A gruesome killing is under investigation after a man posted a social media video showing what he claimed was his father’s decapitated head and ranting about the Biden administration andthe border crisiswhile declaring himself the new acting president of the United States under martial law.
The video circulated for hours on YouTube – garnering more than 5,000 views – before it was taken down. Justin Mohn, 32, now is being held without bond, charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and other charges, Pennsylvania court documents show.
Police started investigating Mohn after a man in his 60s was found beheaded and covered in blood Tuesday, CNN affiliate WPVI reported.
In the video, the man identifying himself as Mohn apparently reads from a written statement and at one point holds up what appears to be a bloodied head inside a clear plastic bag. He says his father, who was a federal employee for over 20 years, was a traitor to his country.
“The federal government of America has declared war on its citizens and the American states. America is rotting from the inside out as far left, woke mobs rampage our once prosperous cities,” he says in the video.
The suspect was identified as the victim’s son, Middletown Township Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla told CNN. He fled in a vehicle more than 100 miles to Fort Indiantown Gap, where he was arrested near a National Guard training base by civilian police with assistance from Pennsylvania State Police, Bartorilla said. The vehicle was recovered.
“YouTube has strict policies prohibiting graphic violence and violent extremism,” the company told CNN Wednesday in a statement. “The video was removed for violating our graphic violence policy and Justin Mohn’s channel was terminated in line with our violent extremism policies. Our teams are closely tracking to remove any re-uploads of the video.”
It is unclear whether Mohn has an attorney; CNN has reached out to the Bucks County public defender for comment. He was arraigned early Wednesday via video, according to WPVI. A judge ordered him held without bond, court records show; his next hearing is set for February 8.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office will hold a news conference on Wednesday, Bartorilla said.
“I think the neighborhood can rest easy because I think they were a little uneasy for a while, before they knew where the person of interest was,” he told WPVI overnight.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/morgan-stanley-cuts-china-stock-024723866.html
(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley cut its targets for major Chinese stock indexes while raising estimates for Japanese benchmarks, as the performance gap between the two continues to widen.
The brokerage lowered the year-end target for the MSCI China Index to 53 from 60 previously, based on slower earnings growth and valuation assumptions. That implies almost no upside for the benchmark for the year. Meanwhile, it lifted projections for the Topix gauge to 2,800 from 2,600.
The “divergence in performance year to date reflecting shifts in geopolitical, macro and earnings fundamentals” is driving investor portfolio re-allocation, strategists led by Jonathan Garner wrote in a note Thursday.
Chinese equities have lost out to their Japanese peers as global investors continue to seek alternatives to the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s latest attempts to boost the market have done little to sustainably lift sentiment as concerns remain over the nation’s economic recovery and property crisis.
Morgan Stanley downgraded Chinese stocks to equal-weight in August, saying it was time to take profit in a rally stirred by government stimulus pledges at the time. The China gauge has lost about 18% since. It further trimmed targets later in the month to reflect mounting growth risks.
On the other hand, Japanese benchmarks have hit fresh 34-year highs, and investors are betting the rally can extend as the country emerges from deflation and listed companies’ corporate governance reforms accelerate.
In the study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers from Planned Parenthood, Resound Research for Reproductive Health and academic institutions across the US used a combination of federal surveys on crime and sexual violence to estimate that there were about 520,000 rapes that led to 64,565 pregnancies in the time since abortion bans have been enacted in 14 states – ranging by state from four to 18 months ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/health/rape-pregnancy-abortion/index.html
Here’s About How Many Cars Are There in The World in 2023
To put it simply, nobody has an exact car count for the entire globe, but a fair estimate can be made using data from automotive industry research firmHedges & Company.The number of cars in the world is estimated to be around 1.47 billion vehicles.
You might think that the U.S. has the most cars in the world but that trophy actually goes to China, which is one of the largest automotive markets and producers. In fact, the country had around 415 million registered vehicles on the road as of 2022 and did a lot to help Asia win the crown for most vehicles on the road at 543 million.
