A turncoat Navy engineer was bagged by the feds for trying to pass along US nuclear secrets — inside half a peanut-butter sandwich, court documents allege.
The feds say Jonathan Toebbe of Annapolis stashed secrets about the country’s Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines on a blue, plastic-coated SD memory card — then sandwiched the tiny device between two slabs of bread slathered with peanut butter.
“The half sandwich was housed inside of a plastic bag,” the complaint said.
Toebbe also allegedly used a Band-Aid wrapper and pack of chewing gum to help hide SD cards at other times.
He would make drop-offs of material at various locations — with his wife, Diana, a 45-year-old teacher, acting as his “lookout,” authorities said.
Channeling his best inner John le Carré, Toebbe allegedly wrote at one point to his purported foreign contact, “One day, when it is safe, perhaps two old friends will have a chance to stumble into each other at a cafe, share a bottle of wine and laugh over stories of their shared exploits.’’
He and his wife were arrested Saturday in Jefferson County, W. Va., accused by the FBI for violating the Atomic Energy Act, the Justice Department said.
Jonathan Toebbe and his wife used memory cards hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich and a Band-Aid wrapper to transmit the secrets.Amanda R. Gray/U.S. Navy via AP, File
All told, the feds shelled out $100,000 of the cryptocurrency Monero to Toebbe to make him believe they were a foreign government paying for the classified information, authorities said.
The feds’ espionage investigation began in December 2020 when an FBI official received a package that had allegedly been sent by Toebbe to an unidentified foreign country.
The package contained Navy documents and instructions on using “encrypted communications’’ — while expressing a desire by the sender to begin a “covert relationship,” the documents allege.
“Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax,” said a note inside the package, according to the complaint.
After verifying the validity of the confidential information, FBI agents posing as spies from the foreign country began communicating by e-mail with Toebbe, the complaint said.
After several e-mail exchanges, Toebbe allegedly wrote in March that he would provide the documents in return for cryptocurrency payments.
All of the memory cards contained information about the designs of Virginia-class nuclear submarines, the feds said.
The couple was busted when they showed up at a “dead drop” location in West Virginia, US authorities said.
The couple is expected to appear in federal court in Martinsburg, W.Va., on Tuesday.
It’s unknown who is representing the husband and wife.
Kamala Harris was the big winner overall in Thursday night’s debate, but she also managed to create more confusion over her healthcare position. With her subsequent “clarification,” she has staked out the least defensible ground of any of the 2020 Democratic candidates.
Most of the Democratic field can be divided into two camps. There are those who are unapologetically in favor of ending private insurance that covers 180 million Americans and forcing everybody onto a single government-run plan, and those who believe in creating some sort of optional government-run plan while allowing people to maintain their current coverage.
There’s an argument that can be made in defense of both approaches. That is, you could make the case that it’s inefficient to maintain private insurers — middle men who are sucking money out of the system to rake in profits. Or you could argue for the benefits of limiting disruption by making a government plan optional.
Harris has been trying to have it both ways for months. In a January town hall, the California senator said of private insurance, “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.” In May, she claimed that what she really meant was she wanted to move on from all the inefficiency, but that she didn’t support getting rid of private insurance, because she would allow “supplemental” coverage. Her campaign has been trying to advance that distinction, which as I explain below, is highly misleading.
So it surprised many of us when, during the Democratic debate, she raised her hand in what sounded to everybody like a clear question about whether candidates favored getting rid of private insurance for those who currently have it. It seemed like she was returning to her original, unapologetic position, which would be consistent with her support for Bernie Sanders’ plan.
But by Friday morning, she changed again. Harris told Morning Joe that, “the question was, ‘Would you give up your private insurance for that option’ and I said yes.’”
A review of the transcript shows that moderator Lester Holt asked, “Many people watching at home have health insurance through their employer. Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favorite of a government-run plan?”
The context makes it clear, at least to me, that the “their” referred to those who have health insurance through their employer.
Even if we give her the benefit of the doubt that she misheard the question, the implications of her support for the Sanders plan is that it would make all current employer insurance policies illegal. The only answer was “yes” even after having had time to understand the point of the question.
Specifically, the Sanders bill bars private insurers or employers from offering any coverage that covers any of the same benefits as the government plan, which promises to offer a sweeping array of coverage.
It’s right there in Sec. 107 of the bill that Harris co-sponsored: Within four years of enactment, “it shall be unlawful for — (1) a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act; or (2) an employer to provide benefits for an employee, former employee, or the dependents of an employee or former employee that duplicate the benefits provided under this Act.”
If that isn’t clear enough, Sanders himself, the author of the bill, has said repeatedly that it will eliminate private insurance beyond the limited role for private coverage for cosmetic surgery.
Yet Harris is trying to cling to this idea of “supplemental” coverage as if it has any real meaning. When people are concerned about private coverage, what they really care about is whether they’d be able to keep their current health plans. The answer is a clear and unequivocal “no” for any supporter of the Sanders plan, which includes Harris.
