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Gauge retirement readiness: You don’t want to die at your desk sending an email
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Delta stock surges after airline swings to profit, beats revenue forecasts and provides upbeat outlook
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Shares of Delta Air Lines Inc. surged Thursday, after the air carrier swung to a first-quarter profit as revenue rose above expectations, and said it was “confident” in its full-year projections given a “strong” outlook for the current quarter.
The company reported a net loss that narrowed to $363 million, or 57 cents a share, from $940 million, or $1.48 a share, in the same period a year ago.
But…
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I-bonds are over, long live I-bonds: This is your warning that rates are about to drop precipitously.
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Series I bonds had a good two-year run at the top of the interest-rate heap, but the next 6-month rate that will be announced on May 1 is likely to fall so low that buyers probably won’t show up in record-breaking numbers.
I-bonds are priced based on two factors: a variable rate based on six months of inflation data (from October through March) and a fixed rate that is less transparently calculated. The latest CPI numbers for March indicate that the variable rate is going to pan out at an annualized rate of 3.38%, down from…
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American Airlines stock dives after profit outlook raised, but disappoints Wall Street
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Shares of American Airlines Group Inc. were rocked Wednesday, after the air carrier raised its profit outlook, but not by enough to match Wall Street expectations.
The company said before the open that it expects first-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 1 cent to 5 cents, compared with a per-share loss of $2.32 a year ago. While that’s better than previous guidance for an “approximately breakeven” quarter, the average EPS estimate of analysts surveyed by FactSet was 5 cents.
The…
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Chicago to host 2024 Democratic convention
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Chicago will host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic National Committee said Tuesday, bringing the event back to the city for the first time since 1996.
The Democratic Party seems to be closing ranks behind President Joe Biden as its 2024 nominee, although Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are mounting long-shot challenges. The president said Monday that he’s “planning on running” but wasn’t prepared to make a formal announcement yet.
Read: As Biden says he’s ‘planning on running,’ here are the potential 2024 Republican candidates.
“The Midwest reflects America and will give Democrats an opportunity to showcase some of President Biden and Vice President Harris’s most significant accomplishments for American families,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. Chicago beat out cities including New York and Atlanta in the competition to host the convention.
A water taxi plies the Chicago River.
Getty Images
Biden said in a statement that the city is a “great choice” for the event and that his party will “showcase our historic progress including building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not from the top down.”
Republicans are planning to host their 2024 convention in Milwaukee.
Read more: Republicans pick Milwaukee to host 2024 national convention
Chicago hosted the Democratic convention most recently in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was renominated. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was marked by violent clashes between police and antiwar demonstrators.
Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson called his city “unmatched when it comes to hosting events of this scale.”
Johnson said: “I look forward to working closely with the DNC to facilitate a spectacular convention that showcases Chicago’s diverse culture, our beautiful lakefront, our renowned hospitality sector, and our best asset: our amazing people.”
The Democratic convention is scheduled for Aug. 19-22, 2024.
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Coinbase, Newmont, Tilray, Hexo, Virgin Orbit, and More Stock Market Movers
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-8b6c2e7b
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‘An evil act of targeted violence’: Shooting in downtown Louisville bank leaves 5 dead, 9 wounded
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace Monday morning, killing four people — including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor — while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said.
Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence.”
The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the country this year, comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, about 160 miles to the south. That state’s governor and his wife also had friends killed in that shooting.
In Louisville, the chief identified the shooter as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, who she said was livestreaming during the attack.
“That’s tragic to know that that incident was out there and captured,” she said.
Meta
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the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that it had “quickly removed the livestream of this tragic incident this morning.”Social company companies have imposed tougher rules over the past few years to prohibit violent and extremist content. They have set up systems to remove posts and streams that violate those restrictions, but shocking material like the Louisville shooting continues to slip through the cracks, prompting lawmakers and other critics to lash out at the technology industry for slipshod safeguards and moderation policies.
Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the Louisville shooting, University of Louisville Hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the officers, 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt, graduated from the police academy on March 31. He was in critical condition after being shot in the head and having surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends in the shooting — Tommy Elliott — in the building not far from the minor league ballpark Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park.
“Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad,” said Beshear, his voice shaking with emotion. “He’s one of the people I talked to most in the world, and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend.”
Also killed in the shooting were Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt and Juliana Farmer, police said.
“These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence tore from all of us,” the governor said.
It was the second time that Beshear was personally touched by a mass tragedy since becoming governor.
In late 2021, one of the towns devastated by tornadoes that tore through Kentucky was Dawson Springs, the hometown of Beshear’s father, former two-term Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Andy Beshear frequently visited Dawson Springs as a boy and has talked emotionally about his father’s hometown.
Beshear spoke as the investigation in Louisville continued and police searched for a motive. Crime scene investigators could be seen marking and photographing numerous bullet holes in the windows near the bank’s front door.
