Archive by Author

'Fairly exceptional': Capitol riot suspect remains at large 1 year after FBI raid

POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida fugitive remains at large one year after the raid of his family’s north Lakeland property.

The orders from the FBI boomed from a megaphone before the sun came up that morning in 2021.

“They kept saying, ‘This is the FBI, come out now. We’re not gonna harm you.’ She just kept saying that over and over and over,” neighbor Chris Rogers told WFLA in June 2021.

Joshua Doolin, Olivia Pollock, Joseph Hutchinson III and Michael Perkins were arrested during that raid, on charges connected to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. They are out on bond, awaiting trial.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Pollock, now 23, has evaded the FBI.

The FBI accuses Pollock of assaulting several police officers with a deadly weapon at the Capitol.

“A person with a warrant for their arrest is not necessarily high priority. Jonathan Pollock is not the normal case, though,” said Ken Stevens, a retired sergeant with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. “I think that [him being] still on the run is fairly exceptional.”

Stevens is now a private investigator specializing in missing persons cases. In order to avoid arrest, Stevens says Pollock has had to cut ties with family and associates, since they are most likely to be surveilled. Any public appearances, he said, could mean exposure to security cameras.

“I’m pretty certain his face is loaded in virtually every facial recognition system,” said Stevens.

Pollock is a welder and ironworker by trade, and may be working in that field or similar construction jobs, according to the FBI.

“He could get a cash-paying job where he has no friends or no associates from his former life and blend in at that location and be low-profile,” he said.

The FBI has offered up to $15,000 for tips leading to Pollock’s arrest and conviction, which can be submitted via the FBI’s website.

“The allegations against him aren’t going away and must be dealt with,” FBI Tampa Acting Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani previously said of Pollock.

Source: TEST FEED1

New era of inflation will bedevil central banks and bond markets

Structural changes – hyper-globalization, global demographic shifts, technological changes and decline in labor’s bargaining power – unleashed disinflationary forces that kept price pressures largely subdued for much of the first two decades of this century. But the pandemic shock and other recent developments suggest that we may now have entered a new inflationary era, one characterized by persistent upward price pressures. The consequences of this regime shift for financial markets and monetary authorities are yet to be fully understood.

China’s integration into the world economy and the information communication technology (ICT) revolution enabled the establishment of global supply chains and radically altered the cost of producing manufactured products. The rise of platform companies (e.g., Apple), contract manufacturers (e.g., Foxconn) and specialized logistics players (e.g., FedEx, UPS) enabled the creation of global multistage production networks. The resultant benefits (economics of scale, factor cost arbitrage) generated both substantial benefits for multinational companies and significant cost savings for Western consumers.

Now, with the re-emergence of geopolitical blocs and the widespread deployment of trade barriers, a shift towards de-globalization appears inevitable. But reshoring/nearshoring production will be a costly endeavor even though it may promote supply-chain resiliency.

Another factor – demographics – that had kept a lid on global inflation in the past is now expected to contribute to upward price pressures. The population growth rate and the population age structure can have significant effects on inflation. Research by Mikael Juselius and Elöd Takáts suggests that “the larger the proportion of young and old in the total population, the higher inflation. Put another way, when the working-age population is larger, the effect is disinflationary.”

As East Asian and Western economies experience rapidly-aging populations and shrinking workforces, upward pressure on inflation is a likely outcome in the years ahead. Growing barriers to legal migration are likely to compound the problem.

Skill-biased technical change (alongside globalization) and diminished worker bargaining power had led to a decades-long decline in the labor share of income. A sharp drop in unionization rates (particularly in the U.S.) and a rise in market concentration were two notable factors that contributed to labor’s relative loss of bargaining power vis-à-vis capital.

The pandemic shock and resultant changes in labor market dynamics has caused a much-needed improvement in the wage negotiating position of workers (in fact, low- and mid-skilled workers have seen some of the biggest wage gains). There has also been a widespread push to boost unionization levels and restore collective bargaining rights in the US. The longer-term repercussions of these developments, while positive from a distributional standpoint, are likely to be inflationary.

Speeding up the process of decarbonization poses a new challenge to central banks and their efforts to keep inflation near the 2 percent target over the medium run. As Isabel Schnabel, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, recently noted: “As we build a more sustainable economy, we face a new age of energy inflation with three distinct but interrelated shocks that can be expected to lead to a prolonged period of upside pressure on inflation.”

The three shocks noted by Schnabel include “climatflation” (rising costs associated with the increasing frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather events), “fossilflation” (legacy costs associated with shifting away from fossil-fuel based energy sources), and “greenflation” (surging cost of key metals and minerals, such as nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper, that are necessary to build a greener economic future).

