KAHRAMANMARAS/ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) – The official death toll of a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria jumped to more than 8,700 people on Wednesday as overwhelmed rescuers warned that the number would grow significantly with families still trapped under the rubble.

In Turkey, many people spent a second night of freezing temperatures sleeping in their cars or in the streets under blankets, worried to go back into buildings shaken by Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake – the country’s deadliest since 1999.

“Where are the tents, where are food trucks?” said Melek, 64, in the southern city of Antakya, adding that she had not seen any rescue teams.

“We haven’t seen any food distribution here unlike previous disasters in our country. We survived the earthquake, but we will die here due to hunger or cold here.”

With the scale of the disaster becoming ever more apparent, the death toll – now 6,234 in Turkey – looks likely to keep on rising.

In neighbouring Syria, already devastated by 11 years of war, the death toll climbed to more than 2,500 overnight, according to the Syrian government and a rescue service operating in the rebel-held northwest.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities have voiced anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response by the authorities.

The initial quake struck just after 4 a.m. on Monday, the dead of night in the dead of winter, giving the sleeping population little chance to react.

Erdogan, facing a tight election in May, is expected to visit some of the affected areas on Wednesday.

Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east – broader than that between Boston and Philadelphia, or Amsterdam and Paris.

‘UNDER THE RUBBLE’

The quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Turkey and northern Syria.

Rescue workers have struggled to reach some of the worst-hit areas, held back by destroyed roads, poor weather and a lack of resources and heavy equipment. Some areas are without fuel and electricity.

Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, where humanitarian needs were already greater than at any point since the eruption of a conflict that has partitioned the nation and is complicating relief efforts.

The head of the World Health Organization has said the rescue efforts face a race against time, with the chances of finding survivors alive slipping away with every minute and hour.

In Syria, a rescue service operating in the insurgent-held northwest said the number of dead had climbed to more than 1,280 and more than 2,600 were injured.

“The number is expected to rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble, more than 50 hours after the earthquake,” the rescue service said on Twitter.

Overnight, the Syrian health minister said the number of dead in government-held areas rose to 1,250, the state-run al-Ikhbariya news outlet reported on its Telegram feed. The number of wounded was 2,054, he said.

Turkey’s deadliest earthquake in a generation has handed Erdogan a huge rescue and reconstruction challenge, which will overshadow the run-up to the May elections already set to be the toughest of his two decades in power.

The vote, too-close-to-call according to polls before the quake, will determine how Turkey is governed, where its economy is headed and what role the regional power and NATO member may play to ease conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin and its central bank, headed by Governor Elvira Nabiullina, have at times expressed opposing views on the country’s economy.

Getty Images, Reuters

• The Russian government is not loving its central bank’s gloomy economic updates. 
• It’s pushing the bank to give more positive outlooks for the country’s economy, per Bloomberg.
• The central bank has been candid about Russia’s economic pressure amid the war in Ukraine. This may be at odds with the official stance.

The Russian government is not loving its central bank’s gloomy economic assessments. Instead, it is reportedly asking for more jolly outlooks. 

The Russian economy has been under stress ever since the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022, triggering widespread sanctions from the West and its allies, which hit the energy giant’s oil and gas revenue.

Through it all, the Russian central bank has been candid about its assessment of the country’s economy, which at times stood at odds with more bullish statements from the Kremlin. 

But that may soon change — Russian officials are putting pressure on the country’s central bank to give more “upbeat” assessments about the country’s economy, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with internal deliberations. 

In December, analysts at the Bank of Russia — headed by governor Elvira Nabiullina — said they anticipated “new economic shocks,” due to a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil and the European Union’s ban on the country’s crude. In October, research from the Bank of Russia showed the country’s economic activity stalled in September — in part, due to President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization order that sent many fleeing the draft. 

Senior government officials have criticized the central bank for mishandling market expectations and for giving forecasts that were too pessimistic and alarmist, Bloomberg reported.

The Bank of Russia, though, is open to improving these forecasts so as to send a signal that it’s on the path to monetary easing in the months ahead, per Bloomberg. 

The Russian economy likely contracted by 2.5% in 2022 from a year ago, but was still beating expectations, President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks on January 17, per Reuters.

It’s not just propaganda. Key to the central bank’s messaging is interest rates. Russia’s key interest rate is 7.5% now, but the government wants the central bank to express more optimism about the economy in a signal that it could start cutting rates, per Bloomberg. But the Bank of Russia is concerned about higher inflation should rates fall.

Russia covers its budget deficit by borrowing domestically, so interest rates are important for the government. A slump in energy revenues, coupled with an increase in defense spending has pushed Russia’s budget deficit to 1.76 trillion rubles in January, or $24.75 billion.

The deficit — which is only for the first month of 2023 — is already at 60% of Russia’s plan for a $2.93 trillion-ruble deficit, Insider previously reported. 

The Bank of Russia did not respond to Insider’s request for comment sent outside regular business hours. It’s also in a communication blackout ahead of its first board meeting of 2023 on Friday, per Bloomberg.