Behind Asia is Europe, which houses 14 major automakers according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association. Europe has around 413 million cars on its roads, which surpasses North America's 358 million. And in case you were wondering, the U.S. makes up 78% of North America's car population.
https://www.newsweek.com/what-us-could-learn-japan-reach-net-zero-opinion-1863302
Japan, the world's sixth largest greenhouse gas contributor, has ambitious climate goals—to reduce 2030 emissions by 46 percent and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. These goals are particularly impressive considering Japan relied on fossil fuels for 73 percent of its electricity supply in 2022. Interestingly, Japan's decarbonization strategy depends on natural gas both as a transition fuel, and in decarbonized forms, as a future clean energy source. Japan's approach is sure to provide valuable lessons for the United States and other markets that rely heavily on natural gas and shed light on the future role of natural gas through the energy transition.
Japan's energy market is comparable to the U.S. According to the Bank of Japan, Japan's CO2 emissions per real GDP is on par with the U.S. (0.20 kg/dollar in Japan; 0.22 kg/dollar in the U.S.), and higher than western Europe. The power sector accounts for 37 percent of Japan's GHG emissions, comparable to 30 percent in the U.S. Natural gas accounts for a comparable percentage of electricity generation in Japan and the U.S. (40 percent; 42 percent).
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The U.S. and Japan share similar perspectives on diversifying climate change abatement strategies beyond renewables—including boosting investment in nuclear, and the potential of hydrogen and synthetic fuels like e-methane to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. Both countries have passed legislation to support climate investment—notably, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 in the U.S., and Japan's establishment of the Green Innovation Fund in 2021 and the 2023 GX Promotion Act.
Natural gas will play an important role in Japan's 2030 energy transition, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Shifting current oil and coal production to natural gas will account for 3 percent of Japan's 2030 CO2 reduction goals. Switching to natural gas in the industrial sector could account for another 5 percent reduction. Japan is also investing in a smart, distributed energy network that can switch from renewables to gas leveraging digital technologies, and in energy recovery technology known as turboexpanders.
U.S. and Japanese national flags are displayed
U.S. and Japanese national flags are displayed on a street.
TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/GETTY IMAGES
"While the gas industry has plans to meet Japan's ambitious goals for 2050, solutions that are readily available and scalable are needed today to start curbing emissions while we work to reduce cost and expand the scale of future fuels like hydrogen and [electric natural gas] eNG. TB Global Technologies Ltd. (TBG) is committed to deploying existing technology to decarbonize natural gas today while investing in future energy solutions," a representative from TBG, a solution provider for companies in the global energy industry based in Japan, told Newsweek.
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By 2050, Japan's goal is for all city gas consumption to be no and low-carbon gases. The anticipated breakdown is 5 percent hydrogen (directly), 5 percent biogas/low-carbon fuels combined with carbon capture, and 90 percent synthetic methane or eNG. eNG is produced from hydrogen and CO2 through methanation. While burning eNG releases CO2, it is considered a carbon neutral fuel because the CO2 emitted can be captured and reused to produce more eNG in a closed loop system. eNG is an interesting potential fuel because it can be transported through existing natural gas infrastructure, handled with existing equipment, and may offer a lower cost alternative to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. Furthermore, eNG offers a solution to decarbonize hard to abate sectors like transportation and industry because it can be efficiently stored and transported.
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However, to scale, the production cost of clean hydrogen and the cost of technology required for methanation must be reduced. Japan's energy suppliers are playing an instrumental role in advancing research into producing eNG at scale. Tokyo Gas is working on technology for electrolysis to lower the cost of clean hydrogen production. Japanese petroleum company Eneos announced plans to study the feasibility of a large-scale e-methane facility. A Japanese energy company consortium announced plans to explore a hydrogen and ammonia supply chain within the Osaka industrial zone. In this way, e-fuels like e-methane and ammonia, green hydrogen, and technology like carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) offer interesting opportunities to invest in a cluster of technologies that will fortify energy companies through the energy transition.
