The U.S. government faces a significant risk that it will no longer be able to pay all of its obligations “at some point in the first two weeks of June” if Congress doesn’t raise the federal borrowing limit, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.
The nonpartisan agency’s projection falls in line with a forecast that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made on May 1, as she said her department’s best estimate is that it could become unable to continue to satisfy all obligations “by early June, and potentially as early as June 1.”
It also fits with an estimate released on Tuesday by a think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, which said the government is likely to have insufficient cash to meet all of its financial obligations as soon as early June.
“The extent to which the Treasury will be able to fund the government’s ongoing operations will remain uncertain throughout May, even if the Treasury ultimately runs out of funds in early June,” the CBO said. “That uncertainty exists because the timing and amount of revenue collections and outlays over the intervening weeks could differ from CBO’s projections.”
While a breakthrough hasn’t happened yet in Washington’s debt-ceiling standoff, there is increasing chatter about what could go into a bipartisan deal that ends the stalemate and avoids a market-shaking default.
President Joe Biden and the four top U.S. lawmakers had planned to hold another meeting Friday on the debt limit after a parley on Tuesday, but it was postponed. A source familiar with the meetings called the delay a “positive” development, as staff work is continuing and Friday wasn’t yet the right time to re-convene Biden and the congressional leaders.
The CBO also said Friday that the government could end up staying solvent through the end of July without a debt-limit hike.
“If the Treasury’s cash and extraordinary measures are sufficient to finance the government until June 15, expected quarterly tax receipts and additional extraordinary measures will probably allow the government to continue financing operations through at least the end of July,” the agency said.
But it warned that if the debt limit is not raised or suspended “before the Treasury’s cash and extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government will have to delay making payments for some activities, default on its debt obligations, or both.”
“Those actions could result in distress in credit markets, disruptions in economic activity, and rapid increases in borrowing rates for the Treasury,” the agency said.
In addition, the CBO updated a budget forecast on Friday, saying its “current projections show a federal budget deficit of $1.5 trillion for 2023 — which is $0.1 trillion more than the agency estimated in February.”
“The project cumulative deficit over the 2024–2033 period — $20.2 trillion — is about the same as the shortfall CBO projected in February,” the agency said.
“Measured in relation to the size of the economy, deficits grow from 6.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year to 6.9 percent in 2033 — well above their 50-year average of 3.6 percent of GDP.”
President Joe Biden rolled out a plan on Monday that targets how airlines handle flight cancellations and significant delays that are within a carrier’s control.
Biden said his administration will propose a new regulation later this year that would require airlines to provide cash compensation in addition to refunds and amenities for stranded passengers.
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A gunman apparently firing at random killed eight people and wounded 14 in a series of villages in Serbia, authorities said, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect Friday after an all-night manhunt.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called Thursday’s shootings an attack on the whole nation — and said the person arrested wore a T-shirt with a pro-Nazi slogan on it but did not specify a motive.
The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, Wednesday’s shooting was the first at a school in the country’s modern history.
The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Public figures, politicians and experts appeared successively on TV Friday, desperately seeking to explain the tragedies. The first made the country numb with grief, while the second heightened feelings of insecurity and anxiety over what might come next. As a nationwide period of mourning began, TV screens were filled with people wearing black and music was banned from the airwaves as well as in cafes and restaurants.
“This is a moment when a nation decides whether it will go along a healing path,” Actor Srdjan Timarov said on N1 television. “The only other way is to declare capitulation.”
Late Thursday, an attacker shot at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, south of the capital. Vučić said the assailant targeted people “wherever they were.”
“I heard some tak-tak-tak sounds,” recalled Milan Prokić, a resident of Dubona, near Mladenovac. Prokić said he first thought people were shooting to celebrate a birth, as is tradition in Serbia. “But it wasn’t that. Shame, great shame,” he added.
Forensic police inspect a shooting scene in the village of Dubona, Serbia, some 50 kilometers south of Belgrade, on Friday.
AP/Armin Durgut
Police said a suspect, identified by the initials U.B., was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Belgrade.
Authorities released a photo showing a young man in a police car in a blue T-shirt with the slogan “Generation 88” on it. The double eights are often used as shorthand for “Heil Hitler” since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Vučić said the suspect repeated the word “disparagement” but it wasn’t clear what that meant.
The president vowed to the nation in an address that the suspect “will never again see the light of the day.” He referred to the attack as an act of terror and announced tougher gun-control measures, on top of ones put forward by the government a day earlier.
He called for a moratorium on new licenses for all weapons in the next two years, a review of all current licenses, longer prison sentences for those who break the rules and “fierce” punishment for anyone with illegal weapons. But first police will offer an amnesty to encourage people to hand over illegal guns — an action that has had limited success in the past.