“I am a proponent of ‘Medicare for all,’” Harris said on Morning Joe. “Private insurance will exist for supplemental coverage, but under my vision of ‘Medicare for all,’ one, we will expand coverage, so that would include dental, it would include vision, it would include hearing aids, which is a big issue for our seniors and extremely expensive. Also this: listen the insurance companies for years have been putting millions of dollars into an advertising campaign and a lobbyist campaign that is trying to convince American families you need to have your insurance company to have your doctor. Well that’s a myth, and it’s a fallacy — 91% of the doctors in America are in Medicare, so you will not lose your doctor.”
A few things to unpack there. What’s odd is that Harris is slipping in this “supplemental” idea while also making what amounts to a case for getting rid of private insurance. She also talks about how she’s going to expand benefits. But remember, the flip side of expanding benefits is that the more generous the government plan, the narrower the range of supplemental plans that will be legal, since they cannot duplicate coverage.
Furthermore, the 91% statistic applies to the current Medicare program, which exists within a system in which doctors and hospitals can accept less in payments from Medicare, because they can shift costs onto private payers. The Sanders bill would get rid of existing Medicare, and fold everybody onto the new government plan, and so there wouldn’t be anybody to shift costs onto. If government tries to use its leverage to negotiate lower payments, doctors and hospitals could have to shut down. Some doctors would likely pull out of the government plan and simply have people pay privately.
Harris was once again given a chance to be honest when asked to clarify that her position was: “’Medicare for all,’ available to all if they want it, if they have private insurance, they keep it?”
She added, “For supplemental coverage. Otherwise they’re in ‘Medicare for all.’”
The problem Harris has in trying to play this game is that it’s the worst of both worlds. It will allow Republicans to attack her both for wanting to kick 180 million people off of their coverage and for being dishonest about it.
WASHINGTON – The economic stimulus package President Donald Trump and Congress are working on to reinvigorate the economy amid the coronaviruspandemic is one for the record books.
At roughly $2 trillion, the measure would be, by far, the largest economic package ever approved by Washington. It’s more than half the size of the $3.5 trillion the federal government expects to collect in taxes this year.
“The magnitude of this stimulus is appropriately consistent with the magnitude of the COVID-19 economic shock,” economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics said.
Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the package is needed not only to bolster the economy and stabilize financial markets now but also to set the stage for a rebound later this year.
The package includes one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. It sets aside $367 billion to help small businesses and $500 billion for loans to larger industries.
Until now, the largest economic recovery package in history was enacted more than a decade ago when President Barack Obama, faced with pulling the country out of its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, called on Congress to inject billions of dollars into the economy.
The result: an $831 billion stimulus package designed to juice the economy through tax cuts, credits and spending on programs such as health care, infrastructure and education.
The coronavirus emergency plan will cost more than twice that package and will equal nearly 10% of the gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S., Zandi said.
Here’s a look at the costs, effectiveness, and triggers for three previous economic stimulus measures.
Airline bailout
Why it happened: President George W. Bush signed an airline bailout package shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when al Qaeda hijackers flew commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center’s twin towers and the Pentagon. All U.S. flights were grounded for several days in the wake of the attacks; industry officials said the ban cost their companies $340 million per day in lost revenue.
How much did it cost? The price tag came in at $15 billion; Congress approved $5 billion in direct federal aid to the airlines and another $10 billion in loan guarantees for the industry. The bill also included liability protections and insurance assistance for the airlines.
Did it work? That depends on who you ask, and how you measure success.
“The biggest airlines essentially got everything they asked for and responded by laying off thousands of employees and drastically reducing service,” one fiscal watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, noted in a 2002 analysis. “More than 70,000 workers were fired, and hundreds of flights were canceled after the bailout was signed into law last fall.”
Others said the bailout rescued airlines that had been poorly managed for years and blasted Congress for giving the industry a “freebie,” with few protections for taxpayers.
But a 2008 Wall Street Journal analysis noted that the Air Transport Stabilization Board – created to dole out the funds – issued $1.6 billion worth of guarantees and ended with a $300 million profit for the U.S. Treasury.
“The board rescued America West Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. and helped facilitate a merger of the two. That move saved tens of thousands of jobs and kept a big competitor in the air. Without the loan guarantees, both airlines likely would have been liquidated before they got the chance to merge,” the Journal wrote. “The program achieved its goal – stabilizing an industry seemingly in a death spiral – and did it without costing taxpayers.”
In other words: If Congress had not acted, it could have been much worse.
2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, also known as TARP
Why it happened: What began as a housing crisis ballooned into the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Foreclosures skyrocketed. Assets held by banks and hedge funds became worthless. Lehman Brothers cratered into bankruptcy, inflicting billions of losses and threatening the entire U.S. financial system.