All in all, if structural forces have indeed shifted from being long-term disinflationary to now being long-term inflationary, tough challenges lie ahead for central banks in both the U.S. and Europe. Bringing inflation back down to the 2 percent target is likely to require a significant trade-off between price stability and maximum employment. Furthermore, the recent loss of central bank credibility is likely to raise the cost of restoring price stability.

If we do end up in a prolonged period of above-target inflation, the four-decade long bull market in bonds will finally be over. Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke summarized the drivers of long-term bond yields as follows: “To explain the behavior of longer-term rates, it helps to decompose the yield on any particular bond, such as a Treasury bond issued by the US government, into three components: expected inflation, expectations about the future path of real short-term interest rates, and a term premium.”

If expected inflation and term premium, which had both been subdued for much of the past two decades, were to rise noticeably and persistently, the bond market is in for a significant surprise. Despite recent increases in U.S. Treasury bond yields, they are still relatively subdued and may not appropriately reflect the potential risk of elevated inflation over the medium or long run.

Besides bond investors, the U.S. Treasury is also keenly aware of the potential risks posed by a spike in borrowing costs. Higher interest rates will have a significant effect on the government’s ability to sustain record levels of public debt.

We are facing an extraordinary moment of uncertainty regarding the future inflation (and interest rate) outlook. Will we relatively soon return to the low rate, low inflation and low growth (characterized as secular stagnation) dynamic that was the hallmark of the post-financial crisis era? Or are we entering a new era of sustained higher rates and elevated inflation? Nobody knows the answer for sure, but we shouldn’t underestimate the probability that we are in the midst of a consequential inflation regime change.

Vivekanand Jayakumar is an associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa.

Source: TEST FEED1

White House announces Medals of Freedom for Simone Biles, Gabby Giffords, Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington, Simone Biles, Megan Rapinoe and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) are among those who will be awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Biden.

Seventeen people in total will be recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the country’s highest civilian honor — at a ceremony next Thursday at the White House.

The medal is presented to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors,” the White House said Friday in announcing this year’s recipients.

In addition to “Fences” star Washington, Olympic athletes Biles and Rapinoe, and gun reform advocate Giffords, Biden will posthumously award the medal to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018 of brain cancer, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who died last year.

Also among those being honored: former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), Sisters of Social Service member Simone Campbell, former University of Texas at Brownsville President Julieta García, former Vicar General of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Alexander Karloutsos, Gold Star father Khizr Khan, civil rights attorney Fred Gray, Sandra Lindsay, a nurse who was the first American to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founding member Diane Nash, brigadier general Wilma Vaught and civil rights advocate Raúl Yzaguirre.

Previous Medal of Freedom winners included such famed figures as Tom Hanks, former Rep. Shirley Chisolm (D-N.Y.), Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep and Michael Jordan.

During his administration, former President Trump took heat from critics for moving to honor a number of prominent conservatives with the Medal of Freedom, including talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Biden himself has been awarded the honor — in 2017, President Obama surprised his vice president by presenting him with the Medal of Freedom at the annual ceremony.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why fireworks prices are higher this Fourth of July

Americans looking to celebrate July 4th with some fireworks could be facing some rough sticker shock.

Supply chain issues and rising shipping and labor costs have led to inflation rates not seen in decades, and the fireworks industry is warning that it has not been unaffected.

The trade group the American Pyrotechnics Association (APA) released a report earlier this year stating that overall costs are up more than 35 percent, which could pose a challenge for sellers. 

“Unfortunately, we had to pass some of the price increases on to the public,” Bruce Zoldan, head of the distributor Phantom Fireworks, told USA Today for an article published Thursday, ahead of the Independence Day weekend. “I would say from 2019 till ’22, [costs] have at least doubled.”

A variety of factors have contributed to the increase, most prominently shipping costs, which since have risen from between $8,000 to $10,000 per shipping container to $45,000 per container, the APA report states. 

China is responsible for the vast majority of fireworks imports to the United States, according to an analysis from the market and consumer data company Statista. 

The total value of Chinese bottle rockets, roman candles and other fireworks that entered the U.S. in 2020 was more than $350 million. Spain came in a distant second with a total value of $3.6 million. 

Domestic shipping and rental costs have also soared, with truck and auto rental prices doubling from a year ago as a result of limited supply and high demand, according to the APA.

The group also says that the cost of raw materials has risen about 20 percent. 

Labor costs and insurance costs for product liability, auto, truck and hazardous material have also risen, adding to the overall price hikes. 