“We will disarm Serbia,” Vučić promised, saying the government would outline the new rules on Friday.
Before the second shooting, Serbia spent much of Thursday reeling. Students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to slain peers. Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes.
Wednesday’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar school also left seven people hospitalized, six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said Thursday.
Authorities have identified the shooter as Kosta Kecmanović and said he is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental hospital, and his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security.
Gun ownership is common in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: The country has one of the highest number of firearms per capita in the world. And guns are often fired into the air at celebrations in the region.
Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the number of weapons in Serbia, a highly divided country where convicted war criminals are frequently glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s, as well as ongoing economic hardship, could trigger such outbursts.
Dragan Popadić, a psychology professor at Belgrade University, told the Associated Press that the school shooting has exposed the level of violence present in society and caused a deep shock.
“People suddenly have been shaken into reality and the ocean of violence that we live in, how it has grown over time and how much our society has been neglected for decades,” he warned. “It is as if flashlights have been lit over our lives and we can no longer just mind our own business.”
The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, rose 4.8 index points to 48.6 in April.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal forecast a decline to a 43.8 reading.
This is the eighth straight reading below the 50 threshold that indicates contraction territory.
The index is produced by the ISM-Chicago with MNI. It is released to subscribers three minutes before its release to the public at 9:45 am Eastern. It is the last of the regional manufacturing indices before the national ISM data for April is released on Monday.
So far, the regional data suggest a modest improvement this month in the manufacturing ISM. In March, the ISM factory index fell to 46.3% from 47.7% in the prior month. It was the fourth month in contraction territory.
The Republican-run House of Representatives approved a debt-ceiling bill in a 217-215 vote on Wednesday evening, marking one step in a process that’s getting closely watched by traders worried about a possible U.S. default.
The bill, dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, aims to raise the limit on federal borrowing for a year while also cutting spending. President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have said the lift should be made without spending cuts or other conditions, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his fellow Republicans…
Defense spending is on the rise around the globe. That’s good for Lockheed Martin’s business, but investors should still brace for a sales “miss” when the company reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning.
Wall Street is looking for per-share earnings of $6.05 from $15 billion in sales. A year ago,
Lockheed
(ticker: LMT) reported per-share earnings of $6.44 from sales of just under $15 billion.
SpaceX scrubbed the eagerly anticipated test launch of its giant Starship rocket minutes before blastoff Monday.
The launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, would have been the first flight test to integrate SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy rockets. The largest rocket ever built, Starship is designed to play a key role in returning humans to the Moon, as well as in future Mars exploration.
SpaceX scrubbed the uncrewed launch attempt about nine minutes before blastoff, apparently because of an issue related to its stage 1 rocket.
“A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today,” tweeted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
“Standing down from today’s flight test attempt; team is working towards next available opportunity,” SpaceX tweeted.
When it scrubbed the launch, SpaceX transitioned to a “wet dress rehearsal,” continuing to load propellant. SpaceX also continued its countdown to T-minus 40 seconds.
“Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few days,” tweeted Musk.
“Unfortunately, due to needing to recycle the propellant, we’re looking at a minimum of 48 hours until we are able to attempt this flight test again,” said Kate Tice, SpaceX’s quality systems engineering manager, during the launch livestream.
The contest to become the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee is heating up, with Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and longshot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy each announcing runs since the beginning of the year, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson joining the fray in a Sunday-show appearance on April 2.
And former President Donald Trump appears to be getting a political lift from a Manhattan district attorney’s case against him, though some analysts don’t see the boost lasting.
Biden gave a fresh hint on Monday about his re-election bid at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, saying in an interview with Al Roker of NBC’s “Today” show that he aims to take part in “at least three or four more Easter egg rolls. Maybe five. Maybe six.”
“I’m planning on running, Al, but we’re not prepared to announce it yet,” the president said.
Democrats largely have closed ranks behind President Joe Biden ahead of next year’s election, but he isn’t completely without challengers for the party’s nomination.
Author and activist Marianne Williamson has thrown her hat in the ring, pursuing a longshot bid that comes after her 2020 presidential campaign fizzled out before the Iowa caucuses.
Why isn’t she falling in line and supporting her party’s incumbent president? What’s her pitch to people who think she’s not a serious candidate? What are her top economic proposals?
Williamson, 70, tackled those questions and more in a phone interview earlier this week.
Our Q&A with the Democratic presidential hopeful has been edited for clarity and length.
MarketWatch: In a nutshell, could you explain why you’re running for president?
Williamson: I’m running for president because I believe that some things need to be said and some changes need to be made, in order to repair some serious damage that’s been done to our democracy, to our country, to our people and to our environment over the last 50 years.
