Popularmente se le llama temporal de Santa Rosa a la tormenta o lluvias fuertes que se desarrollan en el hemisferio sur entre 5 días antes y 5 días después del 30 de agosto, día de Santa Rosa de Lima, patrona de las América.
La leyenda cuenta que en 1615 una joven religiosa, llamada Rosa, de nombre original Isabel Flores de Oliva, impidió con sus rezos la llegada de piratas holandeses a Lima. Logró generar una tormenta y los piratas no llegaron. Así los creyentes se convencieron que Santa Rosa había ahuyentado a los piratas.
En Uruguay es tradición esperar que cerca del 25 de agosto, pocos días antes o pocos después, se desarrolle este fenómeno .”Santa Rosa no falla”, es la típica frase que se acostumbra decir aun en contra de todos los pronósticos meteorológicos.
Según estudios estadísticos, fueron apenas 16 las ocasiones (en 142 años de registros), en que se desarrolló un episodio que pueda clasificarse como temporal en estas fechas. Las lluvias que se aproximan esta semana podrían explicarse como el choque de los primeros vientos cálidos y temperaturas altas con los frentes fríos que permanecen del invierno.
Mr. Bolton did not address the matter afterward, and a spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday. Speculation arose when the national security adviser skipped the state dinner, although it was not clear why. But rather than fly home with the president, as an aide worried about his position might do, Mr. Bolton flew directly to the United Arab Emirates for meetings, a sign to his allies of the confidence he has in his relationship with Mr. Trump.
“Ambassador Bolton works for the president, and the president sets the policy,” said Fred Fleitz, the president of the Center for Security Policy who was Mr. Bolton’s chief of staff until last year. “Bolton has said for years: ‘Look, I work for the guy who won the election. He sets the policy.’ That’s always been his approach under any president he’s worked for.”
It was left to the State Department to try to clean up the confusion on Tuesday, when it declared that “the entire North Korean W.M.D. program,” referring to weapons of mass destruction, is “in conflict with the U.N. Security Council resolutions,” which would presumably include the short-range missiles.
For his part, Mr. Bolton has privately expressed his own frustration with the president, according to several officials, viewing him as unwilling to push for more transformative changes in the Middle East. At the same time, his allies said he had been misunderstood, cast as favoring military action in Venezuela, for instance, when in fact they say he does not.
But Mr. Bolton is an inveterate disrupter, eagerly upsetting the status quo in furtherance of his policy goals. He has never seemed to worry much about offending others; he does not appear to care much about being liked.
He came into the job last year saying he hoped to emulate the process Brent Scowcroft ran under President George Bush, but he has had his own conflicts with the Pentagon and the State Department.
In reorganizing the national security apparatus, Mr. Bolton eliminated some meetings of the highest-ranking officials known as the principals’ committee, or P.C., in favor of what are called “paper P.C.s,” meaning documents that are distributed. Cabinet officers rarely complain about fewer meetings, but this may lessen opportunities to air points of contention in person.
The late United States Representative John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the final time on Sunday as remembrances continue for the civil rights legend.
A crowd began gathering near the bridge that became a landmark in the fight for racial justice when Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten there 55 years ago on “Bloody Sunday,” a key event in the fight for voting rights for Black Americans.
A horse-drawn hearse retraced the route through Selma from Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the 1965 march began.
As the wagon approached the bridge, members of the crowd shouted “Thank you, John Lewis!” and “Good trouble” – the phrase Lewis used to describe his tangles with white authorities during the civil rights movement.
Some crowd members sang the gospel song Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Jesus. Later, some onlookers sang the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome and similar tunes.
The hearse paused atop the bridge over the Alabama River as the cicadas sang in the summer heat.
On the south side of the bridge, where Lewis was beaten by Alabama state troopers in 1965, family members placed roses that the carriage rolled over, marking the spot where Lewis spilt his blood and suffered a severe head injury.
As a military honour guard lifted Lewis’s coffin from the wagon into an automobile hearse, state troopers saluted Lewis.
A native of Pike County, Alabama, Lewis became involved in the civil rights movement as a young man.
In 1965, he and other marchers, calling for equal rights for all voters regardless of race, were beaten in Selma as segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace ordered a crackdown.
