President Donald Trump declined in an interview aired Sunday to rule out the possibility that the United States might enter a recession this year.
"I hate to predict things like that," he told a Fox News interviewer when asked directly about a possible recession in 2025.
"There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big -- we're bringing wealth back to America," he said, adding, "It takes a little time."
But Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was more definitive when asked Sunday about the possibility of a recession.
"Absolutely not," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked whether Americans should brace for a downturn.
Much of the uncertainty stems from Trump's shifting tariff policy -- effective dates have changed, as have the sectors being targeted -- as businesses and investors try to puzzle out what will come next.
Kevin Hassett, Trump's chief economic advisor, was asked on ABC whether tariffs were primarily temporary or might become permanent.
Hassett said that depended on the behavior of the countries targeted. If they failed to respond positively, he said, the result could be a "new equilibrium" of continuing tariffs.
The administration has insisted that while the economy will pass through a possibly bumpy "transition," things are headed in a positive direction.
In his State of the Union message on Tuesday, Trump told Americans to expect "a little disturbance" as tariffs take hold, while adding: "We're okay with that. It won't be much."
Federal officials maintain a permanent flight restriction over Trump's club that expands to a radius of 30 nautical miles when the president is in residence.
Air traffic control audio captured someone on the plane reporting that an aircraft door was open and requesting a landing at the airport. An air traffic controller is heard clearing the plane to land, before saying, "Pull up!" Moments later, someone can be heard saying the aircraft was down.
"Intelligence agencies," he added, "spent a lot of time and energy infiltrating Chinese research programs, including military programs, and they were trying to protect their assets as far as possible so [they] did not want any investigations into that [Wuhan] laboratory.
"The more scrutiny of the laboratory, especially by the Chinese leadership, the higher the risk. I don't know all the answers, but the bottom line is that this does not smell right."
Redfield said he expects the Trump administration to declassify information pertaining to the outbreak.
"I suspect all the intelligence agencies will — like the CIA — have to reevaluate their analysis on COVID and will be unanimous in their conclusions. I think they'll all come out and say critical analysis of the intelligence data concludes it came from the lab."
Redfield concluded, pinning Fauci, who received a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden, as a modern-day J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
"Fauci must deal with the same issue as Oppenheimer: He used science that maybe he thought was for a greater good that ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people and will continue to kill millions more, because this virus is with us until the end of time."
Scott added, "The president of the United States was elected ... by the American people to basically rein in government, rein in this waste, to bring some accountability, some transparency, some common sense to government. And that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing.
"People are fed up with wasteful government spending. And we have had a 2% increase in population in five years and a 53% increase in spending."
He added, "We will not get interest rates down, we will not get inflation under control until we balance the budget. That's what we have to do. And Elon Musk is part of the process of balancing the budget."
When asked about accusations that some of the firings have been done in a chaotic way, only to be rescinded a short while later, Scott said, "You do your best you can every day. What they're trying to do is rein in government ... are they going to be perfect? No. No one's perfect.
"Are they, when they make a mistake, are they going to fix it? Yes. We have a big problem. We have $36.5 trillion for the debt. We have got to be very aggressive at figuring out how to do this."
The senator added, "I'm very comfortable that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, our agency heads, they're going to do the best they can. And if they make a mistake, they will fix their mistake. These are smart people. They're willing to work really hard to do the right thing."
American shipbuilders say they are ready to seize the moment, but experts warn that even a concerted effort to respond to China's overwhelming dominance of the sector will take years -- and cost many billions of dollars.
"This is a historic moment," said Matt Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), which represents more than 150 US shipbuilding companies.
The US Navy, when asked for comment, referred AFP to the White House.
"We are waiting to learn more," Cynthia Cook, who heads the defense-industrial group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told AFP. "It is clear that shipbuilding is an industrial weakness of the United States."
But, she added: "You cannot immediately get more ships by throwing money at the problem."
US ship production is down 85 percent from the 1950s, and the number of naval shipyards capable of building the largest vessels has fallen by 80 percent, according to the McKinsey consultancy.
'Not what it was' -
In the 1970s, five percent of commercial ships built in the world (in gross tonnage) came from American shipyards.
That share has since plunged to a scant one percent, a drop in the water compared to China (50 percent), South Korea (26 percent) or Japan (14 percent).
"We need some solutions to our shipbuilding gaps," said the CSIS's Cook, while noting that Seoul and Tokyo, at least, are US allies.
"I absolutely admit that US shipyard capacity is not what it once was," Paxton said last month before a congressional committee.
Republican Senator Roger Wicker painted a dire picture during a confirmation hearing last month for businessman John Phelan as navy secretary.
"Just about every major US shipbuilding program is behind schedule, over budget or irreparably off track," said Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.