MarketWatch: You’ve talked about running to address “systemic economic injustices endured by millions of Americans” because of the “undue influence of corporate money on our political system.” What do you see as the top examples of that?
Williamson: During the 1970s, the average American worker had decent benefits, could afford a home, could afford a yearly vacation, could afford a car and could afford to send their child to college. In the last 48 years, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1% of Americans. That transfer has decimated our middle class. We are now at a point where if you are among 20% of Americans, then the economy’s doing pretty well for you. But, unfortunately, that 20% is surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair. We have 60,000 people in the United States who die every year because they can’t afford healthcare XLV, -1.11%,
one in four Americans living with a medical debt, and 18 million Americans unable to fill the prescriptions that their doctors give to them.
If you are in the club in America, if you are making it in America — and I have sold some books, so I understand the high side of the free market and have benefited, and I’m grateful for that — but no conscious persons wants to feel that they create wealth at the expense of other people having a chance. That is not American. It’s not what the American Dream is supposed to be.
I’m not trying to whitewash and romanticize American capitalism before this era. I’m not saying we were ever perfect, but it does seem to me that when I was growing up, the social consensus is that we were supposed to try. We knew that the higher good was that there would be this balance between individual liberty, including economic liberty, and a concern for the common good. But today concern for the common good has become almost derided as some quaint notion, and that we shouldn’t really give much more than lip service to it. And that’s a lot of human suffering that occurs because of that change in the social contract.
MarketWatch: Here’s kind of a two-part question. What would be your top economic priorities, and how in particular would you address high inflation and the recent banking KBE, -1.65% crisis?
Williamson: I’d like to see universal healthcare. I want to see tuition-free college at state colleges and universities, which is what we had in this country until the 1960s. There should be free childcare. There should be paid family leave. There should be guaranteed sick pay and a livable wage. And I think Americans are waking up to the fact that those things that I just mentioned are considered moderate issues in every other advanced democracy. They should not be considered left-wing fringe issues. They are granted to the citizens of every other advanced democracy.
That was your first question. The second has to do with high inflation. A lot of that high inflation has to do with price gouging by huge corporations, whether it has to do with food companies, transportation companies and so forth. All of those CEOs should testify before Congress and talk about the ways that they have — for the sake of their own profits — gouged the American people, particularly at such a time as this. And this is what happens when we normalize such a lack of conscience and such a lack of ethics within our system.
In terms of what happened with the bank in Silicon Valley SIVBQ, -3.39%,
which is what your third question was, right? I think the depositors should be made whole, but the bank executives who were taking multimillion-dollar bonuses for themselves, both before and right after the crash, they certainly should not get those bonuses. And also it’s concerning that some of the tech investors that would benefit the most from those deposits were the ones who caused the run on the bank. I don’t think that they should receive the benefit of what happens when those deposits are made whole. But the average depositor absolutely should be made whole in such cases.
MarketWatch: You mentioned free tuition and child care. Where would the funding for that come from?
Williamson: The funding should come, first of all, from taxation. The 2017 tax cut in this country was a $2 trillion tax cut, and 83 cents of every dollar went to the highest-earning corporations and individuals. Now that tax cut also included the middle-class tax cut, and the middle-class tax cut was good.
That tax cut for the highest earners should be repealed, but the middle-class tax cut should be put back in immediately.
Secondly, we should stop all the corporate subsidies. Why are we giving subsidies to these companies that are already making multibillions of dollars in profit and often then price gouging the American people?
Third, I believe there should be a wealth tax. If somebody has $50 million, I don’t have any problem with their paying an extra 2% tax. And if they have $1 billion, let them pay another 1%. Somebody with a $50 million portfolio, much less $1 billion in assets, would not even feel that change, but the changes in people’s lives that would be created by those shifts would be huge.
MarketWatch: Your campaign often gets described as a real longshot bid. Why are you running when so many people say you have a low chance for success?
Williamson: Well, certainly Donald Trump was considered a longshot. For that matter, when he began Barack Obama was considered a longshot. Surely we remember when Hillary Clinton was considered a shoo-in.
MarketWatch: A recent Monmouth University poll of Democratic voters found 11% had a favorable view of you, 16% had an unfavorable view, 21% had no opinion, and 52% had not heard of you. How do you win over those voters who have an unfavorable view, and how do you reach the folks who haven’t heard of you?
Williamson: Well, there was a poll that came out last week that put me at 10%, including 18% with independents and 21% with people under 30.
It’s very difficult for someone like myself to get the message out when you have such institutional resistance to my even being in the conversation, and that is displayed in various ways. But there is independent media today. God knows there’s TikTok, where my information seems to be doing quite well.
