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Smith: Biden’s factory jobs revival falls short

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

President Joe Biden has been traveling the U.S. touting a manufacturing revival that he no doubt hopes will help his chances for re-election. Unfortunately, there is much less substance to this “Biden Boom” than the White House would have Americans believe. Even under the rosiest of projections, the administration’s signature programs will do little to increase manufacturing employment — and even less to uplift the overall economy.Construction spending on manufacturing facilities more than doubled from an annualized rate of $81 billion this time last year to an all-time high of nearly $200 billion in August. Some of that increase can be attributed to the incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, both championed by the president.But there are more relevant factors. Shortages caused by COVID, backlogs at major ports in 2021 and a three-year-long (and continuing) surge in retail sales created a compelling case for reshoring production even without those ince...

Ko: Working to improve quality care for patients

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Patients across the country deserve the best possible care outcome, no matter where they liveCurrent national strategies intended to improve the quality of patient care have led to the unwarranted variations in effectiveness, efficiency, and safety we see today. While some successes have been reported, we often see mediocre care at best. But it is not for a lack of trying. Hospitals and healthcare systems are dedicating large resources, efforts, and energy towards achieving better quality. Yet, despite best intentions, our healthcare system is failing to achieve the kind of quality we want for our patients, and the type of care patients want for themselves. We need to do better.The good news is that over the last 25 years we have been quietly developing, learning, and successfully implementing a reproducible model for achieving high quality in surgery. We have learned from over 2,500 hospital implementations and believe now is an appropriate time to share our model with others in th...

Editorial: Biden White House must get serious with Iran

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Israel made it clear on Monday that Iran will pay a price if it escalates the Gaza crisis through its Hezbollah proxy in the north. The Biden administration must send the same message.Iran has become increasingly belligerent in recent days, warning of a “huge earthquake” if Israel doesn’t cease its military response to the vicious Hamas terror attacks. But if a de-escalation is the goal, perhaps Iran could start by cutting off its financial support to radical militants while calling off Hezbollah and recognizing Israeli’s right to exist and defend itself.Instead, continued Iranian provocations have led to concerns that the nation could use Israel’s Gaza response as a precursor to open another front in the war against the Jewish state.“We can’t rule out that Iran would choose to get directly engaged some way,” Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last Sunday. “We have to prepare for every possible contingency.”That must inclu...

Frenship shaking things up on ‘Base Camp’ tour

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

The Los Angeles synth-pop duo Frenship doesn’t ask for much: They just want you to still be playing their music 15 years from now. “That’s the thing with our music, we aim for timelessness,” says cofounder James Sunderland. “So if we’re going to write a song about the pandemic, we’re going to make it about something universal, like loneliness. So you can still come back to it years later.”Frenship partners Sunderland and Brett Hite began as two actual friends who worked in a Lululemon store in Los Angeles together, bonding over their mutual love of synthesizer pop. Success came to them in a hurry when their 2016 single “Capsize”– a collaboration with singer Emily Warren, and only the fourth song Frenship ever released — became an online sensation, racking up 505 million Spotify streams.“It changed our lives, but probably not as much as you’d imagine,” Hite says. “Had we known the ins and outs of the music industry we’d have done it differently — like we would own o...

Schoen: GOP paralysis deepens as Speaker vote drags on

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Midday Thursday, it appeared that ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan was ready to step aside from the speaker’s race, thus allowing Republicans in the House of Representatives to end weeks of political stunts and join with Democrats to elevate Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry’s powers.Instead, House Republicans again failed to display any semblance of leadership and elect a Speaker of the House, despite a number of international and domestic crises, and continued to paralyze our government. Indeed, this dysfunction comes at a critical moment for global affairs as the Middle East is engulfed in a full-blown war between Israel and Hamas, while Ukraine continues to battle against Russia’s invasion. Further, we are barreling towards a government shutdown later in November when the continuing resolution expires. With the House frozen, Congress will be unable to prevent the economic consequences such a shutdown would have.To be sure, the United States cannot ...

