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Don’t celebrate a European financial rescue just yet

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

An emergency 50 billion Swiss Franc loan from the Swiss National Bank in the early hours of Thursday helped to pull one of Switzerland’s top banking institutions, Zurich-based Credit Suisse, from the brink of collapse.At first sight, the move proved a regulatory tour de force.When the bank’s shares opened for trading in the morning, they soared 40 percent, an apparent nod to the shrewdness of Eurocrats who had been saying all along this was not Europe’s crisis and that there was nothing to see here. From a regulatory point of view, the troubles at the Swiss lender had been brewing for years and had little to do with the factors that had taken down Californian tech lender Silicon Valley Bank a week earlier, prompting a radical Federal Reserve intervention at the weekend. What’s more, Credit Suisse had long been in the process of restructuring, dragged down by a series of unfortunate bets and scandals.The defiant regulatory mood was echoed by Christine Lagarde,...

5 things to know about Europe’s bid to stay in the clean energy race

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

The starting gun on the global clean energy race has long been fired — now Europe is finally getting out of the stalls.Two new proposals, unveiled by the European Commission on Thursday, are meant to set the bloc on track to meet its net-zero goals by shoring up its supply of green technologies and the critical raw materials needed to build them: the Net-Zero Industry Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act. Drafted in record-time, the proposals are part of the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan — the bloc’s response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and its bonanza of green subsidies — and are seen as key to reining in the green industry’s global front-runner, China. “For too long,” Europe thought “the market would take of everything itself,” the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans said Thursday. “We now understand that the strategic choices China made a decade ago are now coming home to roost and we also have to make our ow...

Bad bonds risk bringing down banks, warns ‘Dr Doom’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

The man who predicted the 2008 banking crisis has a new blip on his sonar screen: “underwater” bonds that he says make up a dangerously large chunk of the sector’s assets.Nouriel Roubini, professor emeritus at the Stern School of Business of New York University — a.k.a. Dr Doom — warned this fatal flaw in bondholdings, which lay at the heart of the sudden downfall of Silicon Valley Bank last week, could could cause any instability in the U.S. or European banking sectors to quickly spiral into a rout. Pension funds, asset managers and other large investors are also at risk, he warned.Markets are jittery after SVB collapsed last Friday, in the biggest bank failure since 2008. U.S. agencies scrambled to contain the damage, but banks’ share prices on both side of the Atlantic took a beating, with long-troubled Credit Suisse finding a new record low on Wednesday, prompting a lifeline intervention from the Swiss National Bank.Roubini zeroed in on the heart of the p...

NH gets disaster declaration following December storm

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden approved a federal disaster declaration for New Hampshire following damage caused by a severe storm and flooding that happened around Christmas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.Funding is available to the state, eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the storm in Belknap, Carroll, Coos and Grafton counties, FEMA said in a news release Wednesday.Funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.The storm damaged communities from Dec. 22-25. A combination of heavy snow and high winds downed trees and power lines, causing numerous power outages.Gov. Chris Sununu said a FEMA preliminary damage assessment totaled $3.1 million.“This disaster declaration will afford communities affected by the storm the opportunity to rebuild and recuperate costs incurred fixing the da...

Ottawa misses own deadline on inking deal with Quebec shipyard to build icebreakers

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

Ottawa has quietly missed its own deadline for finalizing an agreement with a Quebec shipyard so it can start work on Canada’s next fleet of icebreakers.The federal procurement department said last summer that it planned to have finished negotiations with Chantier Davie by the end of the year.That didn’t happen, though neither side is saying why or when they expect the deal to be inked.The pace of talks between Ottawa and Davie has been a source of consternation and concern since they were first launched in December 2019.Concerns have largely revolved around the need to deliver new icebreakers before the Canadian Coast Guard’s existing fleet is forced into retirement.The Coast Guard has lost a number of ships due to age in recent years due to mechanical problems, and many of its icebreakers have already exceeded their expected lifespans.This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 16, 2023.The Canadian Press

