Supercharged returns and the promise of AI have drawn investors—and meme-stock speculators—to equity markets in recent years. But it’s been a very different story for the bond market. After keeping interest rates near zero for almost a decade after the Great Financial Crisis and again during the COVID era, the Federal Reserve began aggressive rate hikes to fight inflation in March 2022. That led to a painful fixed-income bear market due to the inverse relationship between bond prices and yields (which move with the Fed funds rate). It’s now been 46 months since the bond market last reached a record…
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The Israeli military says it will hold a daily “tactical pause of military activity” along a road in southern Gaza to enable more humanitarian aid to enter, but emphasised that there is no ceasefire and combat would continue in Rafah. The pauses, which are said to have begun on Saturday, will last from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) until 19:00 local time until further notice. They will only affect a route that leads northwards from the key Kerem Shalom crossing, which Gaza shares with Israel.Aid agency ActionAid told the BBC it was getting a “confused” picture over what the pauses…
Voyager 1, the farthest human-made craft from the Earth, is finally sending back data from all four of its scientific instruments, NASA said this week. That means the agency is once more receiving its readings on plasma waves, magnetic fields, and space-bound particles.Now, NASA says Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles from Earth, is “conducting normal science operations” and the agency just needs to resync its timekeeping software and do some maintenance on a sparingly-used digital tape recorder. One of several Voyager posters from NASA’s website. Image: NASANow seems like a great time to either remind you of…
The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than 80 years later. The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when it was downed just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane were killed including the two-member Finnish crew and the seven passengers — an American diplomat, two French, two Germans, a Swede and a dual Estonian-Finnish national. A diving and salvage team in Estonia said…
A 170-year-old rivalry is flaring up as Kansas lawmakers try to snatch the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs away from Missouri even though economists long ago concluded subsidizing pro sports isn’t worth the cost. The Kansas Legislature’s top leaders endorsed helping the Chiefs and professional baseball’s Kansas City Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas ahead of a special session set to convene Tuesday. The plan would authorize state bonds for stadium construction and pay them off with revenues from sports betting, the Kansas Lottery and additional tax dollars generated in and around the new venues. The states’ border runs through the metropolitan area of…
Travelers this summer might not be experiencing any major discounts when they go to book a hotel room in the U.S., but there is a softening in some segments of the market.However, it’s a little premature to celebrate the idea of any oncoming bargains.Hotel data firm STR this month revised its forecast for the remainder of this year to downgrade expected average daily rate gains in light of softer-than-expected hotel performance in the U.S. so far this year. But the weakening hotel rates aren’t being felt everywhere.Related: The buzziest summer travel destinations for 2024, according to Google”We have seen a…
The leaders of Italy and Germany have strongly rejected ceasefire terms laid out by Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine, as scores of countries gathered at a two-day summit in Switzerland to discuss ending the conflict.Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the Russian president’s plan “propaganda” which effectively suggested that Ukraine “must withdraw from Ukraine”.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed it as a “dictatorial peace”.A draft declaration issued at the summit reaffirms Ukraine’s territorial integrity and unambiguously rejects any nuclear threat against the country.The document, due to be formally adopted on Sunday, also states that the safe transit of…
According to a new investigative report by Reuters, the Pentagon ran a year-long vaccine disinformation campaign using social media bots — all part of an anti-China political play built on problematic COVID-19 disinformation. One part of a larger, locally-targeted anti-vax campaign around the world, the propaganda efforts sought to discredit the validity of China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine among internet users in the Philippines, where the vaccine had been deployed. Messaging included the phrase #Chinaangvirus, reportedly Tagalog slang for “China is the virus.” SEE ALSO: How do we navigate climate disinformation online? Reuters reports that the campaign was reportedly run to…
After days of intense flooding in Florida, that state and many others are bracing for an intense heat wave, while the Pacific Northwest will experience unseasonably cold weather and there is a potential for late-season snow in the Rocky Mountains early next week. The chaotic weather map includes the possibility of severe thunderstorms developing in between hot and cold fronts. Forecasters said the colliding fronts could lead to areas of flash flooding between eastern Nebraska and northern Wisconsin on Saturday night, as well as strong storms across parts of eastern Montana into North and South Dakota. Meanwhile a plume of tropical moisture…
Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers traveling in military vehicles in Rafah after firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and then ambushing a support force deployed to the scene. The attacks on Saturday marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months as its ground invasion of the southern region continues to ramp up. Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement its soldiers “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Saudi neighbourhood of Tal as-Sultan district, western Rafah city. The armed group said it fired Yassin-105 RPGs at a D9 military bulldozer, killing…
Citizens Financial Group just slapped a pair of “golden handcuffs” on two executives who might someday lead the bank. The 14th-largest bank with $222 billion in total assets offered up extra retention bonuses to its head of consumer banking, Brendan Coughlin, and chief financial officer, John Woods. They are in the horse race to replace current CEO and Chairman Bruce Van Saun, the Rhode Island-headquartered bank said this week. But he hasn’t announced a retirement date, and the company hasn’t signaled his exit. Accordingly, the Citizens board on Thursday gave Coughlin a mixed cash-and-stock award valued at $12 million and…
3 hours ago By Holly Honderich, BBC News Getty Images Continuous glucose monitors have become powerful tools for those living with diabetes Blood-sugar monitoring devices could soon be on the arms of millions of Americans after regulators cleared two new devices for use without a prescription. Is it a way to improve our health? Or is the data just another distraction? In the middle of the night last June, Cindy Bekkedam woke up to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm. It was loud, like an emergency alert, and it was coming from her phone. More specifically, it was coming from a newly…