The news coverage of the event help galvanise support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Amid current national anti-racism protests and a movement to abolish Confederate monuments and symbols, calls have grown to rename the bridge in honour of Lewis.
It is currently named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general and leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.
Week of memorials
Lewis’s body will later be brought to the Alabama Capitol in the afternoon to lie in repose.
A series of events began on Saturday in Lewis’s hometown of Troy, Alabama, to pay tribute to the late congressman and his legacy. He will lie in state at the US Capitol next week before his private funeral on Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr once led.
Frank and Ellen Hill drove for more than four hours from Monroe, Louisiana, to watch the procession.
Frank Hill, 60, said he remembers, as an African American child, watching news footage of Lewis and other civil rights marchers being beaten by law enforcement officers.
“I had to come back and see John Lewis cross the bridge for the last time,” said Hill. It’s funny to see the state troopers here to honour and respect him rather than beat the crap out of him,” Hill told The Associated Press.
Lewis, 80, died on July 17, several months after he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
A homeowner in Maryland tried to fight a snake infestation with coal, only to burn their own house down, causing more than $1m in damage. Nobody was injured.
Montgomery county fire and rescue officials notified the public about the blaze right after it happened on 23 November, describing a conflagration that left a “large two-three-story single family house with heavy fire throughout structure and roof collapse”.
About 75 firefighters responded. Conditions were “dark and cold” – around -4C (25F) – as they battled the flames.
More than a week later, the department’s public information officer revealed more details. The cause was “accidental”, they said, specifically the “homeowner using smoke to manage snake infestation”.
Authorities believe the chosen heat source for the attempted serpent eradication was coals, which were located “too close to combustibles”. The fire’s area of origin was described as “basement, walls/floor”.
While uncommon, there have been other incidents in the US in which homeowners accidentally set fire to their homes while battling pests.
In 2017, a man destroyed most of his Georgia home when trying to “burn bees out of their nest”, the Associated Press reported.
The Humane Society of the United States says firefighters have repeatedly faced dangers from retrieving snakes, including an April 2013 incident in Thornton, Colorado.
Then, firefighters removed “more than 1,000 snakes and other reptiles from the basement of a home that was engulfed in flames”. Some of the creatures were described as aggressive, with some getting loose. The house was the location of Boas and Balls, a business selling snakes such as ball pythons and boa constrictors.
In Maryland, fire officials said: “Status of snakes undetermined.”
Three people were killed in New York on Tuesday when a Manhattan-bound Long Island Rail Road train struck a car on the tracks. (iStock)
Three people were killed in New York on Tuesday night when a Manhattan-bound train struck a car that was on the tracks, officials said.
The vehicle was “trying to beat the gate” at an intersection in Westbury around 7:30 p.m., according to Nassau County police.
The Long Island Rail Road train hit the vehicle, killing all three people inside, officials said. Several passengers on the commuter train suffered minor injuries.
The transit agency said the train was scheduled to arrive at Penn Station in New York City from Ronkonkoma at 7:56 p.m.
Service was suspended in both directions on the Ronkonkoma and Huntington/Port Jefferson branches.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Capitol complex was briefly locked down and an inaugural rehearsal at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol was evacuated Monday after a fire in a homeless encampment, authorities said.
“Out of an abundance of caution the U.S. Capitol complex was temporarily shut down,” the Secret Service said on Twitter. “There is no threat to the public.”
The lockdown lasted about an hour. President-elect Joe Biden was not present.
The incident occurred as the nation’s capital is on edge days before Biden’s inauguration and two weeks after a violent riot at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump who believe falsely that the election was rigged.
The rehearsal was taking place at the Capitol’s West Front when Capitol Police began yelling to “get inside” and “this is not a drill.” Scores of people began running up the steps, some struggling to ascend them, as an automated announcement told those fleeing of an “external threat.”
D.C. Fire officials said they responded to a fire near the Capitol “that has been extinguished. There were no injuries. This accounts for smoke that many have seen.”
The fire in a homeless tent beneath a nearby freeway was extinguished, fire officials said. The occupant was using propane, which could explain a report of an “explosion,” they said. One person was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Lawmakers in all buildings within the Capitol complex were warned that “due to an external security threat located under the bridge on I-295 at First and F Streets SE, no entry or exit is permitted at this time.”