Worker shortage -
Shipbuilders say their work is regularly complicated by last-minute changes requested by the navy, which cause delays and budget overages.
Carney said Canada will keep retaliatory tariffs in place until "the Americans show us respect."
Carney navigated crises when he was the head of the Bank of Canada and when in 2013 he became the first noncitizen to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694. His appointment won bipartisan praise in the U.K. after Canada recovered from the 2008 financial crisis faster than many other countries.
The opposition Conservatives hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged.
Carney has picked up one endorsement after another from Cabinet ministers and members of Parliament since declaring his candidacy in January. He is a highly educated economist with Wall Street experience who has long been interested in entering politics and becoming prime minister, but he lacks political experience.
The other top Liberal leadership candidate was former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Trudeau told Freeland in December that he no longer wanted her as finance minister, but that she could remain deputy prime minister and the point person for U.S.-Canada relations. Freeland resigned shortly after, releasing a scathing letter about the government that proved to be the last straw for Trudeau.
In addition, the arrival of some 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Kursk has bolstered Russia's offensive operations, and Ukraine has now lost about half of the territory it once occupied in Kursk.
Ukraine's military said that the Russian forces had gained a "foothold" on the outskirts of Sudzha, a border town, adding that "currently, the Russian special forces are being identified, blocked, and destroyed. The enemy losses in the Sudzha area are very significant."
But in the face of Moscow's gains so far in the region, some Ukrainians have suggested that the Kursk incursion may have exhausted its strategic value.
"I didn't think I would ever say this. But maybe it's time to 'close the shop' from the Kursk direction. It's hard for our guys there," said Serhii Flesh. "As a diversion of enemy resources, I think this operation has long since justified itself. As a political bargaining card, it is now questionable."
He was inside his university-owned apartment a few blocks from campus Saturday night when ICE agents entered the residence and took him into custody, Greer said.
Despite graduating months ago, Khalil, who earned his undergraduate degree in Beirut, still lived in school-provided housing due to a policy allowing students to remain on campus after graduating, a source told The Post.
He has remained active in recent disruptive protests, including last week’s takeover of the Milstein Library at Barnard College. Videos and photographs posted on X depict him holding a bullhorn near the library entrance and engaged in discussion with school administrators.
That protest featured violent propaganda flyers that purportedly came directly from the “Hamas Media Office,” including one pamphlet titled “Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” which justified the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people — and in which women were repeatedly raped, whole families were executed and 251 hostages were taken to the Gaza Strip.
Others at the Barnard library takeover passed around trading card-like photos of notorious Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon last September.
Ari Shrage, head of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, told The Post he was dismayed and concerned to see the literature that was being distributed.
“These protesters were handing out materials from terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. Every American citizen should be concerned when students are encouraging terrorist activities on US soil regardless of their nationality.”
In recent weeks, Barnard College was the site of campus building takeovers for two consecutive weeks to protest the expulsion of a pair of students who barged into a Columbia class on modern Israel in January and tossed around pro-Hamas flyers.
One of the documents depicted an Israeli flag in flames and another showed an army boot stomping a Star of David.
In response to the administrators kicking the perpetrators off campus, dozens of masked protesters stormed Barnard’s historic Milbank Hall, the oldest building on campus, on Feb. 26, egged on by pro-Intifada group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.
A school security guard was assaulted as the violent mob forced its way inside, where protesters graffitied political messages ilke “free Palestine” and “Barnard expels students.”
A week later on March 5, around 200 demonstrators seized the academic nerve center of the elite private women’s college, Milstein Library, where they hung an Old West-style “Wanted” poster featuring Dean of Students Leslie Grinage and a shoddy effigy of Barnard President Laura Rosenbury.
The NYPD evacuated the building after a bogus bomb threat and arrested nine students from nearby schools — many of them privileged youths — who refused lawful orders to disperse.
#lasvegas #realestate #investing #nevada #wealth
Trump Declines to Rule Out 2025 US Recession
President Donald Trump declined in an interview aired Sunday to rule out the possibility that the United States might enter a recession this year.
"I hate to predict things like that," he told a Fox News interviewer when asked directly about a possible recession in 2025.
"There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big -- we're bringing wealth back to America," he said, adding, "It takes a little time."
But Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was more definitive when asked Sunday about the possibility of a recession.
"Absolutely not," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked whether Americans should brace for a downturn.
Much of the uncertainty stems from Trump's shifting tariff policy -- effective dates have changed, as have the sectors being targeted -- as businesses and investors try to puzzle out what will come next.
Kevin Hassett, Trump's chief economic advisor, was asked on ABC whether tariffs were primarily temporary or might become permanent.
Hassett said that depended on the behavior of the countries targeted. If they failed to respond positively, he said, the result could be a "new equilibrium" of continuing tariffs.