Bid opens to fire SC comptroller for $3.5B accounting error

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina lawmakers angry over a $3.5 billion accounting blunder by the state’s comptroller general began efforts Thursday to sack the official, a day after demanding he quit or be fired.Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom told senators last month he had unintentionally exaggerated the state’s cash position by $3.5 billion by overstating the amount the state had sent to colleges and universities for a decade. He has signaled he won’t resign.The error wasn’t in actual cash, but in the way the state reports its balance sheets. It could affect South Carolina’s credit rating and destroyed any confidence that a large number of lawmakers in the Republican-dominated state had in Eckstrom.A resolution introduced Thursday seeks a two-thirds vote from the House and the Senate to trigger a state constitutional provision that says the governor should remove Eckstrom for “willful neglect of duty.”The constitution allows Eckstrom a hearing in his own defens...

Chef Marcus Samuelsson elevates diversity of culinary world

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Marcus Samuelsson is keen on leading with intention. That focus is seared into the delectable dishes prepared at his popular restaurants, but it is also expressed with his staffing.“My restaurants are a reflection of the society we’re living in. (At) Hav & Mar, we decided on Black leadership, female leadership, because there was a void for it. Red Rooster opened in Harlem because we wanted to create jobs within our industry for Black and brown individuals,” said Samuelsson, a multiple James Beard Award-winning chef. “I love food and I want to gear it towards … everybody, but the opportunities should also be a little bit more evenly distributed.”To honor trailblazing restaurants founded by women and people of color, Samuelsson and fellow chef Jonathan Waxman host “Seat at the Table,” an eight-part Audible original series that premiered toward the end of last year. In the series, chefs, along with many involved in the inception of their restaurants, present a...

Banks said to be working on rescue plan for First Republic

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Some of America’s largest banks are working on a rescue package for First Republic Bank, according to several media reports. First Republic Bank’s stock began to falter as customers began pulling their deposits out. But it was up more than 6% Thursday after reports of the recue package surfaced.The news comes after the collapse last week of Silicon Valley Bank, which was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the demise of Washington Mutual in 2008.The shuttering of Silicon Valley Bank Friday and of New York-based Signature Bank two days later has revived bad memories of the financial crisis that plunged the United States into the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Over the weekend the federal government, determined to restore public confidence in the banking system, moved to protect all the banks’ deposits, even those that exceeded the FDIC’s $250,000 limit per individual account.Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan C...

Drought over? Spring outlook finds relief — and flood risk

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Record snowfall and rain have helped to loosen drought’s grip on parts of the western U.S. as national forecasters and climate experts warned Thursday that some areas should expect more flooding as the snow begins to melt.The winter precipitation wiped out exceptional and extreme drought in California for the first time since 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday in a seasonal, nationwide outlook that came as parts of the state are under water. In neighboring Nevada, flood warnings were in effect and rushing water prompted some evacuations overnight in one of Arizona’s tourist towns.Elsewhere, NOAA’s forecast warned of elevated flood risks from heavy snowpack this spring in the upper Midwest along the Mississippi River from Minnesota south to Missouri. Despite the receding drought, experts cautioned that the relief may be only a blip as the long-term effects persist from what has been a stubborn dry streak.Gr...

NDP calls on federal government to make caregiver credit a refundable tax benefit

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:24:00 GMT

OTTAWA — New Democrats are calling on the federal government to follow through with its promise to make a tax credit for caregivers a refundable benefit. NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo, who is the party’s critic for disability inclusion, sent a letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Wednesday calling for the change in the upcoming federal budget. Individuals who are supporting a spouse, common-law partner or dependant with a physical or mental impairment can currently claim the credit against the federal taxes they owe. The change would make the credit available as a benefit, regardless of whether or not they owe taxes. “Caregiving is the backbone of Canadian society – and its economy. But we are at a breaking point for caregivers as the health-care crisis puts growing pressure on families to care for their loved ones,” Zarrillo wrote in her letter. The mandate letter that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Freeland after the 2021 election had tasked her with conv...