How much did it cost? The law created a $700 billion program authorizing the U.S. Treasury to purchase “troubled assets” from institutional investors. But the Troubled Asset Relief Program ended up disbursing about $440 billion, according to ProPublica’s bailout tracker. In addition to rescuing failing banks, the program also helped the auto industry and individual families facing foreclosure.
Did it work? TARP was highly controversial from the start – viewed as a massive gift to high-flying Wall Street bankers and investment firms that took great risks with other people’s money.
TARP doled out billions of dollars in capital to megabanks like Citigroup and Bank of America; the insurance giant AIG received $68 billion. In exchange, the U.S. government took a major stake in those financial institutions, as well as in General Motors and Chrysler Group.
There’s no question the program helped to steady a crashing economic system. And TARP ended in the black – with the Treasury reportinga $15 billion profit as it shuttered.
But many homeowners were unable to access the program, and many workers struggled to recover from losing their jobs and their savings. The economy suffered a deep recession. And critics said the program encouraged banks to keep making risky loans.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Why it happened: Despite TARP, the economy continued a downward spiral after Bush left office. Unemployment spiked, GDP plummeted, and household net worth nosedived. President Obama and Democrats in Congress crafted a sweeping package to revive the economy.
How much did it cost? The total bill was $831 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The recovery act included three broad elements – temporary tax cuts for families and businesses; an expansion of food assistance and unemployment benefits; and new spending on local infrastructure projects, education programs, and other initiatives.
Did it work? Economic growth ticked up and the recession officially ended in June 2009, about four months after the measure became law.
“In the first 18 months after ARRA passed, the economy added 2.4 million private sector and 1.7 million government jobs,” according to The Balance, a financial news outlet. “That was after losing more than 500,000 jobs a month during the recession.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in a February 2012 report, said the ARRA raised GDP and lowered unemployment, creating as many as 1.7 million new jobs.
But the rebound was sluggish, unemployment remained high, and families were still reeling. Republicans blasted the Obama stimulus measure as a big-government boondoggle that didn’t do enough to lower unemployment.
“Five years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, millions of families are still asking, ‘where are the jobs?’” then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement on the law’s five-year anniversary.
Coronavirus economic stimulus package
The $2 trillion package the Trump administration and Congress are pushing to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic includes not only direct cash payments to Americans and financial assistance to large businesses and retailers, it also provides $100 billion for hospitals and the health-care system.
In addition, the bill includes $50 billion for protective equipment for health care workers, testing supplies, workforce training, new construction to house patients and for coronavirus medical research.
Congress already has approved – and Trump has signed into law – a separate package that covers the cost of all coronavirus testing, expands federal food programs serving low-income seniors and needy families, and provides paid sick leave for workers forced to stay at home.
Legislative remedies are not the most efficient mechanism to address an economic downturn, said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.
“It’s just hard to get the timing right if you’re talking about temporary tax cuts or infrastructure spending,” he said. “For a typical recession, it’s often the case that you can’t get the jobs up and running fast enough and you can’t get the checks out the door fast enough for the stimulus to do all that much.”
The Federal Reserve, which oversees U.S. monetary policy, has faster-acting tools – such as interest rate cuts. The Fed did just that on March 15, cutting short-term interest rates to zero to encourage more bank loans to households and businesses.
But in the current situation, Strain said it would also make sense for lawmakers to enact provisions that address both the economic crisis and the public health crisis – such as providing assistance to hourly workers who can’t afford to miss a paycheck if they become infected.
“Congress should be putting cash in those people’s pockets in order to allow them to stay home if they’re sick,” he said. “That would have an economic stimulus effect, but it would also have a public health benefit to stop them from going to work.”
Lawmakers considered enacting a payroll tax cut but abandoned that strategy and decided to send money directly to taxpayers.
A payroll tax cut would have been the wrong approach, Jason Furman, an economist who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, wrote in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
A payroll tax cut would be too slow, Furman wrote, arguing that households would receive only a modest benefit every pay period. A one-year payroll tax cut of 2 percent would provide up to a $5,508 tax cut to a high-income couple, only $500 to a single parent earning $25,000 a year and nothing for a worker placed on leave without pay, he said.
Economist Jay Shambaugh suggested a better way to stimulate the economy amid the coronavirus scare would be to simply send a check to Americans, similar to the tax rebates given to taxpayers as part of a stimulus bill approved in 2008 under Bush.
“It didn’t stop the Great Recession, but it was useful to give some support to the economy before the financial crisis deepened,” said Shambaugh, director of The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s a much more effective way to get money to people. People are more likely to spend when they get a big chunk of money.”
For families that have no financial cushion, that would provide them with the resources needed to pay their rent or utilities and buy food, Shambaugh said.
Will$2 trillion be enough to help the economy recover?
The effectiveness of the stimulus package will depend on how the business loans are structured, how long the health care restrictions on Americans remain in place and how much longer the impact spills over into the economy, Shambaugh said.
“Anyone who’s guessing the (dollar) number today, it’s a guess,” he said.