The administration has insisted that while the economy will pass through a possibly bumpy "transition," things are headed in a positive direction.
In his State of the Union message on Tuesday, Trump told Americans to expect "a little disturbance" as tariffs take hold, while adding: "We're okay with that. It won't be much."
!summarize #swiss #franc #currency #finance #money
And his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned of a "detox period" as the economy cuts government spending.
Given the uncertainties, economists have been wary of making firm predictions.
Economists at Goldman Sachs, citing Trump's policies, have raised their odds of a recession over the next 12 months from 15 percent to 20 percent.
And Morgan Stanley predicted "softer growth this year" than earlier expected.
Recessions are generally defined as two consecutive quarters of weak or negative GDP growth.
The US was briefly in recession in early 2020 as the Covid pandemic spread. Millions of people lost jobs.
Federal officials maintain a permanent flight restriction over Trump's club that expands to a radius of 30 nautical miles when the president is in residence.
Air traffic control audio captured someone on the plane reporting that an aircraft door was open and requesting a landing at the airport. An air traffic controller is heard clearing the plane to land, before saying, "Pull up!" Moments later, someone can be heard saying the aircraft was down.
The FAA said it will investigate.
#nevada #florida #realestate #housing
"Intelligence agencies," he added, "spent a lot of time and energy infiltrating Chinese research programs, including military programs, and they were trying to protect their assets as far as possible so [they] did not want any investigations into that [Wuhan] laboratory.
"The more scrutiny of the laboratory, especially by the Chinese leadership, the higher the risk. I don't know all the answers, but the bottom line is that this does not smell right."
Redfield said he expects the Trump administration to declassify information pertaining to the outbreak.
"I suspect all the intelligence agencies will — like the CIA — have to reevaluate their analysis on COVID and will be unanimous in their conclusions. I think they'll all come out and say critical analysis of the intelligence data concludes it came from the lab."
#florida #realestate #crash #2023 #housing
!summarize #mayor #newyorkcity #curtissilwa #politics #billoreilly
Redfield concluded, pinning Fauci, who received a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden, as a modern-day J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
"Fauci must deal with the same issue as Oppenheimer: He used science that maybe he thought was for a greater good that ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people and will continue to kill millions more, because this virus is with us until the end of time."
Scott added, "The president of the United States was elected ... by the American people to basically rein in government, rein in this waste, to bring some accountability, some transparency, some common sense to government. And that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing.
"People are fed up with wasteful government spending. And we have had a 2% increase in population in five years and a 53% increase in spending."
He added, "We will not get interest rates down, we will not get inflation under control until we balance the budget. That's what we have to do. And Elon Musk is part of the process of balancing the budget."
!summarize #unitedstates #trump #xi #china
When asked about accusations that some of the firings have been done in a chaotic way, only to be rescinded a short while later, Scott said, "You do your best you can every day. What they're trying to do is rein in government ... are they going to be perfect? No. No one's perfect.
"Are they, when they make a mistake, are they going to fix it? Yes. We have a big problem. We have $36.5 trillion for the debt. We have got to be very aggressive at figuring out how to do this."
The senator added, "I'm very comfortable that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, our agency heads, they're going to do the best they can. And if they make a mistake, they will fix their mistake. These are smart people. They're willing to work really hard to do the right thing."
American shipbuilders say they are ready to seize the moment, but experts warn that even a concerted effort to respond to China's overwhelming dominance of the sector will take years -- and cost many billions of dollars.
"This is a historic moment," said Matt Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), which represents more than 150 US shipbuilding companies.
The US Navy, when asked for comment, referred AFP to the White House.
"We are waiting to learn more," Cynthia Cook, who heads the defense-industrial group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told AFP. "It is clear that shipbuilding is an industrial weakness of the United States."
But, she added: "You cannot immediately get more ships by throwing money at the problem."
!summarize #columbiauniversity #college #government
US ship production is down 85 percent from the 1950s, and the number of naval shipyards capable of building the largest vessels has fallen by 80 percent, according to the McKinsey consultancy.
In the 1970s, five percent of commercial ships built in the world (in gross tonnage) came from American shipyards.
That share has since plunged to a scant one percent, a drop in the water compared to China (50 percent), South Korea (26 percent) or Japan (14 percent).
"We need some solutions to our shipbuilding gaps," said the CSIS's Cook, while noting that Seoul and Tokyo, at least, are US allies.
"I absolutely admit that US shipyard capacity is not what it once was," Paxton said last month before a congressional committee.
