US Consumer Prices Edged Higher in July

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

U.S. consumer prices edged higher in July, the government reported Thursday, but underlying data signaled that inflation is not starting to resurge in the world’s biggest economy.

The Labor Department reported that the consumer price index rose 3.2% on an annualized basis in July, up from 3% in June. On a month-to-month basis, prices were up by two-tenths of a percent in July, the same figure as in June compared to May.

The U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times over the last 17 months, pushing it to a 22-year high to curb inflation, which a year ago topped 9%. Higher interest rates boost borrowing costs for businesses and consumers alike and can cut into spending.

The newest economic report could give Fed policymakers reason to put off another rate increase at its September meeting. The July figures lowered the three-month annualized rate of core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to 3.1%, the lowest reading in two years.

Fed officials often focus on the core reading because they consider it a better barometer of future inflation than the overall rate.

Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst of Bankrate.com, said in a statement, “The monthly increase of 0.2% in the consumer price index is right on target and represents the kind of progress needed to get inflation down to a sustainable 2% annual rate.”

But he warned that “further increases in oil prices could throw up a detour on the journey to 2% inflation.”

“Everything we buy in a store or online has to be transported, and even some service categories add fuel surcharges or raise prices in response,” McBride said. “Easing inflation was aided by gasoline prices that had fallen nearly 20% in the 12 months ending July 31. But with a recent surge, gas prices are now closing in on $4 per gallon. Something to watch in the months ahead.”

The state of the U.S. economy is particularly important as the national November 2024 presidential election edges closer. While other issues are important to tens of millions of voters — abortion rights, immigration control, crime, Russia’s war in Ukraine, to name a few — the state of the American economy and the cost of living are often at the forefront of considerations in voters’ minds.

While the 3.5% U.S. unemployment rate remains at near a 50-year low, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been added to the economy month after month, national polls show that voters do not think that President Joe Biden has managed the economy well.

Opposition Republican presidential contenders have often blamed Biden for too much government spending and the country’s ever-growing long-term debt total, which now is more than $32 trillion.
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Virgin Galactic Flies Its First Tourists to the Edge of Space

CensorBiz Бізнес, Новини, Статті, Суспільство 0 Comment

Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching from below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the plane that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship reached about 88 kilometers high.

Richard Branson’s company expects to begin offering monthly trips to customers on its winged space plane, joining Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.

Virgin Galactic passenger Jon Goodwin, who was among the first to buy a ticket in 2005, said he had faith that he would someday make the trip. The 80-year-old athlete — he competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics — has Parkinson’s disease and wants to be an inspiration to others.

“I hope it shows them that these obstacles can be the start rather than the end to new adventures,” he said in a statement.

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen. Also on board: two pilots and the company’s astronaut trainer.

It was Virgin Galactic’s seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company’s founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. Italian military and government researchers soared in June on the first commercial flight. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.

Virgin Galactic’s rocket ship launches from the belly of an airplane, not from the ground, and requires two pilots in the cockpit. Once the mothership reaches a height of about 15 kilometers, the space plane is released and fires its rocket motor to make the final push to just over 80 kilometers up. Passengers can unstrap from their seats, float around the cabin for a few minutes and take in the sweeping views of Earth, before the space plane glides back home and lands on a runway.

In contrast, the capsules used by SpaceX and Blue Origin are fully automated and parachute back down.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights are on hold following a rocket crash last fall. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX, is the only private company flying customers all the way to orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. since 2020.

People have been taking on adventure travel for decades, the risks underscored by the recent implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five passengers on their way down to view the Titanic wreckage. Virgin Galactic suffered its own casualty in 2014 when its rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot. Yet space tourists are still lining up, ever since the first one rocketed into orbit in 2001 with the Russians.

Branson, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, watched Thursday’s flight from a party in Antigua. He had held a virtual lottery to establish a pecking order for the company’s first 50 customers — dubbed the Founding Astronauts. Virgin Galactic said the group agreed Goodwin would go first, given his age and his Parkinson’s.
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«105 тисяч виїхали і живуть понад рік за кордоном» – Верещук про те, кому скасовують виплати ВПО

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Також без виплат залишаться люди, які повернулися на своє місце проживання. Ці зміни, як повідомлялося раніше, мали запрацювати з 1 серпня 2023 року
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Can Trump Go to Jail If Convicted? and Other Indictment Questions

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles are escalating by the day.  

Trump is facing an unprecedented slate of criminal charges that threatens his political future and, if convicted, could land him in prison. 

Last week, the former president and front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination was indicted in Washington on charges of conspiring to overturn his electoral defeat in 2020, adding to existing criminal cases in New York and Florida. A fourth indictment in Georgia could come any day.  

No American president has ever been criminally charged before, and no one knows what happens if Trump is found guilty.  

The indictments have raised legal and constitutional questions, some of which are easier to answer than others.  

Can Trump run for president if he is convicted? Can he go to prison? Can states keep him off the ballot by requiring that candidates have a clean criminal record? What if Trump is convicted but wins the election? Can he take office and then pardon himself?  