This early, no candidate should be allowing the polls to determine their path forward. I didn’t go into this expecting the approval of institutional forces. And I, as a matter of fact, expected the kind of resistance that I’ve received, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that a certain agenda be placed before the American people, and I am providing that option — the option of that alternative agenda.
I believe that agenda is the way for the Democrats to win in 2024. But even more importantly, I think it’s the agenda that will lead to the repair of this country.
MarketWatch: You mentioned TikTok, and that has been a hot topic in Washington, D.C., in recent weeks. Do you have a view on the Democratic and Republican proposals to ban TikTok in the U.S.?
Williamson: I think the United States government does need to be concerned with tech XLK, -1.00%
surveillance, but I wish they were as concerned when it comes to American-run companies as when it comes to Chinese. It’s a serious issue, it’s a valid issue — the whole issue of surveillance. But it’s a gnarly issue as well, and rushing to shut something down, which is so obviously a platform depended on by millions and millions of Americans for information sharing, is never something that should be done lightly.
MarketWatch: Some Americans may know you only for your spiritual work, and these folks may not think you’re a serious presidential candidate. The White House press secretary indicated she’s in that camp. What’s your message to win those folks over?
Williamson: First of all, I don’t think of my campaign as quote-unquote trying to win anyone over. There’s something that I read years ago that has always guided my work: “If there’s something you genuinely need to say, there’s someone out there who genuinely needs to hear it.” I am speaking to people who I know agree with me. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t aware that millions of people agree with me.
I think it’s very sad that the president would allow a presidential press podium to be used to mock a political opponent, and I think that many people were and are offended by that. This is a democracy. We should have as many voices out there as possible. We should have as many people running in an election as feel moved. Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. There are ideas on the left and ideas on the right. There are ideas all across the spectrum, and this is a point in American history where we as Americans should hear them all.
MarketWatch: What do you think are some of the main things that President Biden has gotten right, and in what areas has he gone wrong?
Williamson: Well, the first thing he did right was he defeated Donald Trump. The president has taken an incremental approach to America’s problems, and I believe that he does wish to alleviate the suffering of many people whose lives are affected by some deeply unjust systems. But I don’t think that the alleviation of stress is enough right now. We need fundamental economic reform.
We also need a serious answer to climate change, and the president’s approval of the Willow project is not that. The president has said that he recognizes that climate change is an existential crisis, and yet he has given more oil CL00, +0.34%
permits than even Donald Trump did, and he has approved the Willow project.
The Democratic House and Senate — they did cut child poverty in half with the child tax credit, but then, when that expired six months later, they didn’t bother to permanentize it.
These are the kinds of half-measures and incremental measures which are not enough to change the fundamental economic patterns in this country that lead to so much chronic economic anxiety and despair.
Joe Biden is shown in conversation in August 2019 with Marianne Williamson during an event for Democratic presidential candidates in Clear Lake, Iowa.
AFP via Getty Images
MarketWatch: One thing that comes up often with President Biden is his age, which is 80, while you’re 70. Do you think his age should be a concern, or is it ageism to bring it up?
Williamson: I think the individual has to consider this themselves. I have a problem, of course, contributing to the conversation because of the issue of ageism. But on the other hand, everybody can see for themselves what they can see for themselves.
I can only say if I were 80, I wouldn’t be running. But you know, I will not take potshots at the president, and I think that veers into potshots.
MarketWatch: Let’s talk about taking on Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or whomever the Republican nominee ends up being. Why do you think you’re the Democrat who could end up beating one of them?
Williamson: Republicans are going to throw some big lies at the Democrats in 2024, and the only way that we’re going to defeat them, in my opinion, is to tell some big truths. Franklin Roosevelt said we would not have to worry about a fascist takeover in this country as long as democracy delivered on its promises. Democracy has not delivered on its promises. The only way to beat Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis in 2024 is to propose an agenda in which democracy once again delivers on its promises to the majority of the American people. And that would mean the issues I mentioned before: universal healthcare, tuition-free college, free child care, a guaranteed livable wage and paid family leave. Those are given to the citizens in every other advanced democracy, and there is no good reason whatsoever why they are not delivered to the average citizen in the United States.
MarketWatch: There are Democrats who could be challenging President Biden for the party’s 2024 nomination, but they aren’t and instead they’re supporting him. Why aren’t there more efforts in the party to get people to run for president?
Williamson: Well, you’d have to ask them why they’re not running. But there’s clearly a trope that the field should clear, and everybody should simply get in line with the opinion of the Democratic establishment that Biden is the man because they have decided so. I don’t see it that way. I believe the Democratic primary voters — and independent voters and anyone else, if it’s an open primary — they should decide who the Democratic candidate is. To me, that’s what democracy is. That’s what elections are about.