Lawmakers and staff were told that they could move through their buildings but were warned to “stay away from exterior windows and doors. If you are outside, seek cover.”
Contributing: Kevin Wexler; Christal Hayes and Jasper Colt
“If you’re leaving 10% behind, I don’t think the war is over,” Gutfeld said plainly. “You can play with the rhetoric and talk about it,” he went on, “but it doesn’t feel that way.”
Biden, in his first address since American troops left Afghanistan, claimed that 90% of Americans who wanted to leave were able to. The White House has acknowledged that roughly 200 people remain in the region which has fallen under Taliban control.
Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth said he believes the number to be closer to 500.
“Imagine saying ‘we leave nobody behind except for the 10%,’” Hegseth said. “Last time I did the math, 5,000 Americans came out, which means 10% is 500 – a larger number than they reported previously.”
“We’re a country that is paralyzed by smartphone videos of police brutality. Do you know what you can do to this country with 500 hostages, 500 executions?” Gutfeld responded.
“You can do whatever you want. I don’t trust anything out of this government. I’m hoping that maybe they’re lying and that they’re working to get these people out but they can’t talk about it, right? Maybe this is just a smokescreen…I think there are pieces of good news that they put out there but it’s like we’re not hearing the truth.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki maintained that the White House remains focussed on “getting every American citizen out during her press briefing Tuesday.
“That has not changed,” Psaki said.
“The president remains committed to getting every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” she went on. “That’s an enduring commitment, one that will not change and one we’re going to focus on every single day.”
ORINDA — A mansion rented through Airbnb for a Halloween party turned into a chaotic scene Thursday evening, when gunfire broke out, killing five people, injuring several others and sending more than 100 frightened partygoers fleeing from the posh neighborhood of this affluent city where violent crime is rare.
After confirming the deaths of four men in their 20s earlier in the day, police announced late Friday night that a fifth shooting victim, a 19-year-old woman, died at a local hospital.
Police still don’t know whether more than one shooter was involved or have any motives.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and Orinda Police Department released the names of the dead victims — Tiyon Farley, 22, of Antioch; Omar Taylor, 24, of Pittsburg; Ramon Hill Jr., 23, of San Francisco/Oakland; and Javin County, 29, of Sausalito/Richmond. Hours later, the sheriff’s office said a fifth victim had been pronounced dead at a hospital and identified her as Oshiana Tompkins, 19, of Vallejo/Hercules. They said several injured victims were transported by ambulance, and others took themselves, to hospitals. They either suffered from gunshot wounds or were injured while fleeing the scene. No other information was immediately available.
According to authorities, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office crime lab is analyzing two firearms retrieved from the house to determine whether they were used in the shooting or any other crimes. Numerous shell casings found there are also being processed and analyzed.
Romand Reynolds, of Vallejo, told this news organization that his 24-year-old son Armani mentioned that he was going to a Halloween party on Thursday night “and the next thing I know he was shot” three or four times. He said his son is now in a coma.
Police went to the four-bedroom home at 114 Lucille Way after getting a report at 10:45 p.m. of gunshots being fired inside a short-term rental. Dozens of partygoers were running away from the property when officers arrived, and three people were pronounced dead at the scene.
“There was a lot of noise and yelling and people running,” Orinda police Chief David Cook said.
Warning: The video contains graphic images and profanity.
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The fourth victim was pronounced dead at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, said hospital spokesman Ben Drew. Some eyewitnesses were interviewed by police, but no suspects had been arrested by Friday evening. Police had not publicly confirmed whether there was more than one shooter. “We’re still trying to wrap our arms around what exactly transpired,” Cook said.
Friends drove Armani Reynolds to a local hospital, and he later was transferred to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he remained in a coma Friday morning, his father said that morning. Romand Reynolds came to the blocked-off crime scene on Lucille Way on Friday morning to try to retrieve his son’s car.
“As far as I know, he was a victim,” Reynolds said. “He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The property had been reported by neighbors for having large parties before but had not been on the city’s radar for months, officials said. City regulations on short-term rentals prohibit more than 13 people from occupying a property, City Manager Steve Salomon said. The owner had been cooperative with city officials after the reports of large gatherings — including one in February that resulted in a violation notice for the owner — and said he would comply with the regulations, Salomon said.