Record gas prices have elevated transportation costs, and an increase in the cost of diesel fuel specifically has affected truckers bringing containers to warehouses.

Gas prices surpassed $5 per gallon on average last month, reaching a new record before dropping slightly in the latter half of the month. Diesel prices reached a record $5.81 per gallon last month and have stayed near the record since.

“If you want to avoid the crowds, if you want to make sure that you get the colored sparklers that you want or the right fountain that you watch, you have to shop a bit early or you just take a chance of what is running low,” APA President Stephen Pelkey, the owner of Atlas Fireworks, told USA Today.

Source: TEST FEED1

US sending $9 million in food aid to refugees in Tanzania

The United States sent $9 million in food assistance to refugees in Tanzania.  

Funds were sent through the U.S. Agency for International Development and will allow the program along with partner organizations like the United Nations World Food Programme to give food to over 204,000 people living in refugee camps in northwestern Tanzania.  

“This contribution is critical not only because of the value of food going to refugees but also because of the economic impact it will make to Tanzania through the local procurement of food,” said Sarah Gordon-Gibson, WFP country director and representative, in a statement. 

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

USAID’s funds will be used to buy over 12,000 metric tons of locally produced fortified maize to be placed in food baskets given to people in the country’s two largest refugee camps, according to the statement.  

Tanzania is considered to be one of the most “generous refugee-hosting countries” in the world hosting roughly 335,000 displaced people, according to Norwegian Refugee Council.  

Displaced people from Burundi make up the majority of the refugees living in Tanzania but about a quarter are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the NFC.  

Food supplies in Tanzania, for native Tanzanians and those living in refugee camps, are shrinking in part due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.  

African countries rely heavily on Russia and Ukraine for wheat imports with Tanzania, Senegal and Rwanda importing 60 percent of their wheat supply from both countries, according to Newsweek.  

“These problems—lack of access to livelihood opportunities, limited healthcare and education services, and malnutrition—are exacerbated by instability and rises in prices as a result of Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine, which is straining global food supplies, increasing fuel prices, and making the lives of Tanzanians—and refugees residing in Tanzania—more expensive and more difficult,” said Donald Wright, United States Ambassador to Tanzania. 

READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA

ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT RESIGNS IN MISSOURI

UN CALLS FOR US, OTHERS TO END ‘IMPUNITY’ FOR POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK PEOPLE

RACIAL CONTROVERSY ERUPTS AROUND ROYALS AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE

PRINCIPAL ESCORTED OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION AFTER DELIVERING FIERY SPEECH

Source: TEST FEED1

How tax credits can help fight soaring fossil fuel prices — and climate change

As Americans prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, people in highway rest stops and grocery stores across the country this weekend will be feeling the pain of near record-high gas prices and soaring inflation.

President Biden has proposed a tax holiday that would suspend the federal gas tax for three months. But a far better solution — for people and the planet — would be for Congress to provide direct support to families and enact key tax credits that will help Americans save money in the near term, while also providing greater economic and energy security in the future.

High prices may be taking a toll on consumers, but this is just a preview of the damage that unmitigated climate change will take on the economy — and our wallets. Without further emissions reductions, the annual economic damages from climate change could reach 1 to 3 percent of U.S. GDP — or up to 10 percent in the worst-case scenario — by the end of the century. To put that in perspective, in 2020 the entire food and agriculture sector made up about 5 percent of U.S. GDP.

Quickly phasing out fossil fuels is key to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change, but this can only happen as rapidly as clean energy can fill the gap. There’s no question that progress on clean energy is accelerating, but it’s not yet at the speed and scale needed to address the climate crisis. Over the last two years, the U.S. has seen record-level installations of wind, solar and battery storage — one reason that some critics have suggested that additional support to these industries is not needed. However, that is simply untrue: even this rate of growth must be doubled or tripled if we are to align the electricity grid with the country’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. And even the recent pace of installation is in serious jeopardy going forward, driven in part by supply chain issues and longstanding challenges around project siting and interconnection.

The president’s recent announcement of a two-year exemption from retroactive tariffs for solar parts from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam is a welcome response to previous supply chain uncertainty created by an ongoing investigation into tariff circumvention and solar products from those countries, which will help boost renewable energy adoption in the U.S. in the short term. However, more durable action is needed. We need the long-term tax credits in the reconciliation package passed to provide an enduring signal to the market, which will be necessary for the industry to scale as required.

An additional part of the recently invoked Defense Production Act aims to expand domestic production of solar panels, heat pumps and other clean energy infrastructure. However, these provisions won’t be effective unless Congress provides funding to back it up.