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As Japan's natural gas industry continues to play a critical role in helping Japan achieve its climate goals, natural gas companies in the U.S. should look for opportunities to partner with their Japanese counterparts to maximize the impact of investment in natural gas research and development that can fuel the future of a cleaner natural gas industry.
Freddie Sarhan is CEO of Sapphire Technologies.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/23/politics/gag-order-trump-appeals-court-en-banc/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5FWnuorI5M&list=RDCMUC9r9HYFxEQOBXSopFS61ZWg&index=2
The federal appeals court in Washington, DC, declined to rehear arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can be prohibited from talking about witnesses and court staff while he awaits trial in the special counsel’s January 6 criminal case.
Trump has unsuccessfully tried to challenge the gag order placed on him by Judge Tanya Chutkan late last year through appeals.
The 11 judges from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined to touch the case after a three-judge panel previously upheld the gag order against Trump. There were no statements or dissents made by any of the judges.
Trump can appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, and his attorneys have previously indicated that they would appeal the matter to the nation’s highest court if necessary.
CNN has reached out to Trump’s legal team for comment.
In a unanimous decision issued last month, the three appellate judges said that Trump can be barred from talking about witnesses as well as prosecutors, the court staff and their family members.
But the court said the gag order does not apply to comments made about special counsel Jack Smith and narrowed the prohibition Trump had regarding speaking about witnesses in the case, a change from the original gag order.
The three judges on the panel — Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and Bradley Garcia, all Democratic appointees — found Trump’s words on the public stage could undermine the fairness of a jury trial, sway or intimidate witnesses and imperil court staff. The court said that justifies limiting Trump’s speech, even while he campaigns to return to the presidency.
“Mr. Trump’s documented pattern of speech and its demonstrated real-time, real-world consequences pose a significant and imminent threat to the functioning of the criminal trial process in this case,” the appeals court wrote.
gogov.ru/articles/covid-v-stats
Статистика вакцинации от коронавируса в России
На сегодня (20.01.24):
89 081 596 чел. (60.9% от населения, 76.7% взрослого) - привито хотя бы одним компонентом вакцины
79 702 396 чел. (54.5% от населения, 68.8% взрослого) - полностью привито
202 961 - привито детей
187 374 508 шт. - всего прививок сделано
20 829 310 чел. - прошли ревакцинацию, 79 699 284 чел. - подлежит ревакцинации
Привито в течение последних шести месяцев с учетом ревакцинированных:
21.12 млн чел. (14.5% населения, 18.2% взрослого) - хотя бы одним компонентом
20.83 млн чел. (14.3% населения, 18.0% взрослого) - полностью
ロシアのコロナウイルスワクチン接種統計
今日 (01/20/24):
89,081,596人 (人口の60.9%、成人の76.7%) - ワクチンの少なくとも1つの成分でワクチン接種を受けている
79,702,396人 (人口の54.5%、成人の68.8%) - 完全にワクチン接種済み
202,961 - 予防接種を受けた子供たち
187 374 508個 - ワクチン接種が完了しました
20,829,310人 - 79,699,284人が再ワクチン接種を受けた。 - 再ワクチン接種の対象となる
過去 6 か月以内にワクチン接種を受けている (再ワクチン接種も含む):
2,112万人 (人口の 14.5%、成人の 18.2%) - 少なくとも 1 つの構成要素
2,083万人 (人口の14.3%、成人の18.0%) - 完全に
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-GDP-dropped-1.4-in-November-on-export-slowdown-JCER
Japan GDP shrank 0.6% in August on weak exports: JCER
Japan's GDP grew 0.2% in September as exports recover: JCER
Japan GDP up 1.9% on month in October on services exports: JCER
Japan GDP dropped 1.4% in November on export slowdown: JCER
Show-Ya
"I Am a Storm"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg4PqPXggcY&list=RDSg4PqPXggcY&index=1
"Genkai Lovers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccnqrgt4LCk
Loudness
"In The Mirror"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SuwT84JOkw
"Speed"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8c4wiraKLI
Seikima II
"The End of The Century"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJMleuamx2k&list=RDSg4PqPXggcY&index=4
"Fire Afer Fire"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6x8VP9ZGig&list=RDSg4PqPXggcY&index=5
X Japan
"Art of Life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKw_V_4pJI&t=901s
https://imperfectatbest.com/2019/01/02/manyo-collection-of-ten-thousand-leaves-new-years-and-the-snow/
Manyo-shu is the oldest anthology of short poems (waka, directly translated as short songs) in Japanese history, including 20 volumes and 4,536 short poems and Chinese verse. This huge collection ends with the following poem.