As part of the investigation, police descended on the neighborhood where the suspect lived, about 5 miles south of the downtown shooting. The street was blocked as federal and local officers talked to residents. One home was cordoned off with caution tape. Kami Cooper, who lives in the neighborhood, said she didn’t recall ever meeting the suspect but said it’s an unnerving feeling to have lived on the same street as someone who could do such a thing.
“I’m almost speechless. You see it on the news but not at home,” Cooper said. “It’s unbelievable, it could happen here, somebody on my street.”
A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room in the back of the building’s first floor.
“Whoever was next to me got shot — blood is on me from it,” he told the news station, pointing to his shirt. He said he fled to a break room and shut the door.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey said the actions of responding police officers undoubtedly saved lives.
“This is a tragic event,” he said. “But it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened.”
Just a few hours later and blocks away, an unrelated shooting killed one man and wounded a woman outside a community college, police said.
The 15 mass shootings this year are the most during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, when 16 had occurred by April 10, according to a mass killings database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Going back to 2006, the first year for which data has been compiled, the years with the most mass killings were 2019 and 2022, with 45 and 42 mass killings recorded during the entire calendar year. The pace in 2009 slowed later in the year, with 32 mass killings recorded that year.
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U.S. wholesale inventories increase 0.1% in February
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Wholesale inventories rose 0.1% in February and sales in the month climbed 0.4%, the government said Monday. The inventory-to-sales ratio fell a tick to 1.37 months from 1.38. A year ago the ratio stood at a much lower 1.24. The ratio reflects how long it would take a company to sell all the goods sitting on warehouse shelves. Higher inventory levels reflect softer sales as the economy slows. Businesses have trimmed production to bring inventories more in line with demand. That could also depress the economy.
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With the unemployment rate now at 3.5%, is this your last chance to jump ship?
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Have you got itchy feet?
The U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in March, just shy of the 238,000 forecast by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. The unemployment rate declined to 3.5% in March from 3.6% in February.
The latest data was calculated before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last month, an event that…
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Swedish prosecutor says Nord Stream blast perpetrators may never be found
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STOCKHOLM–Confirming who was responsible for last year’s Nord Stream pipelines blasts will be difficult, a Swedish public prosecutor said Thursday.
Mats Ljungqvist, who is in charge of investigating September’s detonations at the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that connect Europe and Russia, said in a statement that the inquiry is proving to be complex.
Previously, the investigation found that the incident involved “gross sabotage” after traces of explosives were found on objects seized from the scene.
“The focus for the Swedish investigation is primarily about examining if Swedish interest or Swedish security is threatened, for example if Swedish territory was used to carry out the sabotage,” Mr. Ljungqvist said Thursday.
“Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime, but it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances.”
Last year, a series of underwater explosions tore apart three of the four main Nord Stream pipes built to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, prompting investigators from Germany, Sweden and Denmark– with the help of the U.S. and other Western allies–to probe the blasts.
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Take MarketWatch’s 2023 Financial Literacy Quiz. Will you get 10/10?
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April is National Financial Literacy Month. To mark the occasion, MarketWatch will publish a series of “Financial Fitness” articles to help readers improve their fiscal health, and offer advice on how to save, invest and spend their money wisely. Read more here.
Do you know the difference between a stock and a bond, or a mutual fund and an exchange-traded fund? MarketWatch put together a meat and potatoes — although that’s always relative — quiz for our savvy readers. We’ve stuck to some familiar topics — taxes, stocks, interest rates, savings and inflation. There are 10 questions — with one bonus question thrown in for good measure.
You don’t know what you don’t know until you get an incorrect answer in a financial literacy quiz. Some of the questions are tricky, but we hope they are fun and that — most importantly — readers learn something new. Financial literacy helps us to plan for the future, gives us peace of mind and brings more understanding and less fear about the complex world of investing and retirement.
Our aim is to raise awareness of Financial Literacy Month. If you get 10/10, including the bonus question, buy yourself (and a friend) a popsicle. If you didn’t answer all the questions correctly, buy yourself a popsicle anyway. We, at MarketWatch, aim to democratize and demystify financial news, and make this sometimes intimidating subject as accessible as possible.
If you found it useful and/or entertaining, share it with a friend.
–Quentin Fottrell
Question 1: What is the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit?
(a) A tax deduction reduces your income taxes directly. A tax credit reduces your taxable income.
(b) A tax deduction reduces your taxable income. A tax credit reduces your income taxes directly.
(c) Both reduce your income taxes directly.
Question 2: Which way do bond prices move when interest rates rise?
(a) Bond-market prices fall as interest rates rise. Bond prices rise when interest rates decline.
(b) Bond-market prices rise as interest rates rise. Bond prices fall when interest rates decline.
(c) Bond-market prices fall as interest rates rise, but bond prices also fall when interest rates decline.
Question 3: What has been the average annual total return, with dividends reinvested, for the S&P 500 over the past 30 years?
(a) 9.7%, according to FactSet.
(b) 3%, according to FactSet.
(c) 6.5%, according to FactSet.
