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Ukraine fighting intensifies as Russia seeks to recapture lost cities

2022-12-28T06:22:53Z

Russian forces fired 33 rockets at civilian targets in the Ukrainian city of Kherson in the 24 hours to early Wednesday, Ukraine’s military said, as fighting intensified with Russia deploying more tanks and armoured vehicles on front lines.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its morning report that Russia forces were attacking populated areas on the right bank of the Dnipro River near Kherson with mortars and artillery.

Russia denies targeting civilians. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the reports.

Russian forces abandoned Kherson last month in one of Ukraine’s most significant gains in the 11-month war, but fighting has entered a slow, grinding phase as bitter winter weather has set in.

“There has been very little change in terms of the front line but pressure from the enemy has intensified, both in terms of the numbers of men and the type and quantity of equipment,” said Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.

Zhdanov said that fighting had intensified with Russia deploying armoured vehicles and tanks.

The heaviest fighting has been around the eastern city of Bakhmut, a bombed-out ghost town, which Russia has been trying for months to storm at huge cost in lives, and further north in the cities of Svatove and Kreminna, where Ukraine is trying to break Russian defensive lines.

In Bakhmut, home to 70,000 people before the war and now in ruins, Reuters reporters saw fires burning in a large residential building. Debris littered the streets and the windows of most buildings were blown out.

“Our building is destroyed. There was a shop in our building, now it’s not there anymore,” said Oleksandr, 85, adding he was the only remaining resident there.

Nearby, 73-year-old Pilaheia said she had long got used to the “constant explosions”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special military operation” to “denazify” his neighbour, which he said was a threat to Russia.

Russia set out to subdue Ukraine within days, but its forces were defeated on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, in the spring and forced to withdraw from other areas in the autumn.

Putin responded by summoning hundreds of thousands of reservists for the first time since World War Two.

Putin retaliated on Tuesday against a price cap on its oil imposed by Western countries, saying Russia would ban oil sales to countries that abide by the cap imposed on Dec. 5.

The cap, unseen even in the times of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, is aimed at crippling Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine – without upsetting markets by actually blocking its supply of oil.

Under the cap, oil traders who want to retain access to Western financing for such crucial aspects of global shipping as insurance must promise not to pay more than $60 per barrel for Russian seaborne oil.

That is close to the current price for Russian oil, but far below the prices at which Russia was able to sell it for much of the past year, when windfall energy profits helped it offset the impact of financial sanctions.

The oil ban decree from Putin was presented as a direct response to “actions that are unfriendly and contradictory to international law by the United States and foreign states and international organisations joining them”.

The ban would halt crude oil sales to countries participating in the price cap from Feb. 1-July 1, 2023. A separate ban on refined oil products such as gasoline and diesel would take effect on a date to be set by the government. Putin would have authority to overrule the measures in special cases.

Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, and any actual disruption to its sales would have far-reaching consequences for global energy supplies.

Putin has repeatedly spoken of a desire for peace talks in comments in recent days.

But his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made clear Russia has preconditions, including that Ukraine recognise the conquest by force of around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, which Russia says it has annexed.

Ukraine says it would never agree to relinquish land.

Zelenskiy has been promoting a 10-point peace plan, discussing it with U.S. President Joe Biden among others, and urging world leaders to hold a Global Peace Summit.

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In a late night address on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said a meeting of the military command had “established the steps to be taken in the near future”.

“We will continue preparing the armed forces and Ukraine’s security for next year. This will be a decisive year. We understand the risks of winter. We understand what needs to be done in the spring,” he said.

Related Galleries:

A dog walks past a building burned from a strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

A person holds wood chopped up from a tree that fell down from a strike, to burn for heat, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

A building is seen on fire from a strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Pilaheia Mykhailivna, 73 puts wood she and her neighbours chopped up from cutting down municipal city trees, into a wheelbarrow, to burn for heat, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Members of the Honour Guard hold a national flag over a coffin with the body of Volodymyr Yezhov, Ukrainian serviceman and game designer for world renowned games S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Cossacks, who was recently killed in a fight against Russian troops near the town of Bakhmut, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 27, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko


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Slipping over Mexico border, migrants get the jump on U.S. court ruling

2022-12-28T06:05:00Z

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday opted to keep in place a measure aimed at deterring illegal border crossings, hundreds of migrants in northern Mexico were taking matters into their own hands to slip into the United States.

