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Editorial: Budget deficit soars as inflation makes a comeback

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

As inflation cooled over the past year, President Joe Biden ran atop the podium to claim his medal. Turns out the race wasn’t over.This month, the government announced that inflation bumped up 3.2% in July, with core prices rising 4.7%. It’s the first upturn in the economic gauge since last year, and it was driven by higher prices for food and services, including automobile repair and housing costs.To be sure, this is not the 9.1% inflation from a year ago. But it’s also well above the rate when Biden took office. Any credit the president takes for tamping down rising prices must also recognize that it was “Bidenomics” which created the problem in the first place.Economists sympathetic to the White House insist the July increase is an outlier. We’ll see. Other economists “are predicting that rising oil and gas costs could lead to another rise in inflation in August, though they expect prices to settle back down this fall,” according to The Washington Post.But despite the varying opi...

BC linebackers coach Paul Rhoads brings expertise to Eagles front seven

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

Outside linebackers’ instructor at a Power 5 program sounds like a strategic introductory position to launch a college coaching career.That is certainly not the case for Boston College first-year OLB coach Paul Rhoads.Rhoads brings over three decades of experience as a head coach, defensive coordinator and position coach at the Power-5 level to the BC program. Rhoads has done previous stints in the Big East, the Pac 12, the Big 12, the Big Ten and the SEC.Rhoads served as head coach at Iowa State for seven seasons, defensive coordinator at Auburn, Pittsburgh and Arizona and defensive backs coach at UCLA and Arkansas. Rhoads’ last job was defensive analyst for head coach Ryan Day at Ohio State.Following a team scrimmage at Alumni Stadium, Rhoads held court for the first-time during BC media day on Sunday afternoon inside the Fish Field House. The first topic on the agenda was what brought him to the Heights.“This one just happened to be the right time and place,” said Rhoads. “...

Dear Abby: Tribute to late wife irks current spouse

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband, “Randall,” was a widower when we met. His wife, “Sylvia,” had passed away in November 2010. We got married in October 2015. I recently was shocked to discover that Randall has kept Sylvia’s Facebook page open, supposedly so his grandchildren can send her messages on her birthday or anytime they feel like it.Last September, he posted a message that read: “Happy Anniversary. Love you and miss you. 52 years today.” (If she were still living, that day would have marked 52 years of marriage.) When I read it, I realized that, in his heart, he still feels married to her. Am I wrong for feeling that way? — One of Two WivesDear One: I don’t think you are wrong, but please understand that some people don’t completely get over the death of a loved one, and your husband may be one of them. It’s not that unusual, if my Facebook is any example. People post about their departed parents, grandparents and even t...

Hilary moves through San Diego as California's first tropical storm in decades

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Tropical Storm Hilary's center moved right through San Diego County Sunday evening, making it the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years.Sunday morning, Hilary was downgraded from a hurricane just hours before making landfall along Baja California's coast, hitting about 150 miles south of Ensenada around 11:20 a.m.The storm then continued on its northward trek, with its center hitting San Diego County by 5 p.m. By 6 p.m., meteorologists said the region had experienced its heaviest precipitation. Steady, intermittent rain was expected to continue through the evening as the back edge of the storm lifts out of the area, Alex Tardy with National Weather Service said to FOX 5. Alex Tardy with National Weather Service said to FOX 5. Flash flood risk, however, will remain in place, particularly for residents in the mountains and deserts. The storm was then on track to head north into inland desert areas. MORE: Tracking Hilary Initial forecasts from the N...

Three years after a foiled plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, the final trial is set to begin

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

BELLAIRE, Mich. (AP) — Nearly three years after authorities foiled a bizarre plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the last defendants accused of taking part go on trial Monday.Eric Molitor and brothers William Null and Michael Null were among 14 men, described by prosecutors as anti-government extremists, charged in the scheme weeks before the November 2020 election. They were angered by Whitmer’s COVID-19 policies, which shut down schools and restricted the economy, investigators said in court filings.The plotters were members of paramilitary groups and spoke of attacking the state Capitol and police to ignite civil war, the documents said.Nine men so far have been convicted in state or federal court, including four who pleaded guilty. Two others were acquitted at trial.Jury selection in the final case is set to begin Monday. Opening arguments are scheduled for Wednesday in rural Antrim County, a tourist haven known for cherry and apple orchards, sparkling lakes and...