Can Trump run for president if convicted? 

There is near universal agreement on this question: Even if convicted, Trump will face no constitutional barriers to running for the White House.  

The U.S. Constitution has only three requirements for presidential candidates: They must be natural-born American citizens, at least 35 years old, and have lived in the country for at least 14 years. 

Trump meets all three, and most constitutional scholars agree that states can’t impose additional requirements on presidential hopefuls.  

Eugene Mazo, an election law expert and incoming professor at Duquesne University, said that even a candidate with a “mental incapacity” can’t be barred from running “because the Constitution lists all the requirements.” 

“If you want an additional requirement, it has to come through a constitutional amendment,” Mazo said in an interview with VOA.  

In recent years, legislation by states such as California and New Jersey requiring presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns was struck down as unconstitutional, Mazo said.  

That means that states can’t keep Trump off the ballot by passing legislation requiring presidential hopefuls to have a clean criminal record, he added.  

The 14th Amendment debate 

While states can’t disqualify presidential candidates on new grounds, there is one caveat to this general rule, said Frank Bowman, emeritus professor of law at the University of Missouri. 

Under the third clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, a person found guilty of “rebellion” or “insurrection” can be barred from running for president, Bowman said.  

The obscure provision was originally designed to prevent members of the rebel Confederacy from holding office following the 1861-65 U.S. Civil War.  The clause remained dormant for more than a century.  

But in recent months, liberal groups such as Mi Familia Vota and Free Speech for People have been pressing states to disqualify Trump under the 14th Amendment. They argue that Trump incited an insurrection against the United States on January 6, 2021, when a group of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.  

Trump was later impeached for incitement but acquitted by the U.S. Senate. And Bowman noted that none of the current criminal charges against Trump alleges engagement in rebellion or insurrection. 

“Whether these efforts will actually work is debatable, not impossible,” Bowman said in an interview.  

But others see the effort as a long shot.  

“I think that eventually it would get to the Supreme Court and be quickly swatted down.” said Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor at George Washington University, in a recent interview.  

Can Trump go to prison and campaign from behind bars? 

If convicted, Trump could be sentenced to prison and, theoretically, he could continue to campaign from there. 

“From the perspective of the criminal law, he’s just a guy and, therefore, like any other guy, if he is convicted of a felony, he can be sentenced to prison for whatever term the law provides,” Bowman said.  

No former president has ever been incarcerated, but some presidential candidates have campaigned from behind bars.  

In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, received almost 1 million votes while serving a sentence for sedition. In 1992, political activist Lyndon LaRouche campaigned for president while in prison for fraud.  

“Can he run a campaign from jail?” Mazo asked rhetorically. “It’s hard, but the answer is, sure.” 

Trump himself has vowed to continue campaigning even if he is convicted.  

“I’ll never leave,” he said in an interview with Politico in June.  

Whether the former president will receive a prison sentence remains uncertain, but Politico recently estimated that he could face up to 641 years if convicted of all charges and given the maximum penalty for each.  

This is a far-fetched scenario, however, as judges rarely impose the maximum penalty on first-time offenders and usually allow sentences to run concurrently.  

The sentencing decision will ultimately rest with the judge, who will weigh various factors such as the severity of the crime, the defendant’s character, and the public interest. 

Some legal experts argue that a judge might spare Trump from prison and instead give him probation or home confinement, if only to avoid the spectacle of a former American president in a prison jumpsuit.  

But others say Trump could face prison time if he is convicted.  

“I think it’d be very hard for any judge, particularly out of the D.C. district, having sent so many of his supporters and minions to prison for essentially acting on his instigation …not to give him time,” Bowman said. 

Could Trump pardon himself? 

Since the waning days of the Trump presidency, experts have fiercely argued the question of a presidential self-pardon.  

The American president can pardon anyone for federal crimes, and some have speculated that Trump may have secretly pardoned himself before leaving office to avoid future prosecution.  

But Turley said he has seen no evidence to that effect.  

“If there were (a secret self-pardon), he would have already made that defense,” Turley said in an interview on Tuesday. 

On the other hand, if Trump were reelected, he could issue himself a pardon, Turley said. “So if these federal trials are held after the election, Trump could pardon himself before any trial occurs, and Jack Smith will never see a jury in either of these cases.”  

Trials in two of the three cases are set for March and May 2024,  but those dates could be pushed back by pretrial motions and other legal maneuvers.  

And the question of a presidential self-pardon remains far from settled. Legal experts such as Bowman have argued that a presidential self-pardon violates the Constitution. No one can be their own judge.  

“Indeed, a presidential self-pardon is antithetical to the language and structure of the Constitution, contrary to the evident intentions of the Founders, and a very real danger to republican government,” Bowman wrote in Just Security in November 2020.  

