesday morning. Asked whether he believed it was irresponsible for DeWine to allow residents to return home before testing was complete, Regan said: “I don’t think it was irresponsible. I think that we have deployed lots of assets from the very beginning.” 

However, Regan echoed DeWine’s recommendation that residents drink bottled water in the meantime. “We’re also supporting the state in its water-quality monitoring, and I agree with the governor’s assessment,” he said. “Remain on bottled water until those tests are complete.” 

“We understand the concern, but rest assured, local, state and federal officials are devoting vast resources [and] responding very quickly to these concerns to ensure that communities are protected,” he said. 

“I think it’s awful that this community is scared [and] isn’t getting answers,” Brokovich said. “They’re worried about their soil, they’re worried about the water, they’re worried about the chemicals, they’re worried that they’ve been breathing it. … [They’re] worried for their animals, they’re worried for the future outcome, and nobody can seem to tell them anything.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene rejects 'Bush in heels' Haley

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) labeled former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley a “Bush in heels,” likening the newly-minted presidential candidate to former President George W. Bush — who represents a more traditional wing of the Republican Party.

“Nikki Haley is just another George (or Jeb!) Bush,” Greene said on Twitter. “She is weak on the border, doesn’t want a wall, claimed ‘Legal Immigrants are more patriotic than most Americans these days,’ and she defended Obama when Pres. Trump criticized his terrible open-borders policy.”

The comments come after Haley officially announced her campaign for the White House, which has quickly faced backlash from conservatives aligned with former President Trump.

Greene tied Haley to the Bush family, which has fallen out of favor with some in the party as their brand of conservatism becomes increasingly distant from the ideology of other rising stars within the party.

“If we wanted a ‘Bush in heels,’ Republicans would vote for Liz Cheney,” Greene added.

The Georgia Republican’s criticism comes as Haley became the first figure to jump into the race to oppose Trump for the GOP nomination, with others expected to declare soon.

Haley — who served under the Trump administration as the ambassador to the United Nations — has framed herself as an alternative option to current Republican leadership, calling for a new generation of GOP leaders.

“We’re ready — ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” Haley said at her launch event in South Carolina on Wednesday. “And we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future.”

Greene, the firebrand lawmaker who has made waves in her short time in Congress for her social media presence and attachment to 2020 election denialism, is seen as a close ally to Trump.

Trump met Haley’s announcement with criticism over her past support for cutting Social Security and Medicare, citing her endorsement of former Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to eliminate Medicare. Still, he seemingly welcomed her challenge on Wednesday, saying “the more the merrier.”

Source: TEST FEED1

CBO warns of sharp uptick in Social Security, Medicare spending

Federal spending on Social Security and Medicare is projected to rise dramatically over the next decade, far outpacing revenues and the economy on the whole while putting new pressure on Congress to address accelerated threats of insolvency, according to new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). 

The increase is driven by a variety of factors, including Social Security’s new cost-of-living adjustment, the rising cost of medical services under Medicare and greater participation rates in both programs, as the last of the baby boomers become eligible for retirement benefits. 

The result, the CBO estimates, is that combined spending on Social Security and Medicare will almost double by 2033, when required funding for the two programs will approach $4 trillion, representing more than 10 percent of the country’s total economic output.

Another consequence, said CBO Director Phillip Swagel, is that Social Security now faces a funding shortfall in 2032 — two years sooner than the previous projection. 

The numbers are sure to animate the already contentious debate over federal spending, the national debt and the future of the popular entitlement programs, which have taken a center stage in the early months of this year as President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) begin high-stakes negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit. 

McCarthy, while demanding spending cuts as a part of those talks, has said reductions to Social Security and Medicare are “off the table.” And Biden — making similar vows to protect the popular senior benefits — appears ready to hold the Speaker to his word.

Yet Medicare is projected to experience a funding shortfall in 2028, and Social Security is forecast to follow in 2032, according to Swagel. And lawmakers in both parties — liberals and conservatives alike — are warning that the longer Congress waits to address those projected deficiencies, the tougher the remedy will become.