Immigrant workers’ lives, livelihoods and documents in limbo after the Hawaii fire

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Freddy Tomas was working in his yard in Lahaina when the fire advanced with stunning speed right up to his fence. He rushed to save valuables from a safe inside his house but realized he didn’t have time and fled, his face blackened with soot.Days after fleeing in his pickup truck, amid smoke so thick he could only follow the red taillights of the vehicle in front of him and pray they were going the right way, the retired hotel worker from the Philippines returned to his destroyed home with his son to look for the safe. Tomas, 65, said it had contained passports, naturalization papers, other important documents and $35,000. After sifting through the ashes, father and son found the safe, but it had popped open in the fire, whipped by hurricane-force winds, and its contents were incinerated.For immigrants like Tomas, Lahaina was an oasis, with nearly double the foreign-born population of the U.S. mainland. Now, those workers are trying to piece their lives...

Trump and his allies double down on election lies after indictments for trying to undo 2020 results

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal indictment and one in Georgia charging Donald Trump with lying about the 2020 election to overturn President Joe Biden’s win have done nothing to slow the geyser of election falsehoods flowing from the former president and his supporters.Just two days after the Georgia indictment, one of Trump’s most enthusiastic backers took the stage at a conference in Missouri to again spread election misinformation. Mike Lindell, the owner of MyPillow who is a vocal promoter of the myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, kicked off an event on purported election crimes with a video about fraud.It included footage from November 2020 that purported to show a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker pulling a briefcase of ballots from under a desk to surreptitiously add them to the tally.As evidence has since shown, the worker, Ruby Freeman, was simply doing her job — pulling out a standard government container full of real ballots that had to be counted. Thr...

Global food security is at crossroads as rice shortages and surging prices hit the most vulnerable

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

Francis Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him.Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the hundreds of thousands of residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum who survive on less than $2 a day.But that is changing. The price of a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice has risen by a fifth since June. Wholesalers are yet to receive new stocks since India, the world’s largest exporter of rice by far, said last month that it would ban some rice shipments. It’s an effort by the world’s most populous nation to control domestic prices ahead of a key election year — but it’s left a yawning gap of around 9.5 million metric tons (10.4 tons) of rice that people around the world need, roughly a fifth of global exports.“I’m really hoping the imp...

A Republican lawsuit threatens a Biden immigration policy thousands have used to come to the US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Valerie Laveus remembers when she first heard about an immigration program designed to allow people to come to the U.S. from four countries, including her native Haiti. “I said, ‘Whoa! This seems like it would work well for bringing my nephew and my brother into the country,’” said the Florida teacher, who received a WhatsApp message in January and verified with an immigration lawyer that the program was real. After years of trying to get a green card, her brother arrived with her nephew in early August, ready to start a new life. They are two of the roughly 181,000 people who have entered the U.S. under the humanitarian parole program since President Joe Biden launched the initiative.But 21 Republican-leaning states threaten to end the program through a lawsuit to determine its legality, which is set to be heard in a Texas court beginning Thursday, with a decision coming later.If the Biden administration loses, it would undercut a broader policy seeking to encoura...

GOP presidential debate puts spotlight on Wisconsin, one of the few remaining swing states

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:15:48 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — When Republican candidates for president gather for their first debate Wednesday in Milwaukee, the spotlight will not only be on them, but Wisconsin’s role as one of a shrinking handful of genuine battleground states.Republicans chose Milwaukee not just for the first debate but the national convention in just 11 months largely because of Wisconsin’s well-earned status as a swing state. Four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point here, with Donald Trump winning narrowly in 2016 before losing by a similar margin in 2020.“Everybody needs to be prepared for all-out war as usual,” said longtime Republican strategist Stephan Thompson. To participate in Wednesday’s debate, the Republican National Committee required candidates to meet donor and polling thresholds and sign a pledge to support the GOP candidate in the general election. Trump, the frontrunner who faces criminal charges in four separate cases, sa...