Current rates of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in different states reveal how big an impact tax credits and other supportive policies can make. In the first quarter of 2022, EVs (including plug-in hybrids) made up 18 percent of the car market in California, and 10 percent in Washington and Oregon. In Mississippi, North Dakota, Louisiana and West Virginia — states that don’t provide incentives supporting EVs — less than 1 percent of the market share is EVs. State policy clearly matters, and national average EV market share needs to quickly catch up (and then surpass) where California is now if we are to reach the national goal of 50 percent EV sales nationwide by 2030.

The clean energy incentives and investments currently under consideration for inclusion in a climate-smart reconciliation package in the Senate will not only help the economy overall, they will directly benefit household budgets, reducing average energy costs by $500 per year according to analysis by Rhodium. And according to recent analysis by RMI, the clean energy tax credits under consideration would save U.S. consumers $5 billion annually by 2024.

A successful clean energy tax credit package should include several key components.

First, it should use direct pay to help drive down project costs and widen the pool of entities eligible for tax credits. Direct pay is a critical reform that reduces the need for private tax equity investors in projects and allows groups without a sufficient tax liability, including nonprofit and tax-exempt entities such as rural electric cooperatives (co-ops) and public power utilities, to access these tax credits. These entities serve almost 30 percent of retail utility customers in the U.S.; in a joint letter to Congress last year, the associations representing rural electric co-ops and public power utilities stated how direct pay is a needed reform to ensure federal tax credits work for all electricity providers.

Second, it should include measures that reduce energy costs for households. For example, to make EVs more affordable and accessible to lower-income households — and to make those households less reliant on fluctuating gasoline prices — Congress should provide incentives to make sure EV charging is available to residents in multi-family housing, at workplaces and at homes, and for people purchasing used EVs. They should provide tax credits for energy efficiency, which can reduce home energy bills year-round (including during dangerous heat waves and snowstorms, when failing to pay the bill could be deadly). And they should use measures such as direct pay to ensure that low- and moderate-income communities get better access to rooftop solar.

Third, it should incorporate tax credits that boost manufacturing. This includes providing bonus credit amounts within the primary renewable energy credits (the investment tax credit and production tax credit) for projects that use certain domestically produced materials. Relevant tax credit provisions also include incentives for advanced manufacturing in the U.S. including within the clean energy, clean transportation and industrial sectors. Past drafts of legislation have also included support for domestic transportation and zero-emission vehicle manufacturing.  

Climate change threatens the security and prosperity of all Americans and accelerating the speed and scale of the clean energy transition is essential for the U.S. to meet its climate protection goals. However, this transition simply won’t happen fast enough if the government doesn’t put measures in place to accelerate it. It is imperative for Congress to act.

Dan Lashof is the director of World Resources Institute, United States. Follow him on Twitter: @DLashof

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis vows to fight judge's decision to block Florida's 15-week abortion ban

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday vowed to appeal a judge’s decision to temporarily block Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which the court called unconstitutional.

DeSantis said at a press conference on Florida’s “Improved Civics Literacy Rates” that his administration had been expecting this decision and will continue the “legal battle.”

“That was likely going to be what was decided in that case. We knew that we were going to have to move forward and continue the legal battle, and that’s something that was decided under state law,” DeSantis said.

“It was not of course something, you know, that we were happy to see,” he added.

The Florida law, which the governor signed in April, bans all abortions past 15 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest.

However, the plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, say that abortions are protected under the Florida constitution. 

Judge John C. Cooper said Thursday that he will temporarily block the 15-week abortion ban from taking effect.

Cooper added in his ruling that Florida’s ban was “unconstitutional in that it violates the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution.”

“While we are disappointed with yesterday’s ruling, we know that the pro-life HB 5 will ultimately withstand all legal challenges,” a spokesperson for DeSantis’s office told the Hill.

The spokesperson added that DeSantis’s administration will appeal the ruling and ask the Florida Supreme Court to reverse its existing precedent regarding Florida’s right to privacy. “The struggle for life is not over.”

Florida is one of many states across the country that is facing a legal battle from abortion providers after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a week ago, making abortion no longer protected under the U.S. Constitution.

Similar lawsuits have led to temporary blocks on abortion bans in states including Louisiana, Texas and Utah.

Source: TEST FEED1

Federal government will help states punish abortion — using our phones

On June 24, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, taking away the formal legal right to an abortion that it had previously declared in 1973. According to the Guttmacher Institute, following the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 26 states immediately banned abortion or are likely to do so soon. While there has been much discussion about how investigators in those states will leverage digital data against people suspected of having or performing abortions, one startling fact has gone unnoticed: The federal government is poised to lend those states a hand. 