Question 4: What is compound interest and how does it work?
(a) Compound interest reflects the linear gain that comes from all the reinvested interest of your savings and investments, which allows your initial investment/deposit to gain value regardless of the amount of interest you pay.
(b) Compound interest reflects the exponential gain that comes from all the reinvested interest of your savings and investments, which allows your initial investment/deposit and the additional interest to increase in value.
(c) Compound interest reflects the amount of interest you pay every month on a loan, and the total amount of interest you have paid over the lifetime of that loan.
Question 5: What is APR and how is it different from a regular interest rate?
(a) APR is the annual interest on a loan calculated on the initial loan, including additional costs and fees, but not on the accumulated interest incurred on the loan.
(b) APR is the annual interest on a loan calculated on the initial loan and the accumulated interest over the first year.
(c) APR is the annual interest on a loan calculated on the initial loan, including additional costs and fees, and the accumulated interest over the lifetime of the loan loan.
Question 6: What percentage of your income should you spend on rent?
(a) Most real-estate experts say you should spend no more than 20% of your income on housing costs, which is considered to be a tipping point for becoming “cost-burdened.”
(b) Most real-estate experts say you should spend no more than 50% of your income on housing costs, which is considered to be a tipping point for becoming “cost-burdened.”
(c) Most real-estate experts say you should spend no more than 30% of your income on housing costs, which is considered to be a tipping point for becoming “cost-burdened.”
Question 7: What’s an ETF?
(a) ETFs, or Exchange-Traded Funds, are baskets of investments — stocks, bonds, or commodities — that investors can buy throughout the trading day like stocks.
(b) ETFs, or Exchange-Traded Funds, are baskets of investments — stocks, bonds, or commodities — that investors can only buy at the end of the trading day.
(c) ETFs, or Exchange-Traded Funds, are baskets of investments — stocks, bonds, or commodities — that investors can only buy during or at the end of the trading day.
Question 8: What is the difference between a stock and a bond?
(a) A stock is a temporary investment in a company, while a bond is issued by a company to reward shareholders.
(b) A stock is a share in the ownership of a company, while a bond is issued by a company to finance a loan.
(c) A stock is a share in the ownership of a company, while a bond is issued by a company to finance the stock.
Question 9: If you were born in 1960 or later, at what age can you receive your full Social Security in the U.S.? Bonus question: At what age can you receive your maximum Social Security benefit?
(a) Full retirement age in the U.S. is 65 for those born in 1960 and after. While you can start collecting your Social Security retirement benefits as early as 62, your benefits are permanently reduced. Your Social Security benefits max out at age 70. By delaying until 70, your benefit is 76% higher than if you had claimed at the earliest possible age (62).
(b) Full retirement age in the U.S. is 65 for those born in 1960 and after. While you can start collecting your Social Security retirement benefits as early as 62, your benefits are permanently reduced. Your Social Security benefits max out at age 67. By delaying until 67, your benefit is 76% higher than if you had claimed at the earliest possible age (62).
(c) Full retirement age in the U.S. is 67 for those born in 1960 and after. While you can start collecting your Social Security retirement benefits as early as 62, your benefits are permanently reduced by a small percentage each month until you reach 67. Your Social Security benefits max out at age 70. By delaying until 70, your benefit is 76% higher than if you had claimed at the earliest possible age (62).
Question 10: What is the Federal Reserve’s desired rate of inflation?
(a) 2%
(b) 3%
(c) 2.5%
Bonus question! What is considered a good credit score?
(a) 560
(b) 680
(c) 800
If you get 10/10, including the bonus question, buy yourself a popsicle.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Answer 1:
(b) A tax deduction reduces your taxable income. A tax credit reduces your income taxes directly.
Answer 2:
(a) Bond-market prices fall as interest rates rise. Bond prices rise when interest rates decline.
Answer 3:
(a) 9.7%, according to FactSet.
Answer 4:
(b) Compound interest reflects the exponential gain that comes from all the reinvested interest of your savings and investments, which allows your initial investment/deposit and the additional interest to increase in value.
Answer 5:
(c) APR is the annual interest on a loan calculated on the initial loan, including additional costs and fees, and the accumulated interest over the lifetime of the loan.
Answer 6:
(c) Most real-estate experts say you should spend no more than 30% of your income on housing, which is considered to be a tipping point for becoming “cost-burdened.”
Answer 7:
(a) ETFs are Exchange-Traded Funds. These are baskets of investments — stocks, bonds, or commodities — that investors can buy or sell throughout the trading day.
Answer 8:
(b) A stock is a share in the ownership of a company, while a bond is issued by a company to finance a loan.
Answer 9:
(c) Full retirement age in the U.S. is 67 for those born in 1960 and after. While you can start collecting your Social Security retirement benefits as early as 62, your benefits are permanently reduced. Your Social Security benefits max out at age 70. By delaying until 70, your benefit is 76% higher than if you had claimed at the earliest possible age (62).
Answer 10:
(a) 2%
Answer for bonus question!