万葉集は、日本最古の歌集で、20巻、4536の和歌といくつかの漢詩で成り立っています。この長大な歌集は、以下の和歌で締めくくられます。
新しき年の初めの初春の今日降る雪のいやしけ吉事
あたらしき としのはじめの はつはるの
きょうふるゆきの いやしけよごと
On this New Year’s day
As auspicious snow falls on and on
May joys be blooming on our way
For some people snow brings refreshing feel of a white, sparkly winter wonderland and sweet reminiscences of their childhood while for others it’s all about permanently runny nose and flushed cheeks as well as curing up in oversized sweater and keeping shoveling the snow.
雪と言えば、キラキラした銀世界や無邪気な子供時代の象徴と捉える人もいれば、鼻水や真っ赤な頬、セーターに身をくるんだり、延々と雪かきしたりといったものと結びつける人もいるでしょう。
This song is written on the New Year’s day, 759, with provincial governors greeting the Ministry building. Ohtomo no Yakamochi, the leading poet from Manyo-shu, wrote it and was arguably one of the editors.
この和歌は759年の元旦に作られたもので、国守のもとに国司や郡司が訪れ饗を賜るなか、万葉集に最も多くの和歌を寄せ、編纂者とされている大伴家持の作です。
Snow was then believed to be an auspicious sign. Some people still have a positive attitude towards occasional snowfalls but for others it’s just another sign of a cold, bleak winter. People, centuries ago, seem to see something special in a change of the weathers, and of the years. We still learn how differently people see things happening from day to day.
当時、雪は吉兆とされていました。今でも、時々降る雪を喜び人がいる一方で、雪は寒く暗い冬の象徴だと捉える人々もいます。当時の人々は、天気や年の移り変わりに特別なものを感じていたのでしょう。日々の出来事への向き合いかたが、人によっていかに異なるか学ばされますね。
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/06/trump-debunked-report-election-advisers/
Trump’s promotion of debunked election report reveals divisions in his circle
By Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Marianne LeVine
Updated January 6, 2024 at 4:43 p.m. EST|Published January 6, 2024 at 11:11 a.m. EST
Former president Donald Trump speaks during a “commit to caucus” event held at the Reno-Sparks convention center on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023, in Reno, Nev. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
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Former president Donald Trump took to his social media website one day this past week to post a report ridden with falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 election. And his legal team cited Trump’s post in a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he faces charges of obstructing the election.
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Yet that same day, as Trump and his lawyers promoted the report — which one of his campaign aides wrote, according to people familiar with the matter — others in his campaign started distancing themselves from it. A campaign spokesperson declined to comment, and another campaign aide referred questions to the legal team. “This was not posted to the campaign’s website, and we’re not lawyers,” said the aide, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter more freely. Trump’s legal team, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
The episode that unfolded Tuesday was yet another illustration of the unusual and at times strained dynamic between Trump’s legal entanglements and his campaign. Although Trump and his campaign have used the 91 charges he faces across four criminal indictments as an effective rallying cry in the Republican presidential race he is favored to win, the particulars have not always been ideal in the eyes of some of his advisers.