“Up until last night, it appeared they had complied,” Salomon said. City officials said someone had emailed a complaint to the city at 9:35 p.m. Halloween night about a large party underway at the home, and Salomon added that he believed the person also had called police. Neither police nor the city would say whether police responded to that complaint.
Several hours after the violence, the streets were in darkness as a group of cars wound their way up and parked on a street as close as possible to the crime scene. People in the cars got out and huddled together, some crying. They appeared to have been at the party or to know some of the victims. A woman in the group told a reporter they did not want to talk. The group left a short time later.
The killings represent the largest number of homicides in the city in recent memory: Orinda’s last homicide was in 2012, Orinda Mayor Inga Miller said, when a man hacked his longtime girlfriend to death with a machete.
“We are focused on the four people who have lost their lives, their families and the other victims of this tragedy, including the four other people who have been wounded,” Miller said. “Our Orinda police are focused on finding the parties responsible. This is a tragedy of unimaginable gravity.”
The party home is accessed via narrow, twisting streets lined with multimillion-dollar homes on a hill southwest of downtown Orinda. The city of around 19,000 in central Contra Costa County is known as a quiet bedroom community.
But area residents said the Lucille Way house was known for hosting large, rowdy parties. Once there was a hit-and-run, and another time a liquor bottle was thrown into an adjacent property, according to two residents who did not want their names used.
Property records list the owner of the 3,972-square-foot home as Michael Young Wang and show a 2005 purchase price of $1.25 million. Residents from four homes in the neighborhood said he never appeared to move in or live there. Records show that Wang’s primary residence is in Concord. At the Concord home Friday, a Subaru SUV sat in the driveway, and although someone could be seen moving behind the curtains of a window, no one answered the door.
Police Chief Cook said that on Halloween the Lucille Way house was being rented by people “not from Orinda.” He declined to elaborate.
A screenshot of the Airbnb listing for the home, provided by Airbnb, showed that the owner specified there should be no weapons, smoking or marijuana, and warned that “neighbors are close” so the time between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. was supposed to be quiet.
“We are horrified by this tragedy and are in close communication with Chief David Cook of Orinda Police to offer our support with his investigation into who committed this senseless violence,” Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit said.
The company now has banned the person who booked the house from its platform, Breit said, adding that parties were specifically prohibited in the property listing.
Mayor Miller said the City Council would “discuss the issue of short-term rentals” at its next meeting, an indication the city might consider additional restrictions.
According to social media posts, an “AirBNB mansion party” had been advertised for Halloween night. The flier was adorned with crime-scene tape and told attendees to send a direct message to obtain the location and to “BYOB” and “BYOW” (Bring Your Own Weed).
This is a flyer advertising the “Air BNB Mansion Party” that ended with a shooting that killed five people. The Instagram account of the person who posted the flyer has since been deleted. (Instagram screen shot)
Neighborhood resident Willie Yee said he was watching the news Halloween night when he heard “dozens” of people running in a panic for their cars.
“I knew right away this wasn’t anything ordinary going on,” Yee said.
The town is generally so quiet, Yee said, that people call it “Bor-inda.”
Even so, it’s not the first time an Airbnb party has made headlines in Orinda. In 2016, a party at a short-term rental on Camino Encinas led to a brawl, leaving one man in critical condition. The following year, the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring residents to register with the city and abide by various regulations if they wished to offer their homes as vacation rentals through Airbnb and other services.
Halloween parties, often festive affairs, have seen striking upticks of fatal violence last year and this year. In Long Beach this week, three men died and nine others were injured late Wednesday during a joint birthday-Halloween party. In an off-campus college party Sunday in Greenville, Texas, two people were fatally shot and 12 others injured. Last year, a private Halloween party in East Palo Alto left two men dead and two others critically injured.
Staff writers Angela Ruggiero, Jon Kawamoto, Levi Sumagaysay, George Kelly Alejandra Armstrong and Martha Ross contributed to this report.
A Taiwanese broadcaster showed video of a U.S. government plane landing about 7 p.m. Sunday at Songshan Airport in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital. Four members of the delegation were on the plane.
Markey met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol earlier Sunday in South Korea before arriving in Taiwan on a separate flight at Taoyuan International Airport, which also serves Taipei. Markey, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia, Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Subcommittee, and members of the delegation will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan.