(b) 680. Although credit scores vary depending on the model, according to Experian, credit scores between 580 and 669 are considered “fair,” scores between 670 and 739 are regarded as “good”; 740 to 799 are considered “very good”; and scores of 800 and above are considered “excellent.”
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14 dividend stocks yielding 4% or more that are expected to increase payouts in 2023 and 2024
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If you invest in dividend stocks, you are probably looking for long-term growth to go with the income. Otherwise you might be content to hold one-month U.S. Treasury bills, which yield 4.5% or park your money in an online savings account for a yield close to 4%.
Below is screen of stocks with current dividend yields ranging from 4.14% to 8.46%. What sets these apart from other stocks with high dividend yields is that their payout increases are expected to accelerate in 2023 and 2024 from those in 2022.
On Tuesday, S&P Dow Jones Indices said in a press release that it expected dividend payments by publicly traded U.S. companies to continue to hit record levels in 2023. But Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst with the firm, said that the pace of dividend increases in the first quarter had slowed and that he expected this year’s increases to be “at half the pace of the double-digit 2022 growth.”
Silverblatt also said current events in the banking industry were “expected to negatively impact future spending from both consumers and companies, which in turn may curtail corporate dividend growth.”
For many banks, there’s another big item on the table. A focus on share buybacks in recent years is very likely to end — this is a use of cash that can raise earnings per share if the share count is reduced, but there can be consequences, especially after a year of rising interest rates that pushed down the market value of banks’ investments in bonds.
In a note to clients on March 16, Dick Bove, a senior research analyst with Odeon Capital, predicted that stock repurchases in the banking industry would be “meaningfully cut back if not flat out eliminated.” He made three general points about buybacks in the banking industry:
- Buybacks remove working capital that would otherwise provide returns to a bank.
- Buybacks mean a bank’s board of directors is “in favor of flat-out giving capital away to investors that want nothing to do with the bank — they are selling its stock.”
- Buybacks do “nothing to increase bank stock prices – many bank stocks are selling at below their prices of five years ago.”
A company might find it much easier to curtail or stop buying back shares to preserve cash than it is to cut regular dividends. Preserving and increasing the dividend over time has been correlated with good performance for stocks over time. These articles provide examples of how dividend compounding is correlated with long-term growth as income streams build up:
- 14 dividend stocks that rose 100% or more in 5 years as the payouts doubled
- These 15 Dividend Aristocrat stocks have been the best income builders
Dividend stock screen
The S&P Dow Jones Indices report raises the question of which stocks might buck the trend.
Starting with the S&P 500
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there are 71 companies stocks with current dividend yields of at least 4.00% indicated by annual payout rates. Among these companies, 68 increased dividends during 2022, according to data provided by FactSet.Then we looked at the pace of dividend increases in 2022 and the consensus estimates for dividends paid during 2023 and 2024, among analysts polled by FactSet. Among the remaining 68 companies, there are 29 for which the estimated 2023 dividend increase is higher than the 2022 dividend increase. Narrowing further, there are 14 for which the estimated 2024 dividend increases are higher than the estimated 2023 dividend increases.
Here are the 14 stocks that passed the screen, sorted by current dividend yield:
Company Ticker Dividend yield Dividend increase – 2022 Expected dividend increase in 2023 Expected dividend increase in 2024 Altria Group Inc. MO,
+0.27% 8.46% 4.5% 4.7% 4.9% Newell Brands Inc. NWL,
-1.19% 7.55% 0.0% 0.1% 0.6% Boston Properties Inc. BXP,
-0.94% 7.42% 0.0% 0.7% 1.0% KeyCorp KEY,
-2.22% 6.99% 5.3% 6.7% 6.8% Prudential Financial Inc. PRU,
+0.17% 6.08% 4.3% 4.7% 4.8% ONEOK Inc. OKE,
+0.60% 5.87% 0.0% 2.2% 2.4% Healthpeak Properties Inc. PEAK,
-0.32% 5.54% 0.0% 2.1% 2.2% Dow Inc. DOW,
-0.53% 5.16% 0.0% 1.1% 2.2% Iron Mountain Inc. IRM,
-1.00% 4.70% 0.0% 1.8% 5.4% NRG Energy Inc. NRG,
+1.34% 4.50% 7.7% 7.9% 7.9% Franklin Resources Inc. BEN,
-0.58% 4.50% 3.6% 4.3% 5.7% Federal Realty Investment Trust FRT,
-0.53% 4.38% 0.9% 1.7% 2.1% Ventas Inc. VTR,
-0.57% 4.26% 0.0% 3.3% 5.5% Kraft Heinz Co. KHC,
+1.42% 4.14% 0.0% 0.7% 0.8% Source: FactSet Click on the ticker for more about each company.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Any stock screen is limited, but can be useful as a starting point or supplement to your own research. If you see any companies of interest, do some research to form your own opinion of how likely they are to remain competitive over the next decade, at least.
