Michael Novakhov retweeted:
My new article in Politico on the benefits of Russia’s coming disintegration politico.eu/article/opinio…
Day: January 13, 2023
Michael Novakhov retweeted:
Предоставить Киеву боевые танки призвал председатель Мюнхенской конференции по безопасности Кристоф Хойсген в интервью немецкому изданию Focus. По его мнению, пространство для переговоров с РФ возникнет лишь тогда, когда Путин поймет, что “находится на пути к поражению”
Michael Novakhov retweeted:
Маяковский на вечере, посвященном открытию нового корпуса столовой Дома отдыха работников искусств. Сочи. 1929 г.
Michael Novakhov retweeted:
Our Administration has worked hard to lower the deficit by $1.7 trillion.
The first bill House Republicans brought to the floor would help wealthy people and corporations cheat on their taxes – increasing the deficit.
Their very first bill.
Michael Novakhov retweeted:
Deutschland und Irak werden noch enger zusammenarbeiten – insbesondere in den Bereichen Migration, Energie, Klima und Wirtschaft. Ein Vorbild hierfür ist @Siemens_Energy: Stromnetze werden modernisiert, Arbeitsplätze geschaffen. Danke für Ihren Besuch, Premier @mohamedshia.
Karen Benioff Friedman Courtesy of Karen Benioff Friedman
When a Berkeley rabbi in 2004 announced that he wanted to form a chevra kadisha, Hebrew for a group that cares for the dead before burial, an artist in his congregation signed herself up.
Karen Benioff Friedman had a mostly secular upbringing, and hadn’t known much about Jewish burial societies, but she knew she wanted to be a part of one.
“What I found compelling is the idea that we never leave the dead alone,” she said.
The post Preparing Jewish bodies for burial, an artist finds inspiration appeared first on The Forward.
Russia claimed Friday to have completed the capture the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine Friday after months of fighting in a brutal offensive that would hand the Kremlin its first significant battlefield gain since July after a wave of military setbacks.
Ukraine insists that the fighting was far from over. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described the phase of the war as being “difficult,” but the conflict in Soledar is “hot,” she wrote Friday on Telegram. “The enemy threw almost all the main forces in the direction of Donetsk and has maintained a high intensity of the offensive,” she said. “Our fighters are bravely trying to hold the defense.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The battle for Soledar, a small salt-mining town, has emerged as a critical step in Moscow’s goal of encircling the key city of Bakhmut, a transportation hub under assault since August, and ultimately capturing the entire Donbas region. The fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked Feb. 24 invasion approaches, with Russia pummeling Soledad at the expense of steep losses to its own forces.
Amid competing claims over control of the city, images geolocated by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based military research group, show Russian forces likely hold most, if not all, of Soledar, while pushing Ukrainian forces to the west.
Read More: Ukraine Dismisses Russia’s Declaration of a Holiday Ceasefire
Officials from both sides have referred to the battle as a “meat grinder,” with streets strewn with corpses of soldiers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week there was “almost no life” in Soledar and “no whole walls left” on any building in the mining town. “This is what madness looks like,” he said in a nightly video address on Monday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday on its Telegram channel that the private military company Wagner Group was responsible for leading the “direct assault.” It was a rare nod to Wagner, which is financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch sometimes called “Putin’s Chef” because he rose to power after running a catering company favored by the Kremlin. “Putin’s shadow army” is estimated to have thousands of members, including former convicts, and has acted as a mercenary force fighting on behalf of Russia in a way that allows Moscow a measure of deniability. The Wagner Group first appeared in 2014 during Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Capturing Soledar would be critical for Russia’s war aims but also Prigozhin, who has repeatedly criticized Russia’s Defense Ministry and its management of the Ukraine war. His group has deployed to other hot spots around the world, including Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mali, and Syria (where Wagner mercenaries fought a bloody battle with U.S. special forces in 2018). But achieving victory in Soledar will be a personal victory for Prigozhin, who feels his forces deserve more credit. He may also aspire to take control of the town’s salt and gypsum mines for personal enrichment.
Read More: Biden Deepens Involvement in War by Inviting Ukrainian Troops to U.S. for Weapons Training
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said “there’s a bit of an economic incentive” for Russia to take Soledar, but any victory would be more symbolic than substantive. “Even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself,” Kirby told reporters Thursday at the White House. “And it certainly isn’t going to stop the Ukrainians or slow them down.”
Kirby described the greater Donbas region as an open region of farmland akin to Kansas. It’s crucial, he said, that the U.S. continues to provide “the kinds of capabilities to Ukraine to be able to succeed in that environment.” The Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which were part of the $2.85 billion military aid package announced last week, will be vital to safely transport troops around the battlefield during this grinding phase.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and committed to continuing economic and security support for Kyiv. “The Secretary emphasized the United States’ enduring and unflinching support for Ukraine, as underscored by recent provisions of advanced air defense equipment and armored vehicles from U.S. stocks,” according to the readout.