MarketWatch: The Democratic Party is not expected to hold presidential primary debates for 2024. What can you do to change that and get some time on a debate stage?
Williamson: Well, I hope to have a successful campaign. I hope to have high poll numbers. I hope to have a lot of people in those primary states yelling foul. It’s a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The American people should hear what their options are, and that’s what a debate would be. If enough people realize that and believe it and make laws about it, then that is what will happen.
I think sometimes there’s a kind of learned powerlessness on the part of the American people today. We forget the radicalism of the American experiment, which is that the governance of this country is supposed to be in our hands. But the American people have been trained to expect too little and almost trained to give up the power of independent thought. I hope that my campaign and other things that occur in this campaign season will awaken people, and I think a certain kind of awakening is happening already.
MarketWatch: We’re a financially focused publication, so here’s a question along those lines. I looked at your financial disclosure from your 2020 presidential run. It showed some investments in big public companies like Apple AAPL, -0.58%
and Mastercard MA, +0.27%
…
Williamson: Wait, what are you talking about?
MarketWatch: That’s from your 2019 executive-branch personnel public financial disclosure report. It shows investments in various stocks and funds. The question — for our readers who are investors or people saving for retirement — is could you describe your own approach to investing and preparing for retirement?
Williamson: Socially responsible investing, and that’s why I said, “Whoa, what?” Because I believe in investing in socially responsible companies.
MarketWatch: One last question: What else would you like people to know?
Williamson: America has some serious problems, but we have infinite potential to solve those problems. We need to revisit our first principles, as John Adams said, and find that place in our hearts where, as Americans, as adults in this generation, we recognize that this profound idea of American democracy is put in our hands for safekeeping. And that doesn’t just give us rights; it gives us responsibilities. The political system in the United States speaks to us too often like we’re children, like we’re seventh-graders. Our public dialogue is too often on this kind of seventh-grade level. This is not a time to be an immature thinker, and it’s not a time to get into mean-spiritedness or cynicism either. If we allow ourselves to rise to the occasion, no matter what our politics are, we’re going to repair what has been broken, and we are going to initiate a new beginning. I think that’s possible. Other generations have done it, and we can do it, too.
MarketWatch: Thank you for being available to chat.
(ticker: BA) has run into a new problem with its 737 MAX jet. The issue will test investors nerves in coming weeks, and raise more questions about the company’s ability to increase production in 2023.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In an extraordinary act of political retaliation, Tennessee Republicans on Thursday expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state Legislature for their role in a protest that called for more gun control in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Nashville. A third Democrat was narrowly spared by a one-vote margin.
The split votes drew accusations of racism, with lawmakers ousting Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are both Black, while Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white, survived the vote on her expulsion.
Banishment is a move the chamber has used only a handful times since the Civil War. Most state legislatures possess the power to expel members, but it is generally reserved as a punishment for lawmakers accused of serious misconduct, not used as a weapon against political opponents.
Jones, Pearson and Johnson joined in protesting last week as hundreds of protesters packed the Capitol to call for passage of gun-control measures. While demonstrators filled galleries, the three Democrats approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn and participated in a chant.
The protest unfolded days after the shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian school where six people were killed, including three children.
“We are losing our democracy. This is not normal. This is not OK,” Pearson told reporters as he waited to learn whether he would be banished too. The three “broke a House rule because we’re fighting for kids who are dying from gun violence and people in our communities who want to see an end to the proliferation of weaponry in our communities.”
Johnson, a retired teacher, said her concern about school shootings was personal, recalling a day in 2008 when students came running toward her out of a cafeteria because a student had just been shot and killed there.
“The trauma on those faces, you will never, ever forget. I don’t want to forget it,” she said.
Thousands of people flocked to the Capitol on Thursday to support the Democrats, cheering and chanting outside the House chamber so loudly that the noise drowned out the proceedings.
The trio held hands as they walked onto the House floor, and Pearson raised his fist to the crowd during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Offered a chance to defend himself before the vote, Jones said the GOP responded to the shooting with a different kind of attack.
“We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy,” he said.
If expelled, Jones vowed that he would continue pressing for action on guns.
“I’ll be out there with the people every week, demanding that you act,” he said.
Republican Rep. Gino Bulso said the three Democratic representatives “effectively conducted a mutiny.”
“The gentleman shows no remorse,” Bulso said, referring to Jones. “He does not even recognize that what he did was wrong. So not to expel him would simply invite him and his colleagues to engage in mutiny on the House floor.”
The two expelled lawmakers may not be gone for long. County commissions in their districts get to pick replacements to serve until a special election can be scheduled. They also would be eligible to run in the special election.