As Ukraine prepares to counter an expected offensive from Russia and the Kremlin claims advances around Bakhmut, the badly needed vehicles can’t come soon enough.

President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address was his first with a Republican majority in the House, which is probably why he began the speech by touting his belief in bipartisan cooperation. It was also his last State of the Union address before the 2024 campaign season gets underway, which explains his conflicting efforts to pick fights with Republicans while attempting to channel the populist spirit of his former (and potentially future) political adversary Donald Trump.

Tuesday’s speech offered a preview of Biden’s soon-to-be-announced reelection campaign, waving the banner of bipartisanship like a matador’s cape. He urged Republicans to help him build on the “historic” progress of his first two years in office, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there’s no reason we can’t work together and find consensus on important things in this Congress as well,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job.”

Knowing full well that such bipartisan cooperation is unlikely to materialize—as evidenced by the repeated jeers from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) and others—Biden’s “finish the job” refrain is best understood as an appeal to American voters to reelect him in 2024 and restore Democratic power in Congress so they can enact their controversial agenda without Republican support.

Biden delivered his address to Congress with the confidence of a president who has the luxury of forgoing the bitter primary fight Republicans are about to wage against themselves. He positioned himself as a sensible moderate, standing above the fray. “The people sent us a clear message,” he said. “Fighting for the sake of the fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.”

It’s a message that presumably polls well, along with some of Biden’s other proposals that might be described as soft-core Trumpism. Making the country great again by reviving the manufacturing sector and increasing our consumption of domestic goods. Taking on “powerful interests” while protecting Social Security and Medicare. Restoring national “pride” as part of a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America” that invests in “places and people that have been forgotten,” while promising not to raise taxes on the Democratic Party’s base of urban professionals making between $300,000 and $400,000 a year. “Americans are tired of being played for suckers,” he said.

Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary in part because he refused to entertain the thought that professional pundits and other left-wing activists knew anything about what normal Americans actually want. That doesn’t mean he is actually a sensible moderate who stands above the fray and tells it like it is. Contrary to what he claimed in his speech, inflation is not “coming down.” (Its growth has merely slowed.)

COVID-19 didn’t harm a generation of American children by keeping schools closed on his watch. Democratic politicians and their union allies did that. American concerns about rising crime are unlikely to be assuaged by blaming the pandemic. It’s mathematically impossible to reduce the deficit over the long term while hiking spending on all the goodies Democrats want to fund. It’s unclear how letting a Chinese spy balloon traverse the country is protecting America’s “sovereignty.”

The post Trial Ballon: Biden Previews Reelection Campaign in One-Sided Appeal for Bipartisanship appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Claim: COVID caused the crime spike

Who said it: President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The president said that among the “scars” left on the country by the pandemic was “the spike in violent crime in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.”

Why it matters: Ever since violent crime exploded in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Democrats have worked to blame the spike on the pandemic rather than their own policies. 

Context: America is in the midst of a massive crime spike. Homicides surged by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020–the largest single-year increase on record—and violent crime remains well above its pre-pandemic levels.

These trends come amid a revival of jailbreak liberalism. Soros-backed prosecutors have let violent criminals off easy in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and countless other cities. The Democrat-dominated D.C Council voted in January to reduce sentences for car-jacking, robberies, and gun-related felonies. Obama era civil rights policies have made schools reluctant to discipline and flag potentially dangerous students, which may be why a Virginia elementary school ignored warnings that a six-year-old was brandishing a gun.

Cops are also quitting in droves amid an unprecedented moral crisis—one many observers blame on the leftwing vilification of the police—driving up 911 response times as active shooter incidents reach a 20-year high.

The murder rate did decline slightly in 2022, but other forms of crime increased. All this has increased voters’ anxiety about crime—61 percent told Pew it was a “very important” issue when deciding how to vote in the midterms—and supercharged surveillance efforts: New York City announced in September that it would install two security cameras on every Subway car to reassure riders of their safety.

Analysis: There is no evidence that COVID contributed significantly to the crime spike. For one thing, most countries around the world saw a marked decrease in crime during their stay-at-home orders; the United States was an exception, suggesting that the crime spike was due to other factors.

It is also difficult to attribute the surge to the economic hardship caused by COVID. Recessions are not correlated with homicide rates, and—as many progressives have noted in their attempt to downplay the crime spike—property offenses declined during the pandemic, when the economy was weakest. Thefts and robberies only began climbing again in 2022 after Biden’s much-vaunted economic recovery. These are not the patterns one would expect if the crime spike were driven by hardship.

The simplest explanation—and the one most consistent with the data—is that crime surged in 2020 because of massive anti-cop riots in cities across the country. Though homicides were on the rise prior to the death of George Floyd, the spike accelerated in many cities almost as soon as the Black Lives Matter protests broke out.

Since then, so-called “progressive prosecutors” have sought the smallest possible penalties for violent criminals and refused to prosecute misdemeanors like hit-and-runs. It is difficult to quantify the costs of that lenience. Almost as difficult as it is to connect the crime spike with COVID.

The post FACT CHECK: Biden Says COVID Caused The 2020 Crime Spike appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden commented on Americans’ access to high-speed internet, allowing him to repeat one of his favorite lines about McDonald’s parking lots.