The contentious pandemic-era measure known as Title 42 had been due to expire on Dec. 21, but last-minute legal stays pitched border policy into limbo and made a growing number of migrants decide they had little to lose by crossing anyway.

After spending days in chilly border cities, groups of migrants from Venezuela and other countries targeted by Title 42 opted to make a run for it rather than sit out the uncertainty of the legal tug-of-war playing out in U.S. courts.

“We ran, and we hid, until we managed to make it,” said Jhonatan, a Venezuelan migrant who scrambled across the border from the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez into El Paso, Texas with his wife and five children, aged 3 to 16, on Monday night.

Giving only his first name and speaking by phone, Jhonatan said he had already spent several months in Mexico and had not wanted to enter the United States illegally.

But the thought of failing after a journey that took his family through the perilous jungles of Darien in Panama, up Central America and into Mexico was more than he could bear.

“It would be the last straw to get here, and then they send us back to Venezuela,” he told Reuters.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a request by a group of Republican state attorneys general to put on hold a judge’s decision invalidating Title 42. They had argued its removal would increase border crossings.

The court said it would hear arguments on whether the states could intervene to defend Title 42 during its February session. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

Reuters images showed migrants racing across a busy highway alongside the border last week, one man barefoot and carrying a small child – the kind of risky crossing that alarms migrant advocates.

“We’re talking about people who come to request asylum … and they’re still crossing the border in very dangerous ways,” said Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights.

John Martin, the deputy director at El Paso’s Opportunity Center for the Homeless, said the number of migrants his shelter has taken in are increasingly people who crossed illegally, including many Venezuelans.

“At one point, the majority were documented; now I’m seeing it reverse,” he said.

On Tuesday before the Supreme Court ruling, a Venezuelan migrant in Ciudad Juarez who gave his name as Antonio said he was waiting to see whether U.S. border surveillance would let up, hoping to make money in the United States to send home.

“If they don’t end Title 42,” he said, “we’re going to keep entering illegally.”

Elsewhere along the border, other migrants said they felt they had run out of options.

“We don’t have a future in Mexico,” said Cesar, a Venezuelan migrant in Tijuana who did not give his last name, explaining why he has attempted once to creep past the border fence into the United States, and plans to try again.

Related Galleries:

Migrants run to hide from the U.S. Border Patrol and Texas State Troopers after crossing into the United States from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., December 23, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Migrants run to hide from the U.S. Border Patrol and Texas State Troopers after crossing into the United States from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., December 23, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Migrants run to hide from the U.S. Border Patrol and Texas State Troopers after crossing into the United States from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., December 23, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
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Inflation, recession and earnings among factors to drive U.S. stocks in 2023

2022-12-28T06:09:20Z

A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 14, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

U.S. stock investors could not be more eager to turn the page on 2022, a brutal year dominated by market-punishing Federal Reserve rate hikes designed to tamp down the steepest inflation in 40 years.

The S&P 500 (.SPX) is down nearly 20% year-to-date with only a few trading days left in 2022, on pace for its biggest calendar-year drop since 2008. The carnage has been even more severe for the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), which had tumbled by nearly 34% so far for the year.

High-profile casualties include the once-soaring shares of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), which have slumped around 50% this year, while those of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) are down some 70% and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) shares have lost about 65%. Meanwhile, energy stocks (.SPNY) have bucked the trend by posting eye-popping gains.

Inflation, and the Fed’s degree of aggressiveness in trying to contain it, will likely remain a critical factor driving equity performance as 2023 gets under way. But investors will also be watching for fallout from higher interest rates, including how tighter monetary policy ripples through the economy and whether it makes other assets more competitive with stocks.

Here is a look at some of the big themes for the U.S. stock market in 2023.

Perhaps the biggest question that will sway stocks as the new year begins is whether the economy is headed for a recession, as many investors are expecting.