On the Bharat Biotech vaccine, called Covaxin, the group said it was “baffled to understand what scientific logic has motivated the top experts” to authorize a vaccine still in clinical trials.
Dr. Somani, the regulator, said the vaccine had so far been administered to 22,500 trial participants, and “has been found to be safe.”
Both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Bharat Biotech vaccine require two doses, Dr. Somani said. He did not specify whether the participants in Bharat Biotech’s continuing clinical trials had received both doses.
Already the effort has faced setbacks. The Serum Institute, an Indian drug maker that struck a deal to produce the Oxford vaccine even before its effectiveness had been proven, has managed to make only about one-tenth of the 400 million doses it had committed to manufacturing before the end of the year.
The government says it is ready. To get the vaccine across a country famous for its size and its sometimes unreliable roads, officials will tap into knowledge from nationwide polio vaccination and newborn immunization campaigns, and the skill and flexibility employed in India’s mammoth general elections, where ballot boxes are delivered to the furthest reaches of the country.
The Serum Institute says it is on track to increase production of the vaccine, which is known as Covishield in India. With $270 million of its own funds and $300 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Serum plans to ramp up manufacturing capacity to 100 million doses per month by February, said Mayank Sen, a company spokesman.
Initially, the Serum Institute signed a pact with AstraZeneca to make one billion doses of the vaccine for low-and-middle-income countries. The vaccine holds appeal to developing countries because it is cheaper to make and easier to transport than those that require colder temperatures during storage and transportation.
The Jan. 6 committee zeroed in on Trump’s “dereliction of duty” during its public hearing on Thursday.
But a politics expert said the panel has been most successful in highlighting Trump’s manipulation methods.
“Trump is a master gaslighter,” Matthew Schmidt said.
Donald Trump’s actions and inactions surrounding January 6, 2021 took center stage at Thursday’s Congressional hearing. But its the former president’s manipulation methods that stole the panel’s six-week show, a politics expert told Insider this week.
The House Select Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol has hosted eight public hearings since June 10, culminating in a primetime hearing on Thursday evening — the last before the panel breaks for an August recess.
Lawmakers in the last month and a half have presented copious amounts of evidence suggesting former President Donald Trump Trump’s “dereliction of duty” that day and featured bombshell witness testimony highlighting the former president’s erratic behavior as a mob of rioters descended upon the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But the primary point the panel has succeeded in proving thus far has little to do with Trump’s actions — and everything to do with Trump’s mindset, according to Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven.
“My big takeaway is that Donald Trump is able to do what he does because he’s a gaslighter,” Schmidt told Insider. “Trump is a master gaslighter.”
Gaslighting — a form of psychological manipulation — involves sowing doubts about someone’s perception of reality by distorting facts and truths. The perpetrator often employs lies, denials, and fabricated memories to exert power and control over a victim. The term has grown in colloquial usage in recent years.
But there’s a subtle, yet significant, difference in acting immorally and failing to act at all, Schmidt said, and Trump’s acts of omission during and after the Capitol riot, are his own form of gaslighting.
“[The January 6 panel] has shown that he did not act the right way, but most people need evidence the person acted in the wrong way,” Schmidt said. “Action by omission is always less powerful, and Trump is a master of action by omission.”
Schmidt also pointed to Trump’s tweets during and after the siege as further proof of his careful calculations. More than an hour after the first group of rioters overran police officers outside the Capitol, Trump tweeted about the attack.
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country,” he wrote. “Stay peaceful!”
A former White House aide on Thursday testified that Trump initially didn’t want to include any mention of “peace” in his response to the mob. But even his ultimate inclusion of “stay peaceful” calls into question the real message Trump was aiming to send, the politics expert suggested.
“‘Stay peaceful’ is gaslighting,” Schmidt said. “It could mean ‘stop attacking,’ because attacking is the opposite of peace; or it could mean ‘invade the Capitol, but stay peaceful as you do it.'”
The politics professor also posited that Trump’s tweets leading up to the riot, in which he invited his supporters to come to DC to protest the election results, as well as his “Stop the Steal” rally speech that preceded the attack, were examples of dog whistling — another form of gaslighting.
The term has taken on a new meaning in the sphere of politics, representing a coded message that can only be understood by a certain group of people.
“I think many instances were unambiguous calls to violence, but they were unambiguous dog whistles,” Schmidt said of Trump’s pre-riot communications to his supporters. “You can always claim to not have known the dogs would hear it, or that you meant ‘dinnertime,’ not ‘eat the vice president.'”
The Department of Justice on Friday appealed Summerhays’ decision, though it’s unlikely the restrictions will be lifted by Monday as planned. The administration will comply with the court’s order while the appeal is processed, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, adding that the White House disagrees with the decision.
“As the appeal proceeds, the Department of Homeland Security will continue planning for the eventual lifting of Title 42 in light of CDC’s public health judgment, at which point anyone who attempts to enter the country unlawfully will be subject to Title 8 Expedited Removal proceedings, if they do not have grounds to remain in the United States,” Jean-Pierre said.