Blinken told Kuleba that U.S. assistance would continue to flow “in the run-up to, and beyond” the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion. As the battle for Soledar shows, the end of the war remains nowhere in sight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chaos? In the House of Representatives?
Republican Kevin McCarthy wrapped his first full week as House speaker in the most outwardly orderly way, with hardly a hint of the chaotic, rebellious fight it took for the Republicans to arrive here, having barely installed him as the leader with the gavel.
The House Republicans marched through the early days of the session like a spunky new business — in by noon, out by dinnertime, the lawmakers rapid-fire voting without much public drama in between. They approved their House rules and sent six Republican bills quickly to passage, including one to gut funding for the Internal Revenue Service.
The Republican committee chairmen were named, members were appointed to the panels and the Oversight committee launched its first requests for financial documents as it probes President Joe Biden and his family.
And when House Republicans met for the first time behind closed doors after the rowdy public spectacle that broke history records and almost came to fistfights to elect McCarthy as speaker, it was a “lovefest,” as one Republican lawmaker put it.
“That’s just the first five days, and we’re just getting started,” McCarthy said Thursday at his first press conference as speaker.
But the semblance of House GOP unity is all but certain to be temporary, a momentary reprieve after the grudging, grueling effort by Republicans to seize the majority from Democrats and elect the embattled McCarthy as the new speaker.
The daunting political math confronting McCarthy remains the same: With a 222-seat majority, he can only lose a few detractors on any issue unless he reaches across the aisle for help and backing from Democrats for the 218 votes typically needed to pass legislation.
While the first bills the House Republicans easily approved were essentially GOP favorites, designed to unite their side of the aisle and even pull in some Democratic support, the next legislative lifts are expected to be more vigorous and politically risky.
McCarthy has made a deal with conservatives that the next government funding bill will be held to fiscal 2022 levels, which means a substantial 8% cut of discretionary accounts — or more if the defense budget is spared.
“We’ve got to change the way we are spending money,” McCarthy said Thursday.
Even more, Congress will be asked this summer to raise the federal debt ceiling to allow more borrowing to pay off the government’s current bills, always a difficult vote for lawmakers and one that the Treasury Department says is coming sooner than expected.
In refusing to allow the federal government to take on more debt unless changes are made to federal spending, House Republicans are heading for a risky showdown that echoes the debt ceiling debate of 2011. That was a months-long political drama that resulted in a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating for the first time in modern memory after the newly-elected tea party class of House Republicans demanded federal spending cuts.
“Come on. Is this how House Republicans are starting the new term: cutting taxes for billionaires, raising taxes for working families, and making inflation worse?” Biden said Thursday in remarks near the White House.
“Well, let me be clear: If any of those bills make it to my desk, I will veto them,” he said. “I’m ready to work with Republicans, but not this kind of stuff.”
Downtown, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark said in remarks Thursday that there is “almost a level of despair” among the business community about government gridlock and the inability to solve big issues such as the shortage of workers and immigration reform.
In the Senate, where Democrats still hold a slim 51-seat majority, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to hold the line as “a firewall to this extreme MAGA Republican agenda,” a reference to former President Donald Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan.
It was Trump’s 11th hour push for McCarthy as voting was underway late last week that both men, who are on-again-off-again allies, said was responsible for making the California Republican the new House speaker.
McCarthy won the speaker’s gavel only by making concessions to hard-right Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus that now hang over his leadership, including the ability of any single lawmaker to make a motion to vacate the chair — essentially calling a vote to oust McCarthy from office.
The tenuous Republican hold on power is complicated by the presence of Rep. George Santos, the newly elected Republican from New York, who faces calls for his ouster over the lies he has admitted to telling about his education, work experience and other aspects of his life. Instead, McCarthy said the Ethics Committee will investigate. “And if something is found out, it will be dealt with,” McCarthy said.
But many House Republicans emerged confident that the messy, bitter fight made them — and McCarthy — stronger, not weaker, as they press ahead in their new majority to govern.
“You always come out better on the back side of it,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who was nominated repeatedly by his colleagues as an alternative GOP choice for speaker. “And now we’re back to business.”
Said Rep. Scott Perry, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, “I feel pretty positive — Republicans are in charge and we’re whupping up on the left and it’s awesome.”
Republican Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., one of the chief holdouts in speaker’s fight, said the public display put McCarthy in a stronger negotiating position moving forward by showing what the speaker is up against.