The other members of the delegation are Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa, and Democratic House members John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal from California and Don Beyer from Virginia.
Chinese warplanes have continued crossing the midpoint of the Taiwan Strait on a daily basis even after the conclusion of the military exercises last Wednesday, with at least 10 doing so on Sunday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.
The 10 fighter jets were among 22 Chinese military aircraft and six naval ships detected in the area around Taiwan by 5 p.m. on Sunday, the ministry said on its Twitter account.
A senior White House official on Asia policy said late last week that China had used Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan, jeopardizing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region.
“China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” Kurt Campbell, a deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, said on a call with reporters.
“It has sought to disregard the centerline between the P.R.C. and Taiwan, which has been respected by both sides for more than 60 years as a stabilizing feature,” he said, using the acronym for the country’s full name, the People’s Republic of China.
China accuses the U.S. of encouraging independence forces in Taiwan through its sale of military equipment to the island and engaging with its officials. The U.S. says it does not support independence for Taiwan but that its differences with China should be resolved by peaceful means.
China’s ruling Communist Party has long said that it favors Taiwan joining China peacefully but that it will not rule out force if necessary. The two split in 1949 during a civil war in which the Communists took control of China and the losing Nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan.
Campbell, speaking on Friday, said the U.S. would send warships and planes through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks and is developing a roadmap for trade talks with Taiwan that he said the U.S. intends to announce in the coming days.
While the world’s attention is on Donald Trump’s attempt to win re-election as president over challenger Joe Biden, the battle for the US Senate that will culminate on 3 November is equally dramatic.
Even if Biden defeats Trump, he will be unable to pass legislation on key issues such as healthcare, immigration and climate change unless the Democrats simultaneously seize the Senate, where the Republicans now have a 47-53 majority.
The Democrats could pull it off. Democratic challengers in two states, Arizona and Colorado, appear to have a good chance in defeating Republican incumbents, while only one Democratic incumbent, in Alabama, looks especially vulnerable, according to the latest forecast from the Cook Political Report.
The number of additional seats the Democrats need to win for a voting majority depends on who wins the White House, since any Senate tie of 50-50 is broken by the sitting vice-president. If Trump wins re-election, the Democrats probably need three states, in addition to Arizona and Colorado, for the majority; if Biden wins, the Democrats probably need only two more.
“Probably” because there is enough time for races not mentioned here to shift and change the calculus.
The Democrats’ top targets are Maine, North Carolina and Iowa.
In all three races, incumbent Republicans appear to be weighed down by the unpopularity of Trump, while their Democratic opponents could benefit from high turnout among voters who wish to see Trump defeated.
Broad demographic trends are also making trouble for Republicans nationally, with fewer women saying they will support Trump in 2020, suburban voters likewise abandoning him, according to the polls, and support for Trump falling off even among whites without a college degree.
In Maine, the longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins appears at last to have fallen out with the electorate, a majority of whom say they disapprove of Collins’ vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second pick to join the supreme court.
In North Carolina, the Republican incumbent, Thom Tillis, has defended Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, while a majority of voters say they supported the state’s Democratic governor in his clash with Trump over public health rules for hosting the Republican national convention.
While the Republican Joni Ernst had looked difficult to beat earlier this election cycle, she also appears to have suffered from defending Trump’s pandemic policies, and challenger Theresa Greenfield has shown unexpected strength.
But with the campaign still ongoing, these and other races still have time to change.
Republicans are hoping that the political fight over the supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett will galvanize conservative voters, just as the fight over Kavanaugh did in the 2018 midterm elections. And last-minute political fallout from the debates, the Covid crisis, the economy or some unforeseen twist could change the races yet again.
A house under foreclosure in Las Vegas displays a sign on Oct. 15, 2010, saying that it’s now bank-owned. Sen. Sherrod Brown has vowed increased scrutiny of Wall Street banks, in part after a surge in foreclosures in his hometown in Ohio over a decade ago.
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
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A house under foreclosure in Las Vegas displays a sign on Oct. 15, 2010, saying that it’s now bank-owned. Sen. Sherrod Brown has vowed increased scrutiny of Wall Street banks, in part after a surge in foreclosures in his hometown in Ohio over a decade ago.