“No parent should have to drive by a McDonald’s parking lot to help them do their homework online with their kids, which many thousands are doing across the country,” said Biden, who has commented on internet access at the fast food chain’s parking lots at least eight times since the start of his presidency.

The president, evidently, has made little progress in addressing this national problem.

The post VIDEO: Inside Biden’s Obsession With McDonald’s Parking Lots appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

President Joe Biden during his Tuesday night address to the nation made no mention of the Chinese spy balloon that his administration allowed to traverse the continental United States just last week, a major international incident that has dominated the attention of the American public.

Biden spent just a few minutes of his more than an hour long State of the Union speech on China, which has threatened to retaliate against the United States for shooting down the spy balloon. The president made just one apparent reference to the balloon, stating that his administration demonstrated that it will stand up to threats.

“As we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country,” Biden said. “And we did.”

Biden’s critics on both sides of the aisle say the United States made a mistake by allowing the Chinese craft, which was first seen above Montana, float across the entire country before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Democratic senator Mark Warner joined Republicans on Tuesday calling for a full intelligence briefing from the administration on why the military wasn’t better prepared to respond to the balloon. Republicans told the Washington Free Beacon they’re willing to issue subpoenas to get more information on China’s incursion.

While Biden made no mention of China’s spy balloon, he claimed during the speech that the United States is “in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world.”

In the official Republican response to Biden’s address, Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders called China our “most formidable adversary.”

“The president’s refusal to stand up to China, our most formidable adversary, is dangerous and unacceptable,” Sanders said.

The post Panda In The Room: Biden Mum on Chinese Balloon in SOTU appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer on Tuesday, setting the new mark with a fadeaway jumpshot late in the third quarter of a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

‘King James’, who entered the game needing 36 points to break Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 38,387, sent the sold-out crowd into a frenzy when the ball splashed through the net, raising his arms in triumph as his team mates embraced him.

Lakers great Abdul-Jabbar, who took the title from Wilt Chamberlain with his signature skyhook on April 5, 1984, sat courtside at Tuesday’s game and stood to applaud James after the record was broken.

Play was stopped to recognize the achievement and to let James address the crowd.

“I just want to say thank you to the Laker faithful, you guys are one of a kind,” James said.

“To be able to be in the presence of such a legend as Kareem is unbelievable, it’s very humbling. Please give a standing ovation to ‘The Captain.'”

Tributes from his family, U.S. President Joe Biden and students from his “I Promise School” were played inside the arena, while NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told Reuters it was an “historic moment”.

“These types of significant milestones capture the attention of not only basketball fans but broader society,” Silver said.

“LeBron’s pursuit of the scoring record is no exception and billions of people will become aware of this milestone.”

All season long it has been a question of when, not if, James would topple the record. Some thought it may come during Thursday’s home game against Milwaukee but James had other ideas.

Arriving at the arena in a jet black suit, black shirt and dark sunglasses, James looked like he was going to a funeral.

Hours later, he buried Abdul-Jabbar’s record.

A deafening roar greeted him during the pre-game introductions and another came when he buried a three-pointer five minutes into the opening quarter for his first points of the night.

He cut the number he needed to single digits on a straightway three in the second half that sent fans leaping from their seats before the 21-foot, history-making bucket arrived with 10 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

“It’s so surreal, because it’s something I never made a goal of mine or something I set out to do,” James said after the game. “It just happened.”

Drafted into the league as a teenager, the Akron, Ohio native has more than delivered on the massive expectations put on his broad shoulders at a young age.

A versatile forward, he helping usher in the era of position-less basketball, winning four titles with three different teams, four MVP awards and four Finals MVP awards.

James sits top of the regular season points list followed by Abdul-Jabbar with Utah Jazz great Karl Malone (36,928), late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant (33,643) and Chicago Bulls icon Michael Jordan (32,292) rounding out the top five.

“When I read about the history of the game I never thought that this record would ever be touched,” James said.

“I just didn’t think nobody would have that type of longevity to come out on the floor and play at that level for so long.

“So it’s just a complete honor to be a part of this league, to be a part of some of the greats that have ever played this game and to be right at the apex with them.”

Last month, the 38-year-old was named to a record-tying 19th All Star game, a mark also held by Abdul-Jabbar.

“For sure I know I can play a couple more years,” James said.

“The way I’m feeling, the way my body has been reacting to me throughout the course of this season, I know I can play a couple more years.

“It’s all about my mind. My mind is still into it and I am still motivated to go out and try to compete for championships because I feel like that’s what I can still do.”

Despite James’ historic night, the Lakers fell 133-130 to the Thunder and are now 25-30 on the season.

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Why I’m not hopeful that the Republican-led House investigation will stay grounded in reality

You can’t get Americans to agree on much these days – not on gas stoves, not on Chinese spy balloons, not on the books allowed in school libraries.

But one thing they apparently can bond over is whether the Republicans in the House of Representatives are likely to spend the next two years responsibly serving as the loyal opposition to President Biden and the Democrats who control the Senate.

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