Under the Tennessee Constitution, lawmakers cannot be expelled for the same offense twice.
Republican Rep. Sabi Kumar advised Jones, who is Black, to be more collegial and less focused on race.
“You have a lot to offer, but offer it in a vein where people are accepting of your ideas,” Kumar said.
Jones said he did not intend to assimilate in order to be accepted. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make a change for my community,” he replied.
Fielding questions from lawmakers, Johnson reminded them that she did not raise her voice nor did she use the bullhorn as did the other two, both of whom are new lawmakers and among the youngest members in the chamber.
But she also suggested that race was likely a factor on why Jones and Pearson were ousted but not her, telling reporters that it “might have to do with the color of our skin.”
That notion was echoed by state Sen. London Lamar, a Democrat representing Memphis.
Lawmakers “expelled the two black men and kept the white woman,” Lamar, a Black woman, said via Twitter. “The racism that is on display today! Wow!”
After sitting quietly for hours and hushing anyone who cried out during the proceedings, people in the gallery erupted in screams and boos following the final vote. There were chants of “Shame!” and “Fascists!”
Lawmakers quickly adjourned for the evening.
Outrage over the expulsions underscored not only the ability of the Republican supermajority to silence opponents, but its increasing willingness to do so.
In Washington, President Joe Biden blasted the GOP’s priorities.
“Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action. It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” Biden tweeted.
Many of the protesters traveled from Memphis and Knoxville, areas that Pearson and Johnson represent, and stood in a line that wrapped around the Capitol to get inside.
Protesters outside the chamber held up signs that said, “School zones shouldn’t be war zones,” “Muskets didn’t fire 950 rounds per minute” with a photo of George Washington, and “You can silence a gun … but not the voice of the people.“
Before the expulsion vote, House members debated more than 20 bills, including a school safety proposal requiring public and private schools to submit their building safety plans to the state. The bill did not address gun control, sparking criticism from some Democratic members that lawmakers were only addressing a symptom and not the cause of school shootings.
Past expulsion votes have taken place under distinctly different circumstances.
In 2019, lawmakers faced pressure to expel former Republican Rep. David Byrd after he faced accusations of sexual misconduct dating to when he was a high school basketball coach three decades earlier. Republicans declined to take any action, pointing out that he was reelected as the allegations surfaced. Byrd retired last year.
Last year, the state Senate expelled Democrat Katrina Robinson after she was convicted of using about $3,400 in federal grant money on wedding expenses instead of her nursing school.
Before that case, state lawmakers last ousted a House member in 2016 when the chamber voted 70-2 to remove Republican Rep. Jeremy Durham after an attorney general’s investigation detailed allegations of improper sexual contact with at least 22 women during his four years in office.
“This landmark agreement has the potential to transform the Middle East by realigning its major powers,” the journal Foreign Affairs declared, adding that the gambit is “weaving the region into China’s global ambitions. For Beijing, the announcement was a great leap forward in its rivalry with Washington.”
“ ‘China has seen a space where it is hard for the West to really block off — heading into issues [that the Western powers] feel are too intractable or too toxic to touch and trying to demonstrate that there might be a different way to mediate or involve yourself in these problems.’ ”
— Kerry Brown, King’s College London
“There are changes coming that haven’t happened in 100 years,” Xi told Putin as the self-described “dear friends” concluded their talks. “When we are together, we are driving these changes.”
China’s assertiveness comes after three years of COVID restrictions that saw the country close off from the world in an attempt to tame the virus, a policy that was suddenly scrapped in December.
“It has sunk in that China needs friends. It has ended up too isolated, and that has cut across the narrative of the Xi third term, which was due to be somewhat more sunny,” Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, told MarketWatch.
Others agreed. “China certainly is exiting a period of diplomatic isolation during the height of COVID,” said Victor Shih, the Ho Miu Lam chair in China and Pacific relations at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on Chinese elite politics.
That exit has been swift, with Beijing taking concrete steps toward a belief that previously had been mostly rhetoric — that the U.S.-led global system is not the only path.
“China has seen a space where it is hard for the West to really block off — heading into issues [that the Western powers] feel are too intractable or too toxic to touch and trying to demonstrate that there might be a different way to mediate or involve yourself in these problems,” Brown said.
Those sentiments are increasingly pervasive across China, particularly in government, academia and media.
“The U.S., which is accustomed to enjoying the spotlight, is now puzzled for it never thought that one day China would be more popular than it,” state tabloid Global Times said in a front-page story last Thursday.
Wang Yong, director of the Center for International Political Economy and the Center for American Studies at Peking University, told MarketWatch, “The rise of China as a great power is facing an increasingly complicated situation, mainly because U.S. elites judge China as the foremost strategic and systemic threat, and attack China’s development.”