Don’t miss: This stock ETF keeps beating the S&P 500 by selecting for quality
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Progressive Brandon Johnson wins tight Chicago mayoral race over moderate Democrat Paul Vallas
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CHICAGO — Brandon Johnson, a union organizer and former teacher, was elected as Chicago’s next mayor Tuesday in a major victory for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing as the heavily blue-leaning city grapples with high crime and financial challenges.
Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, won a close race over former Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas, who was backed by the police union. Johnson, 47, will succeed Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly gay person to be the city’s mayor.
Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose her reelection bid when she finished third in a crowded February contest.
Johnson’s victory in the nation’s third-largest city topped a remarkable trajectory for a candidate who was little known when he entered the race last year. He climbed to the top of the field with organizing and financial help from the politically influential Chicago Teachers Union and high-profile endorsements from progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sanders appeared at a rally for Johnson in the final days of the race.
Taking the stage Tuesday night for his victory speech, a jubilant Johnson thanked his supporters. He recalled growing up in a poor family, teaching at a school in Cabrini Green, a notorious former public housing complex, and shielding his kids from gunfire in their west side neighborhood.
“Chicago, tonight is just the beginning,” Johnson told the crowd. “With our voices and our votes, we have ushered in a new chapter in the history of our city.”
He promised that under his administration, the city would look out for everyone, regardless of how much money they have, whom they love or where they come from.
“Tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that truly invests in all of its people,” Johnson said.
It was a momentous win for progressive organizations such as the teachers union, with Johnson winning the highest office of any active teachers union member in recent history, leaders say. It comes as groups such as Our Revolution, a powerful progressive advocacy organization, push to win more offices in local and state office, including in upcoming mayoral elections in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, Vallas said that he had called Johnson and that he expected him to be the next mayor. Some in the crowd seemed to jeer the news, but Vallas urged them to put aside differences and support the next mayor in “the daunting work ahead.”
“This campaign that I ran to bring the city together would not be a campaign that fulfills my ambitions if this election is going to divide us,” Vallas said.
He added that he had offered Johnson his full support in the transition.
The contest surfaced longstanding tensions among Democrats, with Johnson and his supporters blasting Vallas — who was endorsed by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat — as too conservative and a Republican in disguise.
Johnson and Vallas were the top two vote-getters in the all-Democrat but officially nonpartisan February race, which moved to the runoff because no candidate received over 50%. Both candidates have deep roots in the Democratic Party, though with vastly different backgrounds and views.
Johnson, who is Black, grew up poor and is now raising his children in one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. After teaching middle and high school, he helped mobilize teachers, including during a historic 2012 strike through which the Chicago Teachers Union increased its organizing muscle and influence in city politics.
Vallas, who finished first in the February contest, was the only white candidate in that nine-person field. A former Chicago budget director, he later led schools in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Bridgeport, Connecticut. He has run unsuccessfully for office multiple times, including a 2019 bid for Chicago mayor.
Among the biggest disputes between Johnson and Vallas was how to address crime. Like many U.S. cities, Chicago saw violent crime increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, hitting a 25-year high of 797 homicides in 2021, though the number decreased last year and the city has a lower murder rate than others in the Midwest, such as St. Louis.
Vallas, 69, said he would hire hundreds more police officers, while Johnson said he didn’t plan to cut the number of officers, but that the current system of policing isn’t working. Johnson was forced to defend past statements expressing support for “defunding” police — something he insisted he would not do as mayor.
But Johnson argued that instead of investing more in policing and incarceration, the city should focus on mental health treatment, affordable housing for all and jobs for youth. He has proposed a plan he says will raise $800 million by taxing “ultrarich” individuals and businesses, including a per-employee “head tax” on employers and an additional tax on hotel room stays. Vallas says that so-called “tax-the-rich” plan would be a disaster for the city’s recovering economy.
Resident Chema Fernandez, 25, voted for Johnson as an opportunity to move on from what he described as “the politics of old.” He said he saw Vallas as being in line with previous mayors such as Rahm Emanuel, Lightfoot and Richard M. Daley, who haven’t worked out great for places like his neighborhood on the southwest side, which has seen decades of disinvestment.
“I think we need to give the opportunity for policies that may actually change some of our conditions,” Fernandez said.
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How will the IRS spend $80 billion in new funding? The Treasury Department is dropping hints.
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Details about the Internal Revenue Service’s spending plans for a major cash influx are about to come to light, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday.
More than half a year after Congress authorized $80 billion in new funding for the tax-collection agency over the next decade, Yellen said details are coming this week on how the IRS will put the money to use in improving customer service, upgrading internal technology and making sure the richest taxpayers are paying their fair share.
The $80 billion infusion is part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed Congress last summer without Republican support and plenty of GOP skepticism that the additional funding would be used appropriately, depicting it instead as engendering a sort of tax-collection police state in which middle-income individuals could find themselves targeted by armed IRS agents.