“Every year it gets more expensive and harder to do,” Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a strong Social Security advocate, said Tuesday, before the CBO’s new report was issued. 

Yet if the parties agree that Congress must intervene to shore up entitlement finances, they’re at sharp odds over how to go about doing it. 

Democrats such as Biden and Larson have floated a series of tax hikes on the wealthiest taxpayers to cover the shortfalls, including a proposal to apply the Social Security tax — which is currently capped at earnings up to $160,200 — to much higher incomes. 

Republicans, by contrast, are opposed to any tax hikes, proposing instead to adopt changes such as raising the eligibility age for receiving benefits under Social Security and Medicare while scaling back benefits for wealthier seniors.

The CBO has added some urgency to the debate. Not only has Social Security’s solvency timeline been accelerated, but the new report warns that heightened spending on Social Security, Medicare and other mandatory programs over the next decade — combined with rising interest payments on the federal debt — will put a greater squeeze on the discretionary programs that occupy the remainder of the budget. 

Social Security spending will almost double, from $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2022 to almost $2.4 trillion in 2033, the CBO estimated. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), it will grow from 4.8 percent to 6 percent over that span. The jump begins immediately, with a $123 billion increase in fiscal 2023, a 10 percent spike, largely due to the large, 8.7 percent cost-of-living increase for Social Security beneficiaries that took effect last month. 

Medicare spending will more than double over the same span, from $710 billion in the last fiscal year to more than $1.6 trillion in 2033, when it will represent 4.1 percent of GDP, the CBO reported. 

Spending on other mandatory health care programs, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and ObamaCare subsidies, will also rise significantly, from $695 billion in 2022 to $1 trillion in 2033, the CBO said. 

All told, the CBO found, the federal debt — currently capped at $31.4 trillion — is on pace to balloon to roughly $50 trillion a decade from now, as annual deficits are projected to rise from $1.4 trillion this fiscal year to $2.9 trillion in 2033. And budget watchdogs wasted no time on Wednesday pressing Congress to bring those numbers down, with some calling for immediate reforms to Social Security and Medicare as part of this year’s coming budget debates. 

“Today’s CBO report should provide an important dose of reality for politicians making promises they can’t afford to keep,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement.

Source: TEST FEED1

How China’s spy balloon spurred a rapid shift in US sky patrol

The downing of a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. airspace has forced a rapid recalibration in how the military monitors, tracks and responds to threats from above.

The Defense Department said that after the Chinese spy balloon flew over much of the U.S. earlier this month before being shot down, the military began paying closer attention to lower-altitude flying objects.

That led to the detection and elimination of three UFOs in the span of three days over the weekend.

The Biden administration announced this week the formation of an interagency task force to investigate the UFOs. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said one of the team’s new tasks will be to examine how they will respond to future aerial objects.

“We’re going to learn from these three events,” Kirby told reporters on Monday. 

Bruce McClintock, the head of RAND Corporation’s Space Enterprise Initiative, said the Biden administration likely “overcorrected” on the weekend UFO shoot-downs after the Chinese spy balloon incident. But he believes the focus on lower-altitude objects is here to stay. 

One debate right now is whether to use the Space Surveillance Network, which tracks and monitors objects in outer space, to help detect these lower-altitude threats above North America.

But there is a trade-off, McClintock warned.

“The lower you tune down things to pick up smaller objects … the more likely you are to have these kinds of false alarms,” he said. “It’s not like any nation, including the United States, has unlimited bandwidth to look for these objects. They have to make decisions about where to focus their sensors.”

Enhanced surveillance would first have to start with a broader strategy on airspace engagement, said Andrew Chanin, the CEO and co-founder of ProcureAM, which manages an exchange-traded fund on the stock market investing in space and UFO detection technology.

Chanin said the Pentagon, along with allied nations that have also become aware of Chinese spy balloon incursions, may have “to develop some type of strategy for detecting, monitoring, tracking and ultimately removing or downing” UFOs.

“It’s going to be something that’s a global demand,” he said. “Areas that we might have to bulk up our spending on are things like satellites, sensors, ground stations.”

