Author: Admin
When Angela Chalk first heard there were ways that ordinary people could offset flooding in New Orleans, she was skeptical.Her neighbors in the Seventh Ward knew all about heavy rains that brought knee-high floodwaters, spilling into porches and marooning cars and homes, and were frustrated that it was something they felt powerless to stop.Then she heard Jeff Supak, head of a nonprofit organization now called Water Wise Gulf South, talk about how simple fixes like rain gardens and vegetated ditches, also known as bioswales, could soak up extra rain.She challenged Mr. Supak to prove it.50 States, 50 Fixes is a…
Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg thinks the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs will be catastrophic for both his family-owned toy business and for the broader U.S. economy. That’s why he’s suing President Trump.Woldenberg’s business has 500 employees and sells thousands of learning-based toys like Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog and the Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register. Its lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses Mr. Trump and other members of his administration of overreaching the president’s authority in imposing the broad-based import duties. Congress has historically held the power to authorize new tariffs or make…
Investing in choppy markets, especially with an unpredictable president at the helm, can be distressing. It can be even more so if you are relying on these investments to pay for something as important as your child’s college tuition and you need the money in the foreseeable future.Plenty of busy parents found themselves in this position last week, reminded by the recent market plunge that college enrollment was creeping up on them, and some may not have dialed back their risky stock positions, or at least not enough.But situations like this serve as another reminder: Market uncertainty is a constant,…
“A difficult place” Volatility has been a near-daily feature of President Trump’s trade war. And Thursday morning is no exception as the president escalates his feud with the Fed.The latest beef started on Wednesday. Investors learned that the Fed was in no rush to bail out their battered portfolios even as Jay Powell, the central bank’s chair, warned that tariffs could make things worse for the economy.With Powell signaling that the central bank won’t intervene any time soon to buoy asset prices — known in market-speak as the “Fed put” — stocks fell sharply. But investors are questioning the Fed’s…
President Trump on Thursday said he was allowing commercial fishing in one of the world’s largest ocean reserves, introducing industrial operations for the first time in more than a decade to a vast area of the Pacific dotted with coral atolls and populated by endangered sea turtles and whales.Mr. Trump issued an executive order opening up the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, which lies some 750 miles west of Hawaii. President George W. Bush established the monument in 2009 and President Barack Obama expanded it in 2014 to its current area of nearly 500,000 square miles.A second executive order…
U.S. stocks wavered on Friday, signaling an end to a three-day rally that was driven by investor hopes of a de-escalation in the trade war.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 20 points, or 0.1%, to close at 40,114, while the S&P 500 added 40 points, or 0.7%, to close at 5,525. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.3% thanks to boost from a handful of Big Tech stocks, including Nvidia.Mr. Trump had adopted a softer stance on trade in recent days, allaying investors’ concerns and helping trigger a three-day relief rally following a volatile trading day on Monday. Paul Ashworth, chief North…
Victims of sophisticated online scams are often dealt a double whammy. Not only is their money forever gone, but these stolen sums often generate giant tax bills when the funds are emptied from taxable retirement accounts.Many of these victims are often left wondering what sort of recourse they may have. Tax regulators recently provided some answers, clearing the way for more victims to seek a tax break on more solid footing.In a memorandum released on March 14, the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Chief Counsel described which types of scams might qualify for tax relief, including many investment schemes and…
Pope Francis died on Monday. His loss, of course, is a loss for the world. If you’ll indulge me for just a moment, I’d like to relate his life and his views to what’s happening right now in the business and policy world.At the end of 2019, I went to the Vatican to interview him. You might ask why a business journalist would have done that? At the time, C.E.O.s and corporate leaders of all faiths were coming regularly to tell him about their plans around E.S.G. Uniquely, they went to seek his approval.Many people have suggested E.S.G. was virtue-signaling,…
President Trump has ordered the U.S. government to take a major step toward mining vast tracts of the ocean floor, a move that is opposed by nearly all other nations, which consider international waters off limits to this kind of industrial activity.The executive order, signed Thursday, would circumvent a decades-old treaty that every major coastal nation except the United States has ratified. It is the latest example of the Trump administration’s willingness to disregard international institutions and is likely to provoke an outcry from America’s rivals and allies alike.The order “establishes the U.S. as a global leader in seabed mineral…
A former aide to Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been spared jail after exposing himself to a teenage girl and following her.Samuel Gould was sentenced at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court to 22 weeks’ imprisonment suspended for two years after admitting two counts of exposure. The 33-year-old, of Hornchurch, Essex, who was also a councillor in Redbridge, was seen by the 13-year-old girl masturbating in his parked car in Romford on 8 March.Politics latest: PM warns of Tory-Reform pact ‘disaster’Gould then followed the girl, who hid and knocked on nearby flats to try and get help, prosecutors said. He was also seen…