Author name: admin

BERKELEY, California – The New York Times famously prepares obituaries for notable individuals well in advance of their death. Now that President Joe Biden’s administration is about to expire, an elegy is in order for its economic achievements, failures and missed opportunities. The administration’s achievements are self-evident, at least to the clear-eyed analyst — if not, as it appears, to the average voter. In Biden’s four years, the U.S. outperformed virtually every other advanced economy in terms of output, employment and productivity growth. Despite inheriting an unemployment rate of 6.3% in January 2021 and an elevated level of pandemic-related uncertainty, the administration drove unemployment down to just 4% in its first 12 months, where it essentially remained throughout Biden’s term. Source link

BERKELEY, California – America’s democratic institutions withstood, if only barely, Donald Trump’s first presidency, but will they do so again? During the 2024 election campaign, Trump promised mass deportations and detainment camps, reprisals against his political foes, a crackdown on “the enemy within,” and a dramatic reduction of civil-service protections for federal workers. To see such policies through, he says he will be a “dictator” at least on the first day, and he continues to express admiration for authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. So, the stark question facing the United States is whether there will be adequate mechanisms that can prevent Trump’s worst impulses from becoming government policy. Will the checks and balances that have protected American democracy since 1787 be enough? While we have no way of knowing yet, focusing on this question from the outset is imperative. Will a Republican-controlled Congress provide any checks at all? Trump certainly doesn’t have to worry about impeachment, which happened twice with a Democratic-controlled House during his first presidency. Instead, this Congress will likely see Trump’s decisive victory as a mandate. It is hard to imagine Republican members opposing his desire to launch aggressive deportations, gut environmental protections, or weaken civil-service protections. Source link

With the Cabinet’s approval on Friday of another record ¥8.7 trillion ($55.1 billion) for fiscal 2025 — a 9.4% year-on-year increase — Tokyo has taken another significant step to raise defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) by fiscal 2027. But the road ahead is looking increasingly bumpy. Not only is there growing uncertainty about how to secure future budget hikes, Tokyo is also getting far less bang for its buck as inflation and the yen’s diminishing value erode Japan’s plans for its largest military buildup in postwar history. Source link

Japan is preparing to create a disaster management agency responsible for everything from disaster preparedness to reconstruction, learning from past disasters including the Jan. 1 Noto Peninsula earthquake. Disaster-related deaths exceeded 220 in the 2016 quake disaster in Kumamoto Prefecture and topped 240 in the Noto Peninsula temblor. The government plans to strengthen its crisis management system in preparation for possible huge disasters, such as a Nankai Trough megathrust quake off the country’s Pacific coast and a temblor directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area. Source link

Princess Kako, the second daughter of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, turned 30 on Sunday. According to the Imperial Household Agency, the princess is concerned about people affected by the massive earthquake and heavy rain that struck the Noto Peninsula in central Japan this year, and sincerely hopes that they can live in peace. As an adult member of the Imperial Family, Princess Kako has performed various official duties at home and abroad this year, while working twice a week since April at the Japanese Federation of the Deaf, which she joined as a part-time employee in 2021. In October, the princess visited Ishikawa Prefecture as president of the Japan Kogei Association, which promotes traditional Japanese crafts, and inspected the 71st Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition in the city of Kanazawa. She met with artisans affected by the Jan. 1 earthquake and expressed her sympathy. In May, the princess paid an official visit to Greece to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and the European country. She is grateful for the warm greetings she received there and hopes that the two countries will deepen friendly ties. Princess Kako also continues to perform official duties using sign language, such as attending a national sign language performance contest for high school students at the western prefecture of Tottori in September. At an event held by the Girl Scouts of Japan in Tokyo in October, she expressed her hope that people will deepen their understanding of others with different backgrounds and situations. The princess hopes to continue her activities for a society where everyone can live in peace and have more choices. Source link

Justin Herbert passed for 281 yards and a season-high three touchdowns and the Los Angeles Chargers clinched an AFC playoff berth with a dominating 40-7 victory over the New England Patriots on Saturday in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Ladd McConkey caught eight passes for 94 yards and two touchdowns and Derwin James had two sacks and a fumble recovery for the Chargers (10-6), who are playoff-bound in Jim Harbaugh’s first season as coach. Derius Davis also had a scoring catch, J.K. Dobbins rushed for 76 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries and Cameron Dicker booted four field goals. Source link

North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in Russia’s Kursk region, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday. The number far exceeds the figure U.S. officials have previously provided. “It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” Kirby said, describing the North Korean troops’ offensive as “massed, dismounted assaults.” Source link

Washington – The ongoing spread of bird flu in the United States has alarmed experts — not just because of human cases causing severe illness, but also due to troubling new instances of infections in cats. A sample of the virus found in a critically ill patient in the United States has shown signs of mutating to better suit human airways, although there is no indication it has spread beyond that individual, authorities report. Earlier this month, officials announced that an elderly Louisiana patient was in “critical condition” with a severe H5N1 infection. Source link

Despite its physical disconnection from the rest of Japan and a slower pace of life than the country’s mainland metropolises, the island of Hokkaido has not been immune to change this past year — especially when it comes to what the northern prefecture puts on its plate. Long known as the home of brown bears, powder snow, milk, corn and even bountiful space, Hokkaido welcomed a new type of creature this year: travelers en masse. With adventure tourism and the Sapporo Snow Festival as huge draws, summer and autumn have also become popular times to visit for both domestic and inbound tourists. Food and photography tours have taken off, with busloads of tourists inundating the likes of Biei’s crystal-clear blue pond and devouring delicacies such as prized Furano melons. The town of Higashikawa was, in fact, named atop the list of Japan’s most liveable cities in large part due to its many cafes. Source link

Poland’s five-time major winner Iga Swiatek feared a far greater public backlash after she accepted a one-month suspension for failing a doping test, the world No. 2 said ahead of the United Cup in Australia. The 23-year-old Swiatek tested positive in an out-of-competition sample in August for trimetazidine but the ITIA, which runs tennis’s anti-doping program, accepted that it was caused by contamination of her sleep medication. She was provisionally suspended from Sept. 12 until Oct. 4, missing three tournaments, and served the last eight days of the ban after playing at November’s WTA Finals in Riyadh. Source link