Even if Trump could pardon himself, it would not extend to state crimes with which Trump has been charged, Turley noted. 
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Лубінець: ув’язнений у Росії севастополець Штибліков зазнає психологічних тортур і не отримує ліки

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

За даними омбудсмена, Штибліков не має доступу до радіо чи телебачення, йому не передають книги і не дозволяють бачитися й телефонувати рідним
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Міненерго щодо ситуації зі світлом: пошкоджено лінію електропередач, що призвело до знеструмлення шахти

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

«Через військову агресію біля 50% енергосистеми зазнали пошкоджень та руйнувань. Але незважаючи на труднощі ремонтна кампанія йде за графіком. Енергетики працюють 24/7, аби взимку в кожній оселі було тепло то світло»
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Ohio Voters Reject Proposal to Make it Harder to Amend State Constitution

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year. 

The defeat of Issue 1 keeps in place a simple majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments. It would have raised that to a 60% supermajority, which supporters said would protect the state’s foundational document from outside interest groups. 

While abortion was not directly on the special election ballot, the result marks the latest setback for Republicans in a conservative-leaning state who favor imposing tough restrictions on the procedure. Ohio Republicans placed the question on the summer ballot in hopes of undercutting a citizen initiative that voters will decide in November that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state. 

Dennis Willard, a spokesperson for the opposition campaign One Person One Vote, called Issue 1 a “deceptive power grab” that was intended to diminish the power of the state’s voters. 

“Tonight is a major victory for democracy in Ohio,” Willard told a jubilant crowd at the opposition campaign’s watch party. “The majority still rules in Ohio.” 

A major national group that opposes abortion rights, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the result “a sad day for Ohio” while criticizing the outside money that helped the opposition. In fact, both sides relied on national groups and individuals in their campaigns. 

Other states where voters have considered abortion rights since last year’s Supreme Court ruling have protected them, including in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky. 

Interest in the special election was intense. Voters cast nearly 700,000 early in-person and mail ballots ahead of Tuesday’s final day of voting, more than twice the number of advance votes in a typical primary election. Early turnout was especially heavy in the Democratic-leaning counties surrounding Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. 

 

One Person One Vote represented a broad, bipartisan coalition of voting rights, labor, faith and community groups. The group also had as allies four living ex-governors of the state and five former state attorneys general of both parties, who called the proposed change bad public policy. 

In place since 1912, the simple majority standard is a much more surmountable hurdle for Ohioans for Reproductive Rights, the group advancing November’s abortion rights amendment. It would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” 

Voters in several states have approved ballot questions protecting access to abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but typically have done so with less than 60% of the vote. AP VoteCast polling last year found that 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal. 

The result came in the very type of August special election that Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a candidate for U.S. Senate, had previously testified against as undemocratic because of historically low turnout. Republican lawmakers just last year had voted to mostly eliminate such elections, a law they ignored for this year’s election. 

Voters’ rejection of the proposal marked a rare rebuke for Ohio Republicans, who have held power across every branch of state government for 12 years. 

Ohio Right to Life, the state’s oldest and largest anti-abortion group and a key force behind the special election measure, vowed to continue fighting into the fall. 
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US Judge Sets Hearing on Evidence in Trump’s 2020 Election Case

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A federal judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election has ordered his attorneys and federal prosecutors to appear in court on Friday for a hearing to help determine how evidence can be used and shared in the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the hearing for Friday at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT), shortly after Trump’s attorneys and members of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office had clashed over when to schedule the proceeding.

Prosecutors had said they were available all week, while Trump’s lawyers had asked for a postponement until early next week.

Prosecutors request protective order

Friday’s hearing comes after Trump’s defense team on Monday opposed a request from prosecutors for Chutkan to impose a protective order to ensure confidential evidence is not shared publicly by Trump, suggesting he could use the information to intimidate witnesses. Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the charges politically motivated.

Trump’s attorneys said limits would infringe on his right to free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is not expected to be present in the courtroom on Friday, after Chutkan waived his appearance.

Typically, defense lawyers do not oppose such protective orders because doing so can delay the government from producing the evidence it intends to use at trial in a process known as discovery.

Defense tries to slow proceedings

The disagreement between the parties over the hearing date represented the latest effort by Trump’s team to delay or slow legal proceedings.

It also underscored the logistical challenges that Trump’s team may have as it continues to represent him in two separate federal criminal cases brought by Smith’s office, one in Washington and the other in Florida, where Trump is charged with retaining highly classified records after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s efforts to have the records returned. Trump also pleaded not guilty in that case.

One of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche, will be in federal court in Florida on Thursday for an arraignment, after the government filed a superseding indictment that charged Trump with additional criminal counts and also charged another one of his employees in the case.

In the joint Washington filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump wished for both Blanche and his other lawyer John Lauro to be present for the hearing before Chutkan.
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Черкаська ОВА радить паломникам не їхати на Рош га-Шана в Умань через війну й обстріли

SocNet Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

«Водночас розуміємо, що частина вірян, як і торік, усе ж наважаться приїхати. Тому спільно з міською владою, сектором безпеки й оборони, усіма профільними службами вже працюємо превентивно»
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