UFOs flying through U.S. airspace are not new, with eyewitness accounts and photographs of strange aerial craft dating back decades. 

While before there was a stigma in reporting these sightings, the U.S. government is now taking them seriously, and Congress recently passed legislation to form a new office to investigate what officials now refer to as unidentified aerial phenomenon.

But the spy balloon and the subsequent UFO takedowns this month accelerated scrutiny around the flurry of strange objects buzzing across the sky.

A leading theory from the White House is that the UFOs were deployed for commercial or benign purposes, which has led to some head-scratching over why the U.S. was not already aware of the source of the objects.

Kari Bingen, the director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. “needs to get to the bottom of this” and enhance data collection and sharing.

“The intelligence community has been very stove-piped in how they treat data,” Bingen said. “Do they have data that can be brought to bear and then objects ruled out or taken off the table? Do allies and partners have information that could be useful? I think a lot of that, that piece, there really needs to be attention.”

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a binational agency serving both Canada and the U.S. that operates from a headquarters at Peterson Air Force base in Colorado, is responsible for monitoring the skies above the continent.

The agency employs a network of satellites, ground-based radar, airborne radar and aircraft to detect and respond to any potential threats. 

NORAD primarily works from three regional operations at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, Canadian Forces Base in Winnipeg and Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

After the hefty Chinese spy balloon was taken down off the coast of South Carolina, NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck admitted that at least four previous spy balloons had flown over the U.S. undetected and were only discovered retroactively. 

VanHerck called it a “domain awareness gap,” raising concerns the U.S. lacked the ability to track balloons or other surveillance devices.

Intelligence officials then detected the past three UFOs last weekend after tweaking the radar system to scan more closely at lower altitudes and for balloons and other less conspicuous flying objects.

There were two previous issues with radar detection, according to analysts in the airspace field. 

The first is the military was looking for specific threats, such as missiles or long-range bomber planes, typically at higher altitudes. The second is when scanning at higher altitudes, the radars were not tuned to find flying objects like balloons.

In order to analyze wide swaths of objects flying at different altitudes, NORAD might need an adjustment, such as deploying a greater number of detection systems or more powerful ones. 

Jon Gruen, the CEO of Fortem Technologies, a company that develops systems to counter drone incursions and works closely with the Defense Department, compared it to a flashlight: You could shine a narrow beam that can see up to 20 feet, or a wider beam that can see for up to 10 feet but capture more area.

“What we are realizing right now is there needs to be greater air awareness systems tracking at different altitudes at different ranges to see smaller objects,” Gruen said. “We’re seeing simple balloons and airborne platforms tripping in from all different types of locations. It’s changing, so we’ve got to adapt to those changes.”

Another concern in the airspace awareness community is how the U.S. can shift its response to a detected balloon or UFO.

The Chinese spy balloon and the three UFOs shot down over the weekend were taken out by fighter jets that fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile — each of which comes with a price tag of about $400,000.

The missiles also brought down the objects over difficult terrain, including a deep lake in Michigan and the icy waters over Alaska, complicating retrieval efforts that will help understand the UFOs better. 

If there was a more effective rule of engagement policy and method to down and capture the UFOs more safely, collection and analysis efforts would be easier.

“They need to get their hands on the balloons, on the unidentified objects, and learn from them,” said Bingen, adding “we need to be careful we are not expending limited stocks of missiles on every single object, whether it’s known or unknown.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Americans' dissatisfaction with gun laws at new high: Gallup poll

A majority of Americans surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with current gun laws in the U.S. amid a recent string of mass shootings affecting the country, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll, published Wednesday, found that 63 percent of respondents said they are dissatisfied with the nation’s laws and policies on firearms, while 34 percent of those surveyed said the opposite.

The results marked the highest percentage of Americans that are dissatisfied with current gun laws in the last seven years, with a seven-point increase from last year, when 56 percent of respondents claimed they were unhappy.

Satisfaction with gun policies in the country has also fallen since last year’s poll, tying the lowest on record, according to Gallup. 