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Trump has been eager to use the election interference case to hash out fraud allegations and conspiracy theories, including by demanding documents about unsubstantiated right-wing media suspicions about government agents infiltrating the mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
But such allegations have alienated many Americans, and some Republicans have called on the party to move on as it looks to the 2024 election.
In interviews, academic and legal experts debunked the content of the report Trump promoted.
“This report really rehashes the sort of greatest hits of the election conspiracies that have emerged since 2020,” said Jessica Marsden, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit group that represented Georgia election workers who sued former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani for defamation. “There wasn’t anything in here that struck me as particularly new, and a lot of the citations point to other election conspiracy news outlets, and when you dig down into the evidence, there’s nothing new to back up these claims.”
Trump campaign staffer Liz Harrington wrote the report, according to people familiar with the matter. Harrington did not respond to a message seeking comment. After publication of this story online, she texted, “Nice source dude,” linking to her social media post criticizing the story for quoting Marsden. Harrington is a polarizing figure in Trump’s orbit but is liked by Trump. The report itself has no listed author or date on it.
Lawyers for Trump included a citation of Trump’s posting of the report in a brief that argued that presidential immunity shields him from being prosecuted for alleged obstruction in the 2020 election.
Where things stand with Trump's battle to stay on the ballot
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Former president Donald Trump might not be on primary ballots in Colorado and Maine. Here's what has happened so far regarding Trump's 14th Amendment battles. (Video: HyoJung Kim/The Washington Post)
Although Trump has benefited from a more disciplined political operation, he has at times strayed from the recommendations of legal and political advisers — and they have limited ability to control some of his impulses, such as continuing to push false claims of a stolen election. His decision to publicize the report, which he described as “fully verified” and “compiled by the most highly qualified Election Experts in the Country,” caught some of his own advisers off guard.
Some of Trump’s top legal and political advisers didn’t know he planned to publish the report until it was on social media, according to four people familiar with the situation, and they later sought more clarity on the matter. The content of the report was not put through usual channels for posting and public distribution, some of these people said. Like some others, the people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions.
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Trump had wanted in the past — as recently as this past summer — to release a report claiming the election was tainted by fraud, but his legal team dissuaded him, strenuously arguing against it. Trump even previewed the report in August, writing in a Truth Social post that “a Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference.” That news conference, however, never occurred, after lawyers intervened and urged him to cancel.
“It’s a bunch of garbage. I don’t know why they thought now was the time to release it. It’s nonsense,” said one person with knowledge of the Trump campaign’s 2020 efforts to find fraud.
The former president, who is running a campaign fueled by victimhood and grievance, is polling well ahead of his Republican rivals in the lead-up to the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses and the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary.
Trump’s promotion of the report comes as he faces four criminal trials, including two separate federal indictments from special counsel Jack Smith and an indictment from Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The report includes allegations of election fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan, which fact-checkers and election experts have repeatedly disputed.
For example, the Wisconsin section of the report relies on a report from Michael Gableman, a former state Supreme Court justice who conducted a review of the 2020 election for Republicans in the state legislature. During that process, Gableman, who consulted with election deniers, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “most people, myself included, do not have a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work.” The review found no evidence that the 2020 election was improperly called for President Biden. State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos eventually fired Gableman.
Ken Block, who founded a software firm that Trump’s campaign commissioned to study election fraud claims in late 2020 but found them to be false, wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that the latest report Trump promoted included already disproved information.
“The released list of ‘proof’ in this document includes references to issues that have already had their day in court and lost, refers the reader to random claims made on social media, references spreadsheets that are not included with the document or have a link, and, in general, makes a lot of claims without much, if any, legally admissible proof,” Block wrote.
The report also says the Wisconsin Supreme Court deemed in 2022 that ballot drop boxes were illegal under Wisconsin law. That was two years after the 2020 election, and the ruling did not impact those election results.