!summarize #hims #stock #market
!summarize #letitiajames #criminal #sanctuarycity #politics
!summarize #dating #relationships
!summarize #europe #freespeech
!summarize #realestate #lasvegas #airbnb #investing
!summarize #mossad #cia #espoinage #israel #spy
!summarize #sambankmanfried #fraud #prison #diddy #prison
!summarize #palmbeach #travel #florida
!summarize #lasvegas #aurbnb #investing #money
!summarize #twitter #employees #elonmusk #socialmedia
!summarize #airbnb #money #investing
!summarize #tesla #stock #tsla #investing #market
Republican Senator Roger Wicker painted a dire picture during a confirmation hearing last month for businessman John Phelan as navy secretary.
"Just about every major US shipbuilding program is behind schedule, over budget or irreparably off track," said Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.
Shipbuilders say their work is regularly complicated by last-minute changes requested by the navy, which cause delays and budget overages.
Another problem is a severe worker shortage.
Carney said Canada will keep retaliatory tariffs in place until "the Americans show us respect."
Carney navigated crises when he was the head of the Bank of Canada and when in 2013 he became the first noncitizen to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694. His appointment won bipartisan praise in the U.K. after Canada recovered from the 2008 financial crisis faster than many other countries.
The opposition Conservatives hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged.
!summarize #california #democrats #treehouse
Carney has picked up one endorsement after another from Cabinet ministers and members of Parliament since declaring his candidacy in January. He is a highly educated economist with Wall Street experience who has long been interested in entering politics and becoming prime minister, but he lacks political experience.
The other top Liberal leadership candidate was former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Trudeau told Freeland in December that he no longer wanted her as finance minister, but that she could remain deputy prime minister and the point person for U.S.-Canada relations. Freeland resigned shortly after, releasing a scathing letter about the government that proved to be the last straw for Trudeau.
!summarize #media #trump #whitehouse #monopoly
!summarize #ai #robots #technology
In addition, the arrival of some 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Kursk has bolstered Russia's offensive operations, and Ukraine has now lost about half of the territory it once occupied in Kursk.
Ukraine's military said that the Russian forces had gained a "foothold" on the outskirts of Sudzha, a border town, adding that "currently, the Russian special forces are being identified, blocked, and destroyed. The enemy losses in the Sudzha area are very significant."
But in the face of Moscow's gains so far in the region, some Ukrainians have suggested that the Kursk incursion may have exhausted its strategic value.
"I didn't think I would ever say this. But maybe it's time to 'close the shop' from the Kursk direction. It's hard for our guys there," said Serhii Flesh. "As a diversion of enemy resources, I think this operation has long since justified itself. As a political bargaining card, it is now questionable."
!summarize #justinfields #steelers #pittsburgh #nfl
He was inside his university-owned apartment a few blocks from campus Saturday night when ICE agents entered the residence and took him into custody, Greer said.
Despite graduating months ago, Khalil, who earned his undergraduate degree in Beirut, still lived in school-provided housing due to a policy allowing students to remain on campus after graduating, a source told The Post.
He has remained active in recent disruptive protests, including last week’s takeover of the Milstein Library at Barnard College. Videos and photographs posted on X depict him holding a bullhorn near the library entrance and engaged in discussion with school administrators.
That protest featured violent propaganda flyers that purportedly came directly from the “Hamas Media Office,” including one pamphlet titled “Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” which justified the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people — and in which women were repeatedly raped, whole families were executed and 251 hostages were taken to the Gaza Strip.
Others at the Barnard library takeover passed around trading card-like photos of notorious Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon last September.
Ari Shrage, head of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, told The Post he was dismayed and concerned to see the literature that was being distributed.
!summarize #startingpitcher #mlb
!summarize #saudiarabia #money #college #football
!summarize #dating #divorce
“These protesters were handing out materials from terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. Every American citizen should be concerned when students are encouraging terrorist activities on US soil regardless of their nationality.”
In recent weeks, Barnard College was the site of campus building takeovers for two consecutive weeks to protest the expulsion of a pair of students who barged into a Columbia class on modern Israel in January and tossed around pro-Hamas flyers.
One of the documents depicted an Israeli flag in flames and another showed an army boot stomping a Star of David.
In response to the administrators kicking the perpetrators off campus, dozens of masked protesters stormed Barnard’s historic Milbank Hall, the oldest building on campus, on Feb. 26, egged on by pro-Intifada group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.
A school security guard was assaulted as the violent mob forced its way inside, where protesters graffitied political messages ilke “free Palestine” and “Barnard expels students.”
A week later on March 5, around 200 demonstrators seized the academic nerve center of the elite private women’s college, Milstein Library, where they hung an Old West-style “Wanted” poster featuring Dean of Students Leslie Grinage and a shoddy effigy of Barnard President Laura Rosenbury.
The NYPD evacuated the building after a bogus bomb threat and arrested nine students from nearby schools — many of them privileged youths — who refused lawful orders to disperse.