But inside the West Wing, the reaction was far more mixed — with some Biden aides breathing a sigh of relief.
The situation at the southern border had become a political mess for the White House with Republicans playing up the possibility of a massive uptick in migrants crossing from Mexico into the United States. Even some Democrats had openly questioned the White House’s decision to end the policy, arguing that the nation’s immigration system would not be ready to handle the influx, while also worrying about the political ramifications in a midterm year.
And the White House also carefully registered its objections on procedural grounds, that the authority to set policy should lie within the CDC, not the courts. That thinking — much like the administration’s appeal of the decision to overturn the mask mandate on public transportation — was to preserve the power to reimplement such measures if the pandemic were to worsen in the months ahead.
But, broadly, Biden aides felt they had been placed in a no-win situation: if Title 42 were overturned, the resulting flood of migrants could create a Republican talking point. But conversely, leaving it in place could frustrate immigration activists and parts of the Democratic base who believe the asylum seekers should be allowed in, further depressing party enthusiasm ahead of what could be a challenging election year.
Biden ran on revamping the immigration system and putting an end to Trump-era deportation policies, such as Title 42. He kept the policy in place after taking office, citing a raging pandemic.
Republicans on Friday cheered the court’s decision.
“The court made the right decision to keep Title 42 in place. Ending Title 42 would be a complete disaster for a nation already suffering from the Biden Border Crisis,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chair of the Senate Republican Conference, said in a statement. “We have a humanitarian, public health, and national security emergency happening at our southern border. Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed by a stampede of illegal immigrants crossing the border every day. The President was warned over and over not to end Title 42. He ignored those warnings.”
After the CDC announced its intent to lift the restrictions last month, a growing chorus of bipartisan lawmakers accused the administration of not having a plan in place to deal with a surge at the border once the policy expires. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, one of the Democrats who has hammered the White House for not having a post-Title 42 game plan, said Friday that “Arizonans have paid the price for Washington’s failure to plan ahead and secure the border.”
“Today’s decision does not change the fact that there is a crisis at the border and there must be a detailed plan that can be implemented before Title 42 is lifted. Arizonans deserve a secure, orderly, and humane border response and I will continue to hold the administration accountable to that,” Kelly said in a statement.
Summerhays’ ruling, while expected, was a blow for immigration advocates and some Democrats, who have ramped up pressure on the administration to abandon the policy in recent months, as Covid cases plummeted across the U.S. Advocates and lawmakers have expressed concern that Title 42 was being used not as a public health measure, but as a means for controlling the influx at the border.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus called the ruling “outrageous” and “ridiculous” and said lawmakers must pass immigration reform, as Biden has called for.
“Today’s federal court ruling on Title 42 is outrageous, ridiculous, and erodes our asylum system. Title 42 is a public health emergency policy that can be initiated and ended by an administration. It is not a way to manage the border. Furthermore, Title 42 denies asylum seekers their legal rights under American law to due process in the U.S. and goes counter to international humanitarian norms and values,” Chair Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
But another court order puts some limits on Summerhays’ ruling, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead attorney in the Title 42 lawsuits in Washington, D.C.
On March 4, a three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court unanimously ruled that the CDC could use Title 42 to expel migrant families — but not back to danger without giving them the chance to apply for protection against persecution and torture. Even though the Louisiana court has now stopped Title 42 from lifting on Monday, Gelernt said, the D.C. Circuit Court’s order will prevent it from being used to expel migrant families to persecution or to torture.
Krista Mahr and Marianne Levine contributed to this report.
São Paulo – Five Arab nations are in the list of countries with very high Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme (Undp). In the list of 49 countries which comprise the ranking, Qatar is the 31st and the first among Arabs. Also listed are Saudi Arabia, at 34th, the Emirates, at 40th, Bahrain, at 44th, and Kuwait, at the 46th position. Norway, Australia and Swiss are at the top of the list, in ascending order.
The HDI shows quality of life and economic development of a country, evaluating areas such as health, education and income. The index ranges from zero to one. The closer to one, the better qualified is the country. Norway, the first in the ranking of the study disclosed this Thursday (24th), which concerns last year, had a 0.944 HDI. Qatar has 0.851, Saudi Arabia 0.836, Emirates 0.827, Bahrain 0.815 and Kuwait 0.814.
The United Nations classify the countries in four levels of HDI: very high, high, medium and low. Brazil is part of the group of nations with high level, at 0.744. It is placed 79th in the general ranking. Among the Arabs, high HDI nations include Libya, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan and Algeria. Out of those, only Algeria is behind Brazil, at the 93rd position, with 0.717.
Arabs classified with medium human development are Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Morocco. The list of countries with low HDI includes the Arabs Yemen, Comoro Islands, Mauritania, Sudan and Djibouti. Two of the Arab nations, Tunisia and Somalia, are not classified. The average score of very high HDI nations is 0.890, while high HDI average is 0.735. Medium indexes are 0.614 and low are 0.493.The Arab nation’s average HDI is 0.682.