Justin Grimmer, a public policy professor at Stanford University, described the report as filled with “long-running debunked wild claims.” One claim he hadn’t previously seen, he said, is a suggestion that in Michigan there were more votes than voters.
“It’s kind of insane, because the number of active registered voters in Michigan was 7.1 million in 2020, and 5.5 million people turned out to vote,” Grimmer said. “I don’t know what data analysis that person is doing. … But very clearly there’s enough registered voters in the state of Michigan to support 5.5 million people turning out to vote.”
“When you look at these fraud claims, these sorts of bullet-point claims … it’s unclear what evidence is being used, how terms are being defined, what files are they looking at,” he added. “And then inevitably you can go back through and you find what they did and they just screwed it up. They just have no idea what they’re doing.”
Patrick Marley and Perry Stein contributed to this report.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jan-6-mike-pence-capitol-b2474575.html
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation has unveiled fresh details around Donald Trump’s indifference toward stopping the Capitol riot on January 6— including his reaction to the news that his vice president had been relocated for safety purposes, according to a report.
Trump aide Nick Luna told Mr Smith’s team about the moment Mr Trump was informed that Vice President Mike Pence had to be moved to a secure location, ABC News reported. The then-president allegedly responded, “So what?”
Mr Luna was apparently shocked at this response, given Mr Pence’s loyalty to his boss over the years, the outlet wrote. During the riot, those in the mob were chanting to “hang Mike Pence,” given his reluctance to listen to Mr Trump, who had asked him to not certify the 2020 election results.
The outlet also reported that the deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, told federal investigators that Mr Trump “was just not interested” in trying to stop the escalating violence.
The then-president was “very angry” that day over the election results coming to fruition — not over what was happening to the Capitol building by rioters, who were “angry on his behalf,” the outlet reported Mr Scavino telling investigators. The former deputy chief of staff thought Mr Trump’s reaction was “very unsettling.”
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Then, after numerous failed attempts to persuade the then-president to try to stop the mob, his aides decided to give Mr Trump some space.
While he was alone, sources told ABC News, Mr Trump posted his infamous tweet about Mike Pence. He wrote that his number two “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.”
Shocked at the post, aides and staff approached Mr Scavino, who often posted on Mr Trump’s behalf to ask why he had written it. “I didn’t do it,” Mr Scavino reportedly told the special counsel’s team.
Hours later, that evening, Mr Scavino reportedly told Mr Trump over the phone: “This is all your legacy here, and there’s smoke coming out of the Capitol.”
In the aftermath of the attack, witnesses testified to the January 6 House Select Committee that the then-president was watching TV in the dining room of the Oval Office as the storming of the Capitol building unfolded. They also remarked on his hours-long refusal to intervene.
In its final report, the January 6 House panel wrote that “the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed.
The revelations come as part of Mr Smith’s probe into Mr Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the events leading up to the riot.
https://fortune.com/2024/01/07/gen-z-living-with-parents-expensive-rent/
America has long struggled to provide adequate affordable housing, an issue that’s become increasingly dire over the past few decades and supercharged since the pandemic. Now, new data is showing that things aren’t improving much for the next generation.
In fact, 31% of Gen Z live with a parent or family member because they can’t afford to rent or buy their own place, a new survey of 1,249 U.S. adults from Intuit Credit Karma finds.
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First, some context: Gen Z spans those born between 1997 and 2012, currently aged 11 to 26. While it isn’t exactly newsworthy that 11 and 12-year-olds would live with a family member, Credit Karma’s survey includes responses from those 18 and older.
For the members of the generation old enough to live on their own, Credit Karma’s survey and other data are starting to paint a picture that Gen Z is be particularly unlucky when it comes to housing costs. Gone are the days of low interest rates that helped millennials finally break into the market, particularly at the start of the 2020s; now, as more and more members of Gen Z graduate from school, kick off their careers, and consider a starter home, they are facing higher rates and higher housing prices, all with limited supply.