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) hasn’t forgotten the Great Recession.
In the first half of 2007, Brown recalls, there were more foreclosures in his hometown than anywhere else in the country. It was a period that led to the Global Financial Crisis: Millions of Americans lost their homes, while banks and other corporate sectors were rescued by billions of dollars in bailouts.
More than a decade later, Democrats control all three branches of government, and Brown and fellow populists like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., are in powerful perches to oversee the Big Banks.
And Brown, like many of these top Democrats, believes that too many American are still getting the short end of the stick.
“They never get bailed out,” Brown says in an interview with NPR. “They never get a second chance. They’re just not in a position in an economy like this, where Wall Street writes the rules, where they can get ahead.”
That anger has been magnified at a time when banks have seen their profits soar during the pandemic, in part, thanks to strong actions by the Federal Reserve to support markets.
And top Democrats believe they are justified in pushing for change at Big Banks.
They want to push the country’s largest financial institutions to be agents of social change. And they have specific goals, like expanding access to loans and impose fewer fees for average Americans, or more outreach to unbanked and underserved communities.
“They did very well during the pandemic,” Brown notes about the banks. “We’ve seen stratospheric compensation levels. We see stock buybacks and dividend distribution. Yet, wages throughout our economy are essentially flat.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown talks with reporters in Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown has pledged to increase scrutiny of major banks.
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Sen. Sherrod Brown talks with reporters in Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown has pledged to increase scrutiny of major banks.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Brown is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which also includes Warren, another Democrat with a reputation for being tough on Wall Street.
The Massachusetts senator played a key role in the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.
“You know, most people think of congress in terms of passing legislation, and yeah, that’s part of the job,” she tells NPR. “But the other part of the job is oversight.”
That oversight was in evidence when Brown’s committee this week brought in the chief executives of the country’s top six banks for questioning as part of an annual oversight.
During that hearing, Warren asked Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, about overdraft fees the bank charged its customers during the pandemic, which she estimated at nearly $1.5 billion.
The heated exchange ended when Warren asked Dimon if he would volunteer to refund that money. He declined.
Warren is unapologetic about pushing banks to do more given their roles as critical institutions in society.
Bank executives, Warren says, “have a responsibility to execute on making their banks part of the solution to our economic and racial problems across this nation.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren heading to a news conference in Washington, D.C., in April 27. Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, tells NPR that a key part of her job as a lawmaker will be oversight.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren heading to a news conference in Washington, D.C., in April 27. Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, tells NPR that a key part of her job as a lawmaker will be oversight.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
But Republican lawmakers disagree with that very premise. They criticize executives for comments they have made – about voting rights, in particular, and they are critical of companies making business decisions based on environmental considerations.
“That ought to be left to elected lawmakers,” says Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., the ranking Republican on Brown’s Banking Committee.
Bankers aren’t naïve to the politics at play. Democrats have a small majority in the House of Representatives and a razor-thin majority in the Senate. And the midterm elections are less than two years away.
But even with a change in power in Congress, analysts warn banks are likely to face continued presure from Democrats — and society — on key aspects of their operations, from whom they lend money to where they invest.
“Banks have no choice but to address these issues, because it impacts their communities, their customers, and their employees,” says Mike Mayo, a banking analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. “You have to live in the real world, and the real world has these issues as part of the banks’ businesses.”
Rep. Maxine Waters fist bumps President Biden at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 28. Waters warns banks she will not be undermined in an interview with NPR.
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Rep. Maxine Waters fist bumps President Biden at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 28. Waters warns banks she will not be undermined in an interview with NPR.
Melina Mara/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
That message was made clear by Waters, a California lawmaker in a powerful position to influence banks as chair of the House Financial Services Committee.
“You know, what I have discovered about the banking community is that they have had a way of operating traditionally, historically, and they don’t change easily,” Waters tells NPR.
But Waters adds she will still demand changes in Wall Street.
“I think that many of them have come to understand that I can be dealt with, but I cannot be tricked. I cannot be fooled,” she says. “And I don’t accept being undermined.”
“He went to the National Stadium in Warsaw and literally met with hundreds of Ukrainians. He heard their heroic stories as they were fleeing Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. In the moment, I think that was a principled human reaction to the stories that he had heard that day,” Biden’s ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
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