In the Arab World, Comoro Islands moved down one position in the ranking in relation to 2012’s survey, Egypt dropped two positions, Kuwait has also dropped two positions, Libya moved down five, Mauritania moved down two and Syria moved down four positions. Morocco was the only country which moved up, two positions. The other nations remained in the same position in the ranking.
The report points out that most countries improved their human development in relation to the situation they were in 1990. In this group there are over 40 developing countries, which accommodate most of the world population. The Undp stresses, though, that the growth rate of the HDI slowed down in all groups: very high, high, medium and low.
According to the Undp, 2.2 million people are in poor or almost poor condition. Around 842 million people, or 12% of the population, are chronically hungry. And almost half of the workers in the world, over 1.5 billion people have informal or unstable employment. The report stressed that the gains, in health and nutrition areas, may be quickly reverted by natural disasters or economic recessions.
President Trump’s effort to reshape the Federal Reserve and accelerate economic growth hit a setback Tuesday as multiple Republican senators criticized or outright rejected the president’s plans to nominate political supporter Stephen Moore.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said she was “very unlikely” to vote for Moore. Several others raised big questions about his potential nomination, including Trump ally Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who called Moore a “problematic” nominee.
Ernst said she didn’t think Moore would be confirmed, adding that “several” senators agree with her on Moore’s unsuitability for one of the nation’s top positions steering the economy. A simple majority is needed to confirm Moore to the Fed board, but with Democrats controlling 47 Senate seats, he can lose precious few Republicans.
At least seven GOP senators have taken issue with Moore’s provocative past columns and statements that have come to light since his name began to circulate publicly as a potential Fed nominee in March.
Moore’s quickly declining chances of winning Senate approval show the risks of a president determined to reshape the government by whatever means.
Trump has grown increasingly angry with the Fed as he has complained that Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell, whom he picked, has raised interest rates too quickly. Trump says that those decisions have slowed the economy unnecessarily and he’s expressed to aides that could harm his reelection chances, according to current and former advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The president stands behind him,” Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said of Moore on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. Here, Conway speaks to the media outside the White House. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News)
Amid that frustration, Trump turned to Moore and another outspoken supporter, former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, to fill two open seats on the Fed’s board of governors, which sets interest rate policy. Trump indicated he supported the men, although he did not formally nominate either.
Cain’s candidacy was short-lived amid opposition from Senate Republicans concerned about his economic record and allegations of sexual harassment that had previously doomed his presidential bid.
White House officials say Trump is inclined to stick with Moore, even as some of his advisers increasingly question whether that’s the best path. The White House also signaled support for Cain until shortly before he dropped out.
“The president stands behind him,” Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said Tuesday of Moore. “He’s somebody that gets the economy and I guess we’ll continue to focus on that.”
Moore said Tuesday that he talked to the White House and they are “full steam ahead” on his nomination and that he is filling out papers for his background check. Moore said he wants to meet with senators about his record.
“I feel strongly about the independence of the Federal Reserve. I would also want to explore that issue with him,” said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a key GOP swing vote. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“If it’s about the economy and my record as an economist, I’ll probably get confirmed,” he said. “If it becomes about my writings from 25 years ago, I might not. That’s why I am trying to turn it back to the economy.”
The Fed is designed to be independent of politics, but Trump has broken with the precedent set by recent presidents by forcefully urging the Fed to cut rates and bring back “quantitative easing,” a policy of bond purchases used to stimulate economic growth that was adopted in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Powell and the rest of the Fed leaders have been pushing to withdraw stimulus, given the economy’s strength, although the Fed recently decided to pause. The economy grew at a 3.2 percent annualized rate in the first quarter of 2019, according to data released Friday, continuing a strong run of recent years.
“Moore has been clear that his agenda at the Fed would be to further the president’s agenda,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton and a longtime Fed adviser. “It’s a dangerous precedent to politicize the Fed with the poison that has already affected our political system.”
Unlike most potential nominees for the Fed, Moore has been outspoken in defending his record in media interviews since his name was floated. He also has met with donors to praise Trump in recent weeks — even giving out charts that emphasize how well the economy has been performing under Trump.
“He had a PowerPoint presentation about how Trump was good and Democrats were bad,” said Dan Eberhart, a Trump donor who attended a FreedomWorks conference with Moore. “He was praising Trump’s economic policies extensively. He was being very vocal in his support of Trump.”
Eberhart and Swonk both said they were surprised that Moore was so vocal while under consideration for a position.
“Normally people stay quiet and try not to make mistakes, but he didn’t seem to be following that message,” Eberhart said.
Trump routinely cites the growth and low unemployment the economy has been enjoying since he took office. If the economy keeps growing through July, which appears almost certain, this expansion will become the longest in U.S. history.