From the archives (August 2022): Fact check: No, the IRS is not hiring an 87,000-strong military force with funds from the Inflation Reduction Act
Yellen spoke Tuesday at the swearing-in ceremony for Danny Werfel, the newly confirmed IRS commissioner. Werfel “will lead the IRS through an important transition” after a period during which the agency “suffered from chronic underinvestment,” Yellen said in prepared remarks.
During Werfel’s confirmation hearing in February, senators from both parties pressed him about how he would oversee the new money’s use.
The U. S. House of Representatives is under Republican control, and observers expect lawmakers to give hard looks at the funding of the IRS. The House, in fact, voted in January to repeal the $80 billion. The measure isn’t expected to go further, with Democrats retaining control in the Senate and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the White House.
Some of the money will go toward modernizing the taxation experience. Within the first five years of the decade-long plan, taxpayers should be able to file all of their tax documents and respond to all IRS notices online, according to a Treasury official.
There are a handful of IRS notices for which taxpayers currently have that capacity. By the end of fiscal 2024, another 72 notices, which include Spanish-language notices, will add online capacity, the official said.
By the end of fiscal 2025, taxpayers, along with accountants and other professional tax preparers, should be able to peruse their accounts and view and download information, including payments and notices, the official said.
The IRS has already been hiring more staff, including 5,000 customer-service representatives to improve phone service, which has fallen off during the pandemic.
Tax Day is weeks away, on April 18. As of late March, income-tax refunds are 11% lower than they were last year. They are averaging $2,903 versus $3,263 at the same point last year. It’s an outcome many tax-code watchers predicted after pandemic-era boosts to certain tax credits went away.
The same day Yellen spoke, a new watchdog report said the IRS still has plenty of work to do processing the backlog of tax returns that built up during the pandemic.
During last year’s tax-filing season, the IRS hired 9,000 employees and shifted more than 2,400 workers from other areas to cut the backlog, according to Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration.
By last July the IRS had transcribed all tax-year 2020 paper returns but still had 9.5 million unprocessed 2021 paper returns. “The inability to timely process tax returns and address tax account work continues to have a significant impact on the associated taxpayers,” the report said.
At this point, the IRS says it has processed all paper and electronically filed returns that it received before this January. The agency said it still has 2.17 million unprocessed tax returns from the 2022 tax year and 2021 returns that needed fixes and corrections.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why consumers would want a mixed-reality headset
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Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook, GQ’s latest cover boy, has a sales pitch for a mixed-reality headset.
“The idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people’s communication, people’s connection,” Cook told GQ, without confirming the rumored June 5 announcement of Apple’s
AAPL,
+0.77%
Reality Pro headset.Apple’s plunge into the so-called metaverse would offer a jolt to a flagging industry as well as serious competition to Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+0.53% ,
Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOGL,
+0.61% GOOG,
+0.88%
Google, Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-0.37% ,
Snap Inc.
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and others.“ ‘It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world.’ ”
Creative users, the lifeblood of Apple’s business model, stand to gain the most from virtual-reality products, according to Cook.
“It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world,” Cook told GQ. “If it could accelerate creativity, if it could just help you do things that you do all day long and you didn’t really think about doing them in a different way.”
Cook also looked inward during the far-ranging interview, explaining his persona and the challenges in succeeding the legendary Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. Jobs died in 2011.
“I always hate the word normal in a lot of ways, because what some people use to describe normal equals straight,” Cook said. “Some people would use that word in that kind of way. I don’t know — I’ve been described as a lot of things, but probably normal is not among those.”
Added Cook: “I knew I couldn’t be Steve. I don’t think anybody could be Steve. I think he was a once-in-a-hundred-years kind of individual, an original by any stretch of the imagination. And so what I had to do was to be the best version of myself.”
From the archives (October 2011): Steve Jobs: MarketWatch’s CEO of the Decade
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Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox News should continue to trial, says Delaware judge
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DOVER, Del. (AP) — A voting-machine company’s defamation case against Fox News over its airing of false allegations about the 2020 presidential election will go to trial after a Delaware judge on Friday ruled that a jury must decide whether the network aired the claims with actual malice, the standard for proving libel against public figures.
Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that neither Fox nor Dominion Voting Systems had presented a convincing argument to prevail on whether Fox acted with malice without the case going to trial. But he also ruled that the statements Dominion had challenged constitute defamation “per se” under New York law. That means Dominion did not have to prove damages to establish liability by Fox.
“ ‘The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.’ ”
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote in his summary judgment ruling.
The decision paves the way for a trial start in mid-April.
Dominion is suing the network for $1.6 billion, claiming Fox defamed it by repeatedly airing false allegations by then-President Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks after the 2020 election claiming the company’s machines and its accompanying software had switched votes to Democrat Joe Biden. The network aired the claims even though internal communications show that many of its executives and hosts didn’t believe them.
The company sued Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp.
FOX,
+1.36% FOXA,
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which shares ownership with News Corp
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parent company of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones.Fox has said it was simply covering newsworthy allegations made by a sitting president claiming his re-election had been stolen from him. In his ruling, Davis said Fox could not escape potential liability by claiming privileges for neutral reporting or opinion.