Dear Abby: Mom & family in denial about her decline

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Dear Abby: My mother-in-law is a sweet retired teacher. She lives an active life volunteering at her local Boys and Girls Club and keeping up with her friends. The issue is, her mobility and her memory are in decline, and she and her family are in denial about it.She still drives and has recently had several fender benders. She also admitted to getting lost on her way home from the store and needing to call her brother to find her. A fall resulted in a broken wrist. She thinks this is funny and isn’t worried at all. She won’t disclose anything about her health care, so we can’t talk to her doctor.My husband refuses to talk with his mom about plans for moving or getting more help at home, and my brother-in-law won’t intervene. Both have ordered me to step back. We live a day’s drive away, so if something happens, it’s going to be hard to get to her in a hurry. Why am I the only one worried, and what can I do? — Writing on the WallDear Writing...

AP visual analysis: Rocket from Gaza appeared to go astray, likely caused deadly hospital explosion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, a volley of rockets lit up the darkened sky over Gaza. Videos analyzed by The Associated Press show one veering off course, breaking up in the air before crashing to the ground.Seconds later, the videos show a large explosion in the same area – the site of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital.Who is to blame for the fiery explosion has set off intense debate and finger pointing between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions in their two week-long war.The AP analyzed more than a dozen videos from the moments before, during and after the hospital explosion, as well as satellite imagery and photos. AP’s analysis shows that the rocket that broke up in the air was fired from within Palestinian territory, and that the hospital explosion was most likely caused when part of that rocket crashed to the ground.A lack of forensic evidence and the difficulty of gathering that material on the ground in the middle of a war means there i...

Inside the meeting of Republican electors who sought to thwart Biden’s election win in Georgia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — It was a bad place to keep a secret.When Republicans gathered on December 14, 2020, claiming to be legitimate electors casting the state’s 16 electoral votes for Donald Trump, they met at the Georgia Capitol in a room just upstairs from the building’s public entrance. A Trump campaign official asked for the electors’ “complete discretion,” telling them to say only that they were meeting with two state senators who were there.“Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Robert Sinners wrote in an email uncovered by investigators. But reporters for The Associated Press and other news organizations noticed the Republicans entering the building and were eventually admitted into the room, where they photographed and recorded video of the proceeding. In the chaotic weeks after the 2020 election, the gathering’s significance was...

Hurricane Norma takes aim at Mexico’s Los Cabos resorts, as Tammy threatens islands in the Atlantic

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico (AP) — Residents of Mexico’s Los Cabos resorts rushed to prepare as Hurricane Norma headed toward the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula for an expected landfall Saturday, while in the Atlantic, Tammy grew into a hurricane and threatened to batter the islands of the Lesser Antilles. Businesses in Cabo San Lucas nailed up sheets of plywood over their windows and government personnel hung up banners warning people not to try to cross gullies and stream beds, after Hurricane Norma regained strength and once again became a major storm Friday.Baja California Sur Gov. Victor Manuel Castro urged people to stay at home.“Nobody should leave their house after six, seven in the evening,” Castro said. “Nobody should go out.”In the Atlantic, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Hurricane Tammy had winds of 80 mph (130 kph), and hurricane warnings were issued for the islands of Guadeloupe, Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, and St. Kitts and Nevis....

Venezuela’s opposition is holding primary to pick challenger for Maduro in 2024 presidential rival

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:28:45 GMT

VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) — Josselyz Essa and a friend, two 9-year-olds with a budding interest in politics as Venezuela starts toward its next presidential election, bubbled with eagerness waiting for the campaign rally to start. Then a thunderous noise spread over the crowd in the streets of the northern city of Valencia. The girls stretched up on their tiptoes and joined in the uproar, screaming as loud as they could: “María Corina! María Corina!” — that is María Corina Machado, the opposition politician they want to be president.Machado, a free-market firebrand, is the frontrunner in a primary election Sunday organized by the opposition to pick a challenger to President Nicolás Maduro. It is the first of its kind since 2012 in the troubled South American country. But even if Machado wins, it remains unclear if she would be allowed to run in 2024. While Maduro’s government agreed in principle this week to allow the opposition to choose its candidate, it also has already barr...