“Our Federal Reserve has incessantly lifted interest rates, even though inflation is very low, and instituted a very big dose of quantitative tightening. We have the potential to go up like a rocket if we did some lowering of rates, like one point, and some quantitative easing,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
Trump has attacked Powell and told aides he regrets appointing him. He has offered near-constant criticism of Powell to lawmakers, supporters and almost anyone he comes in contact with.
“Politicians do think shorter term. They want to get reelected. The central bank needs to think long-term. Monetary policy takes a long time to have an effect,” said Frederic Mishkin, a former Fed governor appointed by President George W. Bush.
After Powell raised interest rates a full percentage point last year — to just shy of 2.5 percent — Trump decided he would nominate Moore, a longtime conservative commentator, and Cain, both of whom publicly said that interest rates need to come down.
While Republican senators didn’t say with full confidence Moore wouldn’t be confirmed, they sent strong signs that his nomination was imperiled.
“I think he’s probably down to the high water mark now of 50 or 51,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who declined to say how he would vote and said he wanted to review Moore’s record as a whole.
Trump is being egged on by his supporters, who say the president should pick officials at the Fed whom he trusts, not someone whose qualifications line up neatly with past central bank appointees, who are typically PhD economists or Wall Street bankers.
At a gathering with supporters in Florida recently, Trump said he needed to get some of his own people on the board, according to attendees.
Before September, Trump rarely talked about the Fed and ceded almost all decision-making over Fed personnel to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other economic advisers, but he has since wrested the process away. The Fed used to be in close contact with the White House on nominations, but that has stopped.
Trump has blamed Mnuchin at least six times in recent weeks for the selection of Powell, according to interviews with lawmakers, supporters and aides who have spoken to the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“You give him something bad and he never forgets,” said a Trump adviser who frequently speaks with him, describing his animus toward Mnuchin.
Two spots remain on the Fed’s seven-seat board of governors. Trump has appointed four of the current Fed governors.
Moore, 59, has a master’s degree in economics and has spent most of his career advocating for tax cuts as a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member and president of the Club for Growth.
Moore apologized over the weekend for past comments about women, but three other female Republican senators — Susan Collins (Maine), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.) — expressed concerns. They cited his comments saying there could be societal problems if men were not the breadwinners in the family, denouncing coed student sports and saying female athletes do “inferior work” to men.
“It’s hard to look past some of those [comments],” Capito said.
Blackburn said she was troubled by what he said as recently as 2014, when he wrote a column questioning whether women outearning men would cause societal unrest.
“Of course his comments are something that are not good and you can guarantee — be guaranteed absolutely without fail — if I visit with him that would be a topic of discussion,” Blackburn said.
Collins, another GOP swing vote, said that she wasn’t just concerned about Moore’s comments on women but also whether he would maintain the Fed’s independence from politics.
“Obviously some of his past writings are of concern. I feel strongly about the independence of the Federal Reserve. I would also want to explore that issue with him,” said Collins.
Damian Paletta, Erica Werner and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement that he was ” seriously considering” running for president has set off a storm of speculation over how his entrance could affect the 2020 race. But ultimately, the speculation all boils down to three basic scenarios.
Scenario 1: He hurts Democrats and helps President Trump get re-elected
In this scenario, Schultz splits the anti-Trump vote and helps him squeak into re-election. Should Democrats choose a nominee who embraces a sweeping liberal agenda that more moderate voters view with trepidation, Schultz’s presence would give them another place to register their discontent with Trump, without having to suck it up and vote for the extremely liberal Democrat. While liberals would argue that their agenda items poll well in the abstract, that doesn’t take into account two factors: One, polls also show that support for sweeping proposals such as ” Medicare for all” sink once voters are exposed to the tradeoffs; and two, even if such proposals were broadly popular, what matters is if there are a critical mass of anti-Trump voters who oppose the ideas. All that we’re talking about in this scenario is whether Schultz can siphon off enough votes for Democrats, not whether he could actually win. Trump’s core base of support is pretty loyal: with all the drama of the past two years, his approval rating has been pretty stable in the high 30s to low 40s. If Trump could turn out his base and Schultz’s presence narrows the gap in suburban areas that helped elect Democrats to the House last fall, this could help tip swing states to Trump. This scenario, no doubt, is what is making some Democrats nervous about the Schultz prospect.
Scenario 2: He helps Democrats beat Trump
At its essence, independent “outsider” presidential bids such as the one Schultz is considering tend to be about how the status quo is broken. By its nature, that message ends up being more harmful to the incumbent, who is trying to make the case that things are on the right track. If Schultz runs, and spends tens of millions — even hundreds of millions — of his own money carpet bombing the nation with ads arguing that the country needs a major change, that could effectively validate the message of Democrats. Especially given that his status will allow him to attract earned media, as showcased by having been able to tease a presidential run on “60 Minutes” Sunday night. At the same time, it means that Trump has to fend off not just one, but two challengers. This morning, Trump popped off on Schultz on Twitter — but any time spent attacking Schultz is time not spent attacking his opponent. One could also imagine a scenario in which a Democrat running as a liberal populist could lump Schultz and Trump together and make the election about the people vs. the billionaires.