“FNN’s failure to reveal extensive contradicting evidence from the public sphere and Dominion itself indicates that its reporting was not disinterested.” the judge wrote.
In a statement issued after the ruling, Dominion said it was gratified that the court had rejected Fox’s arguments and found “as a matter of law that their statements about Dominion are false. We look forward to going to trial.”
Fox emphasized that the case is about the media’s First Amendment protections in covering the news. “Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings,” the network said in a statement.
See: ‘A complete nut’: Fox News hosts didn’t believe 2020 election fraud claims
Also: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity among potential witnesses at Fox News trial
The coverage fed an ecosystem of misinformation surrounding Trump’s loss in 2020 that has persisted ever since.
MarketWatch contributed.
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East Palestine derailment: Norfolk Southern sued by Justice Department and EPA
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The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have filed a complaint against Norfolk Southern Corp. for unlawful discharge of pollutants and hazardous substances in the Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
The complaint seeks penalties and injunctive relief for the unlawful discharge of pollutants, oil and hazardous substances under the Clean Water Act, according to statements released by the Justice Department and the EPA. The Justice Department and EPA are also seeking a declaratory judgment on liability for past and future costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
Norfolk Southern’s
NSC,
+1.51%
stock has fallen 16.8% since the derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The stock is up 0.3% Friday.Related: Norfolk Southern will do ‘everything it takes’ for East Palestine, CEO tells senators
“When a Norfolk Southern train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, it released toxins into the air, soil, and water, endangering the health and safety of people in surrounding communities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “With this complaint, the Justice Department and the EPA are acting to pursue justice for the residents of East Palestine and ensure that Norfolk Southern carries the financial burden for the harm it has caused and continues to inflict on the community.”
In a separate statement, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said: “No community should have to go through what East Palestine residents have faced. With today’s action, we are once more delivering on our commitment to ensure Norfolk Southern cleans up the mess they made and pays for the damage they have inflicted as we work to ensure this community can feel safe at home again.”
Norfolk Southern has created a website, nsmakingitright.com, to track its progress in cleaning up the site.
“Our job right now is to make progress every day cleaning up the site, assisting residents whose lives were impacted by the derailment, and investing in the future of East Palestine and the surrounding areas,” a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern told MarketWatch. “We are working with urgency, at the direction of the U.S. EPA, and making daily progress. That remains our focus and we’ll keep working until we make it right.”
Related: Norfolk Southern sued by Ohio over ‘entirely avoidable’ East Palestine derailment
More than 9.4 million gallons of affected water have been recovered and transported off-site for final disposal, according to Norfolk Southern, along with 12,904 tons of waste soil that has been removed for proper disposal.
The company has also flushed 5,200 feet of affected waterways and sampled more than 275 private drinking water wells, according to nsmakingitright.com.
The suit from the Justice Department and the EPA comes just two weeks after Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a 58-count civil lawsuit against Norfolk Southern over the derailment in East Palestine.
Now read: Here are the chemicals spilled near Philly as U.S. drinking-water safety is top of mind
No one was killed or injured in the Ohio derailment, but the incident has been described as a “PR nightmare” for Norfolk Southern and the rail industry. The derailed cars included 11 tank cars carrying hazardous materials that subsequently ignited, damaging an additional 12 railcars, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, and setting off concerns about the impact on air and water quality and dangers to health in the region.
Earlier this month, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw was grilled by senators when he provided testimony on the disaster before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
While safety was the primary focus of the hearing, Shaw was also pressed on Norfolk Southern’s stock buybacks and the company’s use of precision scheduled railroading, which focuses on the movement of individual train cars rather than whole trains.
Related: Train derailment in Minnesota thrusts rail safety back into the spotlight
In his testimony, Shaw vowed to do “everything it takes” for the community affected by the derailment.
Rail safety was thrust into the spotlight again this week with the derailment of a BNSF train carrying ethanol and corn syrup in Minnesota early Thursday.
Everstream Analytics, a supply-chain analytics company, has been researching train derailments involving Class I rail carriers between 2018 and 2023. A Class I carrier is defined as any carrier earning annual revenue greater than $943.9 million, according to the U.S. government’s Surface Transportation Board. Data show that derailments across rail companies increased considerably in the U.S. between 2021 and 2022, according to Everstream Analytics.
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Inflation softens in February, PCE finds, and takes some pressure off Fed
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The numbers: The cost of U.S. goods and services rose by a milder 0.3% in February, perhaps a sign the Federal Reserve’s fight against high inflation is showing grudging progress.
Prices had risen by a sharp 0.6% in January, based on the so-called PCE index.
The yearly increase in prices declined to 5% from 5.3% in the prior month, the government said Friday, marking the lowest level in more than a year and a half.
That’s still about three times the rate of inflation before the pandemic, however.