Renting isn’t any better: In 2022, the typical American renter became rent burdened—meaning 30% of the median income is now needed to pay the average rent—for the first time. While income growth that finally outpaced rent growth in 2023 helped renters some, the national rent-to-income ratio still sits at 30%, according to Moody’s Analytics, which is considered rent burdened.
Gen Zers certainly aren’t the only ones struggling—of U.S. adults across generations who rent, 24% say they can’t afford their rent anymore, the report finds, causing almost 40% to sacrifice necessities to pay their housing bill. But the hardship is exacerbated among millennials and Gen Z: 30% and 27%, respectively, are struggling to pay their rent, versus 10% of those who are at least 69.
Expensive rent has far-reaching consequences beyond the daily financial struggle, including making it more difficult to save for a home. To that end, Credit Karma’s survey finds nearly half of Americans, 46%, believe they will never own one (mortgage rates and inflation are also to blame). Last year, the typical first-time homeowner was 36 years old, according to the Association of Realtors. That’s a record high, and a full decade older than the oldest Gen Zer.
That means more Gen Zers are renting for longer, even as those costs creep higher and higher, too. No wonder so many are staying with mom and dad. It’s long been a trend—just ask millennials who got financially backtracked during the Great Recession—but it picked up during the pandemic, some experts say. Around 2.7 million adults in the U.S. moved in with a parent or grandparent in March and April of 2020, according to a Zillow analysis; U.S. Census Bureau data finds the percentage of young adults living at home has climbed over 87% over the past two decades. With the inflation that followed in the pandemic’s wake, many young people haven’t been able to move out.
When they are able to move out, many can only do so with a parent’s help. A recent survey from Redfin found 40% of buyers under 30 get help from family to afford a down payment. Credit Karma’s survey found 30% of Gen Z and 39% of millennials say they are dependent on money from family to buy a home.
The US Capitol attack was a shameful event in US history, yet Americans remain confused and divided about what occurred
Three years ago this week, the United States Capitol was attacked by thousands of armed loyalists of Donald Trump, some intent on killing members of Congress.
Roughly 140 police officers were injured in the attack. Four people died. Capitol police officer Brian D Sicknick, who participated in the response, passed away the following day. Another Capitol police officer and a Washington DC police officer who also responded to the attack have since died by suicide.
January 6, 2021, will be remembered as one of the most shameful days in US history. Yet three years later, Americans remain confused and divided about the significance of what occurred.
The events of January 6 capped two months during which Donald Trump sought to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.
In the wake of the election, Trump repeatedly asserted that he had won and Biden had lost, without any basis in fact or law. Sixty federal courts as well as Trump’s own Departments of Justice and Homeland Security concluded that there was no evidence of substantial fraud.
Trump summoned to the White House Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania and Michigan to inquire about how they might alter the election results.
He called two local canvassing board officials in Wayne county, Michigan, that state’s most populous county and one that overwhelmingly favored Biden.
He phoned Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes”, according to a recording of that conversation, adding that “the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
He alluded that Georgia’s secretary of state would face criminal prosecution if he did not do as Trump told him: “You know what they did and you’re not reporting it. You know, that’s a criminal – that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”
He pressed the acting US attorney general and deputy attorney general to declare the election fraudulent.
When the deputy said the department had found no evidence of widespread fraud and warned that it had no power to change the outcome of the election, Trump replied: “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me.”
Trump and his allies continued to harangue the attorney general and top justice department officials nearly every day until January 6.
Trump plotted with an assistant attorney general to oust the acting attorney general and pressure lawmakers in Georgia to overturn the state’s election results. Trump ultimately decided against it after top department leaders pledged to resign en masse.
Trump then incited the attack on the Capitol.
For weeks before the attack, Trump urged his supporters to come to Washington for a Save America protest on January 6, when Congress was scheduled to ceremonially count the electoral votes of Joe Biden’s win.
He tweeted on December 19: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” On December 26: “See you in Washington, DC, on January 6th. Don’t miss it. Information to follow.”