In fact, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is stopping over in the U.S. this week after visits to the island’s few remaining allies in Central America. Beijing has threatened for weeks against her being welcomed by any high-level American officials.
Those threats turned to ire on Monday, when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would meet with Tsai on Wednesday in California. China said this could lead to “serious confrontation” and that Beijing would “resolutely fight back” — without giving specifics.
“ ‘Why is it assumed we live in a U.S. world?’ ”
— Alan Ma, graduate student, Tsinghua University.
“Gradually deviating from the past promise of ‘one China,’ promoting Taiwan independence and using Taiwan to contain China’s development — these could trigger a China-U.S. war,” Peking University’s Wang said from Beijing.
Average citizens including younger people expressed frustration with U.S. policy.
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, arrives on Thursday at her hotel in New York.
AP/John Minchillo
“Why isn’t it China’s time to lead? Why is it assumed we live in a U.S. world?” asked 27-year-old Alan Ma, a graduate student in politics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
Other areas are reaching heightened levels of tension. China’s military said last month it drove out an American destroyer ship that had “illegally” entered the South China Sea. And the CEO of Chinese-owned video sensation TikTok appeared before U.S. lawmakers in hopes of preventing an American ban on the app over national-security concerns.
But China’s rise, however rapid, must be put in a realistic context, experts said.
“I don’t think that we can say China has entered a new period as a global power until it has deployed large troop contingents overseas on its own,” said UC San Diego’s Shih.
Tanner Brown covers China for MarketWatch and Barron’s.
Former President Donald Trump plans to fly to New York’s LaGuardia Airport Monday night, then spend the night at Trump Tower and surrender Tuesday morning before a court appearance at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time, according to an NBC 4 NY report citing unnamed sources. Trump is expected to face an arraignment on Tuesday after a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict him.
Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. plans to cease operations, according to a CNBC report Thursday afternoon.
Virgin Orbit stock VORB, -16.02%
plunged 45% in after-hours trading after declining 16% in Thursday’s regular session.
The company is making the move after failing to secure necessary funding, Chief Executive Dan Hart told employees at an all-hands meeting, according to the report.
Virgin Orbit disclosed in a Thursday afternoon filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would lay off about 675 employees, representing roughly 85% of the company’s workforce, “in order to reduce expenses in light of the company’s inability to secure meaningful funding.” The layoffs impact “all areas” of the company.
The company expects to incur $15 million in charges related to the layoffs. Virgin Orbit disclosed that it sold and issued a $10.9 million convertible note and would use the net proceeds to help fund severance and other related costs.
Virgin Orbit didn’t immediately respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment and confirmation of the reported plans to cease operations.
A White House spokesman suggested Chinese officials should not be upset by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the U.S. this week, with his remarks coming after Beijing threatened retaliation if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with her. “There’s no reason for them to react harshly,” said John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, during a press briefing on Wednesday.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in what marks the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
The suspect also died after being shot by police following the violence at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade. Police said the shooter was a 28-year-old woman from Nashville, after initially saying she appeared to be in her teens.
Authorities were working to identify her and whether she had a connection to the school.
President Joe Biden called on Congress again to pass his assault weapons ban in the wake of the Nashville shooting.
“It’s heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare,” he said.
First lady Jill Biden also spoke about the slayings on Monday.
“I am truly without words. And our children deserve better,” she said during a National League of Cities conference in Washington. “We stand – all of us, we stand – with Nashville in prayer.”
The tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.
Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news briefing.
Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. He said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.
The Covenant School’s victims were pronounced dead at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.
Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.
“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you.”
Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.
“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”
On WTVF TV, reporter Hannah McDonald said that her mother-in-law works at the front desk at The Covenant School. The woman had stepped outside for a break Monday morning and was coming back when she heard gunshots, McDonald said during a live broadcast. The reporter said she has not been able to speak with her mother-in-law but said her husband had.
The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in 2001, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the city’s top universities and home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.
The grade school has roughly 50 staff members. The school’s website features the motto “Shepherding Hearts, Empowering Minds, Celebrating Childhood.”
Top legislative leaders announced Monday that the GOP-dominant Statehouse would meet briefly later in the evening and delay taking up any legislation.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he was “closely monitoring” the situation, while Democratic state Rep. Bob Freeman, whose district includes The Covenant School, called Monday’s shooting an “unimaginable tragedy.”
“I live around the corner from Covenant and pass by it often. I have friends who attend both church and school there,” Freeman said in a statement. “I have also visited the church in the past. It tears my heart apart to see this.”
Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years.
On Christmas Day 2020, a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.