Senior Federal Reserve officials have signaled they plan to raise interest rates just once more before pausing to determine how much a sharp increase in borrowing costs brings down inflation. The Fed has jacked up its key short-term U.S. rate to a top end of 5%, a remarkably fast acceleration from nearly zero one year ago.
Higher interest rates temper inflation by slowing the economy, but the effects can sometimes take up to a year or more to be fully felt. The Fed wants to avoid going too far or cause any more stress on the U.S. financial system after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.
After the PCE report, Boston Federal Reserve President Susan Collins said the central bank “has more work to do” to get inflation lower in an interview with Bloomberg.
Key details: The more closely followed core index also increased 0.3% last month, matching Wall Street’s forecast.
The core rate of inflation in the past 12 months slipped to 4.6% from 4.7%.
The PCE is viewed by the Fed as the best predictor of future inflation trends. It is formally known as the personal consumption expenditures price index.
The central bank pays especially close attention to the core gauge that strips out volatile food and energy costs.
Unlike it’s better-known cousin, the consumer price index, the PCE gauge takes into account how consumers change their buying habits due to rising prices.
They might substitute cheaper goods such as chicken thighs for more expensive ones like boneless breasts to keep costs down. Or buy generic medicines instead of brand names.
The CPI showed inflation rising at a 6% yearly rate in February.
Big picture: The Fed is trying to straddle a fine line: Bring inflation back down to its 2% target, but without causing a severe economic reaction.
Whether the Fed will be able to hold the line on just one more rate hike is far from certain.
If inflation stays high, the central bank would have to end its pause on rate hikes and risk a recession. A slim majority of economists, in fact, already believe a downturn is imminent.
Steadily falling inflation, on the other hand, could allow the Fed to pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat.
Looking ahead: “For an economy looking to avoid recession, this was a good report,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
“For the Fed, it could be one and done in May,” said senior economist Sal Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets.
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average
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+0.50%
and S&P 500
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+0.57%
rose in Friday trades. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
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3.535%
declined several basis points to 3.53%.[ad_2]
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Donald Trump indicted in Stormy Daniels case — first former U.S. president to ever be criminally charged
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The Teflon Don is facing his biggest test.
After years of investigations and probes into Donald Trump for a wide variety of alleged crimes, a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict him, marking the first time in U.S. history a former president will face criminal charges.
The indictment has yet to be unsealed so the specifics of the charges weren’t immediately clear, but the Manhattan district attorney has alleged that Trump had broken the law for his role in a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels at the height of the 2016 presidential election to silence her story claiming they once had an affair. Despite years of various investigations, Trump had so far avoided prosecution.
The New York Times was first to report the indictment, which was confirmed by Trump’s lawyers, Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles, late Thursday. “President Trump has been indicted,” they said in a statement. “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this this political prosecution in court.”
In his own statement, Trump called the indictment “political persecution and election interference at the highest level,” and accused Democrats of “cheating” and “weaponizing our justice system.”
In an emailed statement Thursday, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs said arrangements are being made for Trump’s surrender: “This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”
There were news reports that Trump would turn himself in next week, and in an email to MarketWatch, Necheles said Trump’s arraignment is expected to be Tuesday.
Also see: Donald Trump has been indicted. Could he still run for president?
The hush-money charges mark an extraordinary turn of events for Trump, who has been under investigation for election interference in Georgia and the storage of classified documents at his Florida mansion, as he seeks to make a political comeback with a run for the White House in 2024.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Trump’s then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, after she had approached the National Enquirer offering to sell her kiss-and-tell story about having sex with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006.
Clifford then signed a non-disclosure agreement and the National Enquirer never published the story — a tabloid journalism practice known as “catch and kill.”
Cohen initially made the payment using money he took from a home equity loan on his house, and funneled it to Clifford through a shell company he created in Delaware. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 in federal court to campaign finance violations for his role in the payoff, said he was directed to make the payment by Trump who later reimbursed him.
That payment was recorded by Trump’s company as being for legal services. Federal prosecutors had argued that the payments amounted to illegal, unreported assistance to Trump’s campaign.
Trump was never charged in the federal probe but was listed in court documents as “co-conspirator number one.”
The former president has denied having an affair with Clifford and has characterized her selling the story as extortion.
Cohen had also been involved in orchestrating an earlier “catch-and-kill” payment in 2016 to former Playboy bunny Karen McDougal, who was given $150,000 for her story of having an affair with Trump by the National Enquirer, which then never ran an article.
The editor and publisher of the National Enquirer were given non-prosecution agreements in exchange for their cooperation with the federal investigation.
Trump has been facing an FBI investigation into his keeping boxes of highly classified documents after he left the White House following his defeat by President Joe Biden in 2020. He also has been subject to a grand jury probe into his alleged tampering with the election process in Georgia.
His real estate company, the Trump Organization, has been the subject of a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General’s office for allegedly falsifying business and tax records. The Manhattan district attorney had similarly looked into Trump’s business practices but has so far declined to press charges.
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