On December 30: “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!” On January 1: “The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, DC will take place at 11:00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!”
At a rally he held just before the violence began, Trump repeated his lies about how the election had been stolen. “We will never give up,” he said. “We will never concede. It will never happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it any more.”
He told the crowd that Republicans were fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back, overly respectful of “bad people”.
Instead, he said, Republicans are “going to have to fight much harder … We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong … We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”
He then told the crowd that “different rules” applied to them.
“When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike [Pence] has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the Rinos [Republicans in name only] and the stupid people that he’s listening to.”
Then – knowing that members of the crowd were armed – he dispatched them to the Capitol as the electoral count was about to start. The attack on the Capitol came immediately after.
He watched the attack on television from the White House. For three hours, he made no attempt to stop it or ask his supporters to refrain from violence.
Trump’s attempted coup continues to this day.
Trump still refuses to concede the 2020 election. He continues to assert it was stolen.
He has presided over a network of loyalists and allies who sought to overturn the election and erode public confidence in it by mounting partisan state “audits” and escalating attacks on state election officials.
A year later, on 6 January 2022, Trump hosted a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “Remember,” he said, “the insurrection took place on November 3rd. It was the completely unarmed protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th.” (Reminder: some were, in fact, armed.)
Trump then referred to the House investigation of the attack on the Capitol: “Why isn’t the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the January 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?”
He went on to castigate “Rinos”, presumably referring to his opponents within the party, such as Republican representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who sat on the January 6 committee. “In many ways a Rino is worse than a Radical Left Democrat,” Trump said, “because you don’t know where they are coming from and you have no idea how bad they really are for our Country.” He added: “the good news is there are fewer and fewer Rinos left as we elect strong Patriots who love America.”
Trump then led a purge of congressional Republicans who had failed to support him. He endorsed a primary challenger to Cheney, who lost her re-election bid in Wyoming. Kinzinger left Congress.
Trump is now running for president again, with a wide lead over other Republican candidates for the nomination.
During his campaign, he has called January 6, 2021, “a beautiful day” and described those imprisoned for the insurrection as “great, great patriots” and “hostages”. At his campaign rallies he has played a recording of The Star-Spangled Banner sung by jailed rioters, accompanied by his recitation of the pledge of allegiance.
On Saturday, Trump will spend the third anniversary of the January 6 attack at two rallies in Iowa.
Trump has still not been held accountable.
Trump’s post-riot impeachment was rejected by Republican senators, including the Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, who claimed there were better ways to hold him accountable than impeaching him.
Although the House January 6 committee had no direct power to hold Trump accountable, its revelations did affect the 2022 midterms, where many Republican candidates who had supported Trump’s lies were defeated. It also laid a foundation for the justice department to indict Trump.
The Republican presidential primaries have not held Trump accountable. To the contrary, the justice department’s indictment and a similar indictment in Georgia have apparently strengthened Trump’s grip on the nomination, as he uses them as evidence that he’s being persecuted.
The Colorado supreme court and Maine’s secretary of state have determined that Trump should not be on their state ballots because of section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which bars someone who has previously sworn allegiance to the constitution but then engaged in an insurrection from holding public office. Trump has appealed the decisions.
Trump maintains a demagogic hold over the Republican party
A belligerent and narcissistic authoritarian has gained a powerful hold over a large portion of the US, including the Republican party.
According to recent polls, 70% of Republican voters believe his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Thirty-four per cent of Republicans believe the FBI organized and encouraged the insurrection (compared with 30% of independents and 13% of Democrats).
The Republican party is close to becoming a cult whose central animating idea is that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Trump has had help, of course. Fox News hosts and social media groups have promoted and amplified his ravings for their own purposes. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress and in the states have played along.
The 2024 election will be the final and probably last opportunity to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his attempted coup three years ago today.
The 2024 election may therefore be the last chance for American democracy to function.