For years, federal law enforcement has quietly assisted its local counterparts with digital evidence collection. Post-Roe, it will inevitably do so in abortion cases as well, unless the attorney general intercedes.

Thanks to years of regulatory inaction on online privacy, modern criminal investigations have access to copious amounts of digital data that Americans generate — often unwittingly — from a multitude of sources. First and foremost: our phones, which are treasure troves of highly revealing information. Period-tracking and other health apps can indicate a pregnancy. Google search history divulges queries about how to end it. Web browsers log what sites someone visits, while online advertising and analytics technologies track them around the internet. Payment information reveals a purchase of abortion medication online. Call logs show calls placed to doctors’ offices and counseling hotlines. Location data from cell towers and apps disclose a visit to an abortion clinic, and text messages arrange a ride there and back.

All of this information (and more) is typically available to law enforcement with the right legal process, whether from a third party such as an app maker or from the phone itself. The police can seize and search someone’s phone if they have a warrant, but no warrant is necessary if she consents to the search — consent that may have been procured coercively if she’s under pressure from hospital staff, social workers, or police officers.

Once a phone is in police custody, investigators can extract digital evidence from it using powerful technology known as mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs). Some MDFTs are offered by private-sector vendors; federal agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation have developed their own MDFTs as well. According to a 2020 report from policy nonprofit Upturn, over 2,000 local law enforcement agencies, spanning all 50 states and the District of Columbia, have purchased MDFTs; the true number is likely even higher. While they tend to highlight cases involving serious and violent crime, these agencies have employed MDFTs for offenses as mundane as shoplifting, graffiti, and public intoxication. That track record leaves no doubt that police and prosecutors will use these tools against abortion suspects, too.

And the federal government will help them do it. 

As Upturn’s report describes, federal grants often pay for MDFT purchases, and local agencies without their own MDFTs can access them through partnerships with larger agencies such as the FBI. Of the FBI’s 17 regional labs for digital evidence analysis (which also provide training to state and local personnel), six are in abortion-ban states: Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, and Utah. These longstanding yet little-known partnerships risk turning the FBI into a force multiplier for anti-abortion states — a huge and well-funded machine to help punish people for something that is not a federal crime.

Abortion is legal in America. The end of Roedoes not change that. This is not to say there are zero federal restrictions on abortion access: for example, with narrow exceptions, federal funds are barred from paying for abortions. Yet nothing stops their use for digital evidence-gathering that will put abortion seekers and providers in state prison. My federal tax dollars cannot finance someone’s abortion, but they can finance her prosecution and incarceration for having it.

The federal government has no business helping states punish abortion. It must be formally prohibited from doing so right now, before Dobbsunleashes a tidal wave of requests for digital forensics assistance from abortion-hostile states.

Democratic lawmakers, whose bills to protect Americans’ location and health data face an uphill battle in Congress, have suggested a slate of actions for the executive branch to take in defense of Americans’ abortion rights. I’ll add one more: Attorney General Merrick Garland should issue a policy prohibiting every component of the Department of Justice, especially the FBI, from using any federal resources to assist state or local law enforcement agencies in abortion-related investigations and prosecutions. No grant money. No personnel. No technology. No equipment. No training. No testimony in court. Not a minute of any federal agent’s time.

Such a policy could then serve as the model for an executive order by President Biden that would cover even more of the federal government.

Despite Dobbs, abortion is still legal under federal law. Federal law enforcement authorities must act like it.

Riana Pfefferkorn is a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory who studies electronic surveillance by law enforcement.

Source: TEST FEED1

71-year-old woman becomes second person this week to be gored by bison at Yellowstone

A 71-year-old woman on Wednesday became the second person in the span of three days to be gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

“The woman and her daughter inadvertently approached the bison as they were returning to their vehicle at the trailhead, causing the bull bison to charge,” the park said in a news release.

The bull bison gored the older woman near Storm Point at Yellowstone Lake, leaving her with non-life-threatening injuries.

The woman was transported to West Park Hospital in Cody, Wyo., shortly after the incident occurred.

Two days earlier, a man was gored by another bull bison near Giant Geyser at Old Faithful after the bison charged the man and his family.

“The male sustained an injury to his arm and was transported by ambulance to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center,” read a news release after the incident.

“Bison are unpredictable and can run three times faster than humans,” both Yellowstone National Park news releases read, urging visitors to remain more than 25 yards away from any large animals encountered in the area.

A third goring occurred earlier this year when a woman walked within 10 feet of a bison on May 30. “Consequently, the bison gored the woman and tossed her 10 feet into the air,” a statement at the time read. “The woman sustained a puncture wound and other injuries.”

Source: TEST FEED1