Scenario 3: Schultz fizzles, or hurts each candidate equally
This is perhaps the most likely scenario. There are two reasons why the Schultz effect could be wildly overrated by political journalists. One is that the political media are still battle-scarred from writing off the chances of a certain political novice billionaire in 2016, and so they’re reluctant to be overly dismissive this time around. The other is that there is a long-held fantasy among political reporters about a “moderate” and “reasonable” independent breaking through the polarized political climate and appealing to the middle. The problem with the first argument is that though Trump was under estimated, in hindsight, it’s also true that he was somebody who had been a celebrity for decades, who had been a master of manipulating the media, and who had experience of being on a top-rated reality show for years that portrayed him as the ultimate executive. Furthermore, Trump had an element of surprise that Schultz would not benefit from and is likely to run a significantly more orthodox campaign. On the second point, though many Americans identify as “independent” in polls, or may even say they support the idea of a third party in theory, the reality is that even most independents tend to vote with one party or the other. The flip side of an independent candidate supporting a set of policies that a Democratic-leaning independent may agree with is that they may also embrace policies with which they strongly disagree. Also, as Election Day approaches, voters tend to prefer to vote for one of the major party candidates who actually have a chance to win. Alternatively, there’s a possibility that Schultz ends up doing well, but that the effects of Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 end up balancing each other out, and ultimately not changing any outcomes.
It’s worth noting that should Schultz run and make waves, we may never actually know for sure which of these scenarios turned out to be true. People are still debating the effect of Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential election. What’s more or less conventional wisdom at this point that Perot did not get Bill Clinton elected, because exit polls showed Perot taking equally from both candidates. Some have argued that were it not for Perot absorbing anti-Bush votes, that Clinton’s margin of victory would have been even bigger. But those who insist Perot cost Bush the presidency argue that what these polling analyses don’t take into account is the extent to which Perot spent more of his time attacking Bush and validating Clinton’s message that the economy was doing poorly.
Christine Bader Debrecht’s daughter bought a used 2018 Honda Civic with fewer than 5,000 miles on it in June. It was the first car the 19-year-old ever bought. The St. Peters, Missouri, teen saved money from her grocery store job and a gift she received from her late grandmother to make her down payment.
She had no idea that an aerosol can of dry shampoo would destroy it.
Her car now has a hole in the sunroof, and the middle console is blown off the hinges – all because she left a can of one of her go-to beauty products inside Wednesday.
Debrecht said her daughter, whom she didn’t want to name, is heartbroken about the car that could end up being a major financial loss.
“My daughter has been constantly on the go since she got her driver’s license three years ago,” she said. “She has always kept a stash of beauty products with her in her car, and dry shampoo has been among them.”
Most dry shampoos consist of alcohol and cornstarch to absorb excess oil on the scalp and hair, according to Research and Markets. Some women swear by it, calling it a miracle product.
But all dry shampoos aren’t created equally.
Debrecht said the bottle that exploded was an Equate brand – Walmart’s generic line of products. It was the first time her daughter had used it, but she added that there was also a Dove brand dry shampoo among the rubble that didn’t explode.
Walmart, the maker of Equate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Michelle Francl, a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College, took a look at the dry shampoo can in question. “Its got propane and butane in it, which are the same things that are in lighters,” she said.
The two flammable ingredients are common in aerosol products. They act as propellants to release the product out of the can, Francl said. Hydrofluorocarbon 152A propane, which replaced the now-banned Chlorofluorocarbons, is in there for its dispersal properties. The denatured alcohol, which simply carries the product, is also flammable, Francl said.
Debrecht said she knew that chemicals were under pressure in aerosol cans, but she was shocked to see propane and butane on the list. She said she was also surprised to see Hydrofluorocarbon 152A propane on the list, saying that she didn’t see it listed as the first ingredient when she compared the Equate can to other brands.
“At least if you are transporting butane or a propane tank you know it’s dangerous and can take special safety precautions,” she said. “This was a seemingly innocent can of dry shampoo.”
The Equate can had a warning that said the product is flammable and “may explode if heated.” It also cautioned against leaving the can in sunlight and suggested that it be stored at temperatures below 120 degrees. It was about 90 degrees outside that day.
Francl theorizes that the temperature probably got too hot in Debrecht’s daughter’s car, which caused the can to explode.
“I would not have wanted to be in the car when that happened,” Francl said, adding that sharp, flying parts of the can could’ve been dangerous, in addition to the flammable items inside. “It’s like a small explosive device.”
Debrecht said insurance has agreed to pay for damages as long as they don’t exceed $15,000. If it’s more, the vehicle will be totaled and they will end up owing a $1,000 deductible no matter what. She and her daughter are still waiting to hear back about the estimated damages.
“But everyone has been grateful, as are her father and I, that she was not in or near the car when this happened,” Debrecht said. “Injuries from this could have been so severe.”
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