Among political party lines, 54 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning Independent respondents said they are satisfied with the nation’s laws and policies on handguns, while 44 percent of those surveyed expressed their dissatisfaction with current law.

On the other side, 84 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents expressed their dissatisfaction with the nation’s laws and policies, while 14 percent of those surveyed said they are satisfied with the nation’s current policies.

Around 60 percent of Independent respondents express their dissatisfaction with the nation’s laws and firearm policies, while 36 percent of those surveyed said they are satisfied.

The poll comes in the aftermath of a mass shooting that happened at Michigan State University earlier this week — when a 43-year-old gunman opened fire at two locations on the school’s East Lansing campus. The incident resulted in the deaths of three students, and left five other individuals with critical injuries.

The incident at MSU follows several other mass shootings this year alone, including an incident last month that left 11 people dead in Monterey Park, Calif., during Lunar Year celebrations.

President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June of last year following two other mass shootings — one at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and another at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

The legislation enhances background checks for gun purchasers between the age of 18 and 21, makes obtaining firearms through straw purchases or trafficking a federal offense and clarifies the definition of a federally licensed firearm dealer.

In light of recent events, Biden has praised Senate Democrats who introduced a pair of bills to ban military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines as well as raise the age of purchasing them to 21 years old.

The latest Gallup poll was conducted from Jan. 2 to Jan. 22 with a total of 1,011 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin of error was 4 percent.

Source: TEST FEED1

DOJ decides not to charge Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided not to charge Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in its sex-trafficking investigation into him, the congressman’s office said Wednesday. 

The office said in a statement that the DOJ told Gaetz’s attorneys that it had concluded its probe and will not charge Gaetz with any crimes. 

The investigation stemmed from allegations that the congressman had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, with the DOJ looking into if Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws in paying for her to travel with him, including across state lines. 

The probe was part of a larger investigation into Gaetz’s ally and former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to six federal crimes, including sex trafficking of a minor, identity theft and wire fraud. 

Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December. He agreed to cooperate with the DOJ’s investigation as part of his plea agreement. 

But the investigation into Gaetz hit a roadblock over concerns about the credibility of two witnesses, one of whom was Greenberg. Career attorneys reportedly recommended to the DOJ in September that the department not charge Gaetz based on those witness credibility issues. 

Prosecutors were also worried that testimony from the girl with whom Gaetz allegedly had the relationship would not stand up in front of a jury. 

Gaetz has denied the allegations that he had a relationship with an underage girl and said he regrets his association with Greenberg. 

The Hill has reached out to the DOJ for comment. 

Gaetz had reportedly sought a preemptive pardon from then-President Trump over the sex trafficking allegations against him, according to testimony from a former White House aide given to the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Source: TEST FEED1

US could default as early as July: CBO

The federal government could default on its debt as early as July if Congress is unable to raise the debt limit, according to a report released Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The nonpartisan budget scorekeeper said the Treasury Department could exhaust the so-called “extraordinary measures” it began taking last month to stave off a default sometime between July and September.

It said it is difficult to pinpoint an exact date as factors like revenue collected during tax season and government spending in the next few months could have an impact on the timeline.

“In particular, income tax receipts in April could be more or less than we estimate,” CBO director Phillip Swagel said in a prepared statement. 

“If those receipts fell short of estimated amounts—for example, if capital gains realizations in 2022 were smaller or if U.S. income growth slowed by more in early calendar year 2023 than we project—the extraordinary measures could be exhausted sooner, and the Treasury could run out of funds before July,” he said.

The report comes a month after the Treasury warned it could run out of the emergency measures as soon as June, after the national debt reached the roughly $31.4 trillion threshold set by Congress more than a year ago.

The threat has already sparked concern among experts who are calling on Congress to act sooner rather than later to raise the debt ceiling, which puts a cap on how much money the Treasury can owe to cover the country’s bills.

At the same time, the looming deadline has triggered a high-stakes battle on Capitol Hill over the nation’s finances, as Republicans press for significant fiscal reform to be tied to any legislation raising the limit with proposals that Democrats have already panned as non-starters.

Source: TEST FEED1