A man shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in April 2018. He was sentenced in February 2022 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
In September 2017, a masked gunman opened fire at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, walking silently down the aisle as he shot unsuspecting congregants. One person was killed and seven others were wounded. The gunman was sentenced in 2019 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Is the banking crisis over? Well, famous last words and all that, but in the early hours of Monday things are looking better: no bank collapsed over the weekend, SVB has a new owner, and even Deutsche Bank DBK, +6.21%
shares are trading higher.
Or maybe not. There’s still the issue of commercial property, which accounts for 40% of all loans made by banks outside the top 25 by assets, according to Capital Economics.
“In a worst case scenario it’s possible that a ‘doom loop’ develops between smaller banks and commercial property, in which concerns about the health of these banks leads to deposit flight, which causes banks to call in commercial real estate loans, which then accelerates a downturn in a sector that forms a key part of its asset base, which intensifies concerns about the health of the banks and thus completes the vicious cycle,” the firm warns.
And Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies, says there’s another worry on the horizon: the looming end of the student loan repayment moratorium.
Student loan payments will have to resume by the end of August, or possibly earlier depending on a Supreme Court decision, meaning 45 million people will have to start paying loans again.
Citing New York Fed data, he says the average student loan payment for a borrower not in deferment was $393 per month — about 1% of spending, depending on which metric is used. “This may sound like a modest hit, but the impact on income is very similar to the tax increases associated with ‘The Fiscal Cliff’ of 2013, which was followed by a noticeable slowdown in consumption,” he says.
Granted, pandemic savings have acted as a buffer for inflation. But roughly half of that is now gone, and those savings were concentrated in wealthier households anyway. “Households still have roughly half of the excess savings from the pandemic sitting on their balance sheets, but there is less cushion to absorb a substantial increase in outlays.,” he says.
Student loan delinquency rates are basically zero at the moment — how can you be late when you don’t have to make payments — but those for autos, mortages and credit cards have picked up lately.
“The strain imposed on household balance sheets by the resumption of student loan payments could cause demand for loans to pick up, but only from borrowers who are having a harder time servicing their debt,” he says.
“Declining loan demand was already a profitability risk for small and regional banks prior to the recent emergence of stress and deposit flight. Risks have clearly increased over the last month, and they will increase further as household credit quality deteriorates,” he concludes.
Simons didn’t even mention that the student-loan cliff coincides with another worry, the looming debt-ceiling issue. The Bipartisan Policy Center last month said the day when the federal government can no longer meet all its obligations will likely arrive in summer or early fall.
NQ00, +0.41%
were pointing higher, following the second straight week of gains for the S&P 500 SPX, +0.50%.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 3.46%.
First Citizens Bank FCNCA, +45.50%
is buying $72 billion of assets from the fallen Silicon Valley Bank at a $16.5 billion discount, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced, as the deposit-insurance fund is set to take a $20 billion loss. Investors cheered the deal, as First Citizens’ stock jumped 24%.
The news lifted regional banks including First Republic Bank FRC, +19.17%
in premarket trade.
Fed Gov. Philip Jefferson is speaking at 5 p.m. on the transmission and implementation of monetary policy. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told the “Face the Nation” program said the stress in the financial sector brings the U.S. closer to a recession.
McDonald’s MCD, +0.01%
closed its stores in Israel, part of a broader shutdown that has clamped outgoing flights in protest of new judicial rules advanced by the ruling coalition.
Novartis NVS, +7.12%
shares rallied as the drugmaker reported positive trial data on a breast-cancer drug.
This chart captures the deposit outflows from small banks to large banks, covering data through March 15 that the Fed released after the close on Friday. Jeroen Blokland, who authors The Market Routine blog, says small bank woes increase the chance of a recession. “Contrary to 2022, markets may be right and [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell wrong on interest rates. Unfortunately, one look at earnings expectations reveals that markets are not pricing a recession at this point. I remain cautious about equities and other risky assets like real estate and high yield bonds,” he says.
The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei recreated a Monet — using Lego.
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The contest to become the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee is heating up, with Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN, and long-shot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy each announcing their runs last month.
Another notable move is the rolloutof a book by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in which he argues that his approach to managing his state can provide a model for the rest of the country.
So who are all the GOP politicians in the mix for 2024?
Below is MarketWatch’s list of the potential Republican presidential contenders and the status of their candidacies.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden appears poised to announce this spring that he’ll seek re-election in 2024. Democrats seem to be closing ranks behind Biden, although author and activist Marianne Williamson said she’s seeking the party’s nomination again.
Biden made a joke Tuesday about re-election at a White House event at which he presented medals to authors, singers and other honorees. He noted that novelist Colson Whitehead had won back-to-back Pulitzer Prizes.
“I’m kind of looking for a back-to-back myself,” the president said.