“Our speaker is empowered to be in a stronger position in negotiations with the Senate in the White House, because he can say, ‘When my folks say no, they mean no.’”
Standing in gilded Statuary Hall rather than the Capitol’s usual press briefing studio in the basement, McCarthy compared his new Republican majority to the early American lawmakers. They convened in this room when the Congress was relocated from Philadelphia.
As tourists milled about Thursday afternoon, pausing to listen and take photos, McCarthy noted he was reopening the Capitol to visitors. Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi had kept the building partly closed during the COVID-19 crisis and in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Trump’s supporters.
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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this story.
2023-01-13T20:58:57Z
A home on agricultural land is seen amid flooding from the Salinas River in Salinas, California, U.S., January 13, 2023. REUTERS/David Swanson
California’s Salinas River began creeping over its banks on Friday morning, flooding roads leading to nearby communities where 24,000 people were urged to evacuate in the face of yet another in a series of storms that have pelted the state.
Farmers worked feverishly to erect berms to protect their fields in the part of Monterey County just off California’s central coast, while residents lay sandbags or sought to leave before rising water cut access to their homes.
To the north in San Francisco, officials on Friday warned of flooding and power outages, and asked residents to avoid unnecessary travel over the weekend.
Friday’s storms were the latest in a series of so-called atmospheric rivers that have deluged California since late December. The storms have killed at least 19 people, flooded inland areas and generated three-story high waves along the coast.
The weather service AccuWeather estimates the storms have caused up to $34 billion in damage thus far.
“It’s a tremendous amount of water,” said Monterey County Chief Public Information Officer Nick Pasculli, describing the slow rise of the Salinas River. Visiting the area on Friday morning, Pasculli saw the muddy water creep onto secondary and tertiary roads and watched farmers rush to protect their assets.
On Thursday, rain-soaked Californians took advantage of a break in the weeks-long deluge to haul away dead trees, restore downed power lines and prepare new stacks of sandbags. But by Friday the rain had begun anew.
At least two more storm systems were set to pound California and the Pacific Northwest starting on Friday and over the weekend, the National Weather Service said, including another atmospheric river, systems of dense moisture funneled into California from the tropical Pacific. Seven such weather systems have already hit the state over the past two weeks.
The heavy rains have eased California’s historic drought but not ended it, the U.S. Drought Monitor showed on Thursday. The state is no longer considered to be in extreme drought or exceptional drought, the two worst categories, but much of the state is still considered to be experiencing moderate or severe drought conditions.
2023-01-13T21:01:00Z
Traders work on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., January 5, 2023. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
U.S. stocks finished higher and registered a second straight week of gains on Friday, with shares of JPMorgan Chase and other banks rising following their fourth-quarter results, which kicked off the earnings season.
Financials (.SPSY) were among sectors giving the S&P 500 the most support.
But concern over results and guidance from companies in the coming weeks kept investors cautious. Year-over-year earnings from S&P 500 companies are expected to have declined 2.2% for the quarter, according to Refinitiv data.
“This has shifted the focus back to earnings,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Even though the earnings were basically OK, people are just kind of stepping back, and you’re going to see a wait-and-see attitude with stocks” as investors hear more from company executives.
Wall Street’s biggest banks stockpiled more rainy-day funds to prepare for a possible recession and reported weak investment banking results while showing caution about forecasting income growth. But they said consumers remained healthy and higher rates boosted profits.
JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) beat quarterly earnings estimates, while Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N) fell short of quarterly profit estimates. But shares of all four firms rose, along with the S&P 500 banks index (.SPXBK)
Tesla (TSLA.O) shares declined, limiting gains in the S&P 500, after it slashed prices on its electric vehicles in the United States and Europe by as much as 20% after missing 2022 deliveries estimates.
The University of Michigan’s survey on Friday showed an improvement in U.S. consumer sentiment, with one-year inflation outlook falling in January to the lowest level since the spring of 2021.
On Thursday, stocks rose after U.S. consumer prices fell for the first time in more than 2-1/2 years in December.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 15.54 points, or 0.39%, to end at 3,998.71 points, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) gained 77.99 points, or 0.71%, to 11,079.09. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 109.61 points, or 0.32%, to 34,299.58.
All three major indexes posted gains for a second straight week, with Thursday’s Consumer Price Index and other recent data bolstering hopes that a sustained downward trend in inflation could give the Federal Reserve room to dial back on its interest rate hikes.
The U.S. stock market will be closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Money market participants see a 91.6% chance the Fed will hike the benchmark rate by 25 basis points in February, but expect the terminal rate at 4.9% by June.
Among other earnings reports, UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) shares rose after beating Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter profit.
Shares of Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) dropped as the company forecast first-quarter profit below expectations.