If a recession starts next year, stocks could be set for another slide: A bear market has never bottomed before the beginning of a recession, historic data showed.

Recessions tend to hit stocks hard, with the S&P 500 falling an average of 29% during recessions since World War Two, according to Truist Advisory Services. Those declines, however, have usually been followed by a strong rebound.

Investors are also concerned that corporate earnings estimates may not have fully factored in a potential slowdown, leaving more downside for stocks.

Consensus analyst estimates project S&P 500 earnings to rise 4.4% in 2023, according to Refinitiv IBES. Yet earnings fall by an average annual rate of 24% during recessions, according to Ned Davis Research.

The Fed’s rate hikes have pushed up bond yields and created competition for equities, flying in the face of the low-yield environment that predominated for more than a decade and gave rise to the acronym “TINA,” or “there is no alternative” to stocks.

Yields on the 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) – also known as real yields because they strip out projected inflation – recently stood at around 1.5%, after hitting their highest level in over a decade in October.

Still, some investors have noted that stocks fared well in past periods when yields were even higher.

In the past year, value stocks – commonly defined as those trading at a discount on metrics such as book value or price-to-earnings – held up better than tech and other growth shares, reversing trends that had been in place for much of the past decade.

With higher yields and doubts about profit growth standing to pressure tech and growth stocks, the question is whether value – which is more heavily represented by financial, energy and defensive groups – could be poised for another year of outperformance.

The dollar’s surge against other currencies this year hurt the earnings of many U.S. companies, making it more expensive for multinationals to convert their earnings back into their home currency.

The greenback has pared some of those gains in recent weeks and a continued reversal would depend in part on investor perceptions of how hawkish the Fed will be relative to other global central banks.

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Tulsi Gabbard grilled Rep-elect George Santos, who has admitted to lying about parts of his resume, on Fox News: ‘Do you have no shame?’

Rep. George SantosRep.-elect George Santos, R-New York, speaks at an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022, in Las Vegas.

John Locher/AP Photo

  • Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard grilled Republican Rep-elect George Santos on Fox News. 
  • Santos lied about several aspects of his education and career, according to new reports.
  • “My question is, do you have no shame?” Gabbard asked Santos.

On Tuesday night, former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard put pressure on GOP Representative-elect George Santos about the lies he has been caught in over the past week. 

“If I were one of those in New York’s third district right now, now that the election is over, and I’m finding out all of these lies that you’ve told — not just one little lie or one little embellishment, these are blatant lies,” Gabbard said to Santos on Fox News. “My question is, do you have no shame? Do you have no shame in the people who now you’re asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families, and their kids in Washington?” 

Santos responded by claiming that President Joe Biden was lying to the American people, and asked if Biden himself had any shame. He also said some of the claims that he lied about his employment history were “debatable” and that he would be willing to explain himself.

“It’s hard to imagine how they could possibly trust your explanations when you’re not really even willing to admit the depth of your deception to them,” Gabbard replied.

—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 28, 2022

 

The exchange happened as Gabbard was filling in for Tucker Carlson, a man caught telling many lies before, on his nightly show, Tucker Carlson Tonight. Gabbard has also courted controversy: Earlier this year, she left the Democratic Party, and has, at times, aligned herself with far-right Republicans.

Santos, who was elected in New York’s third district as the first non-incumbent out gay Republican, has been mired in controversy after reports indicated that he fabricated details of his employment, higher education history, and finances, and lied about losing four employees during the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016.

Santos has also come under fire from a GOP Jewish group for falsely claiming that he is of Jewish heritage.

Santos admitted to some of these fabrications in an interview with the New York Post on December 26.

Santos did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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First Congress revealed Biden’s generational ambition

WASHINGTON (AP) — When he ran for the White House, Joe Biden told voters his presidency would be a bridge to the next generation. His first two years on the job have revealed it to be a much more ambitious venture.

As he nears the halfway mark on his first term, Biden is pointing to legacy-defining achievements on climate change, domestic manufacturing and progress on the COVID-19 pandemic — all accomplished with razor-thin majorities on Capitol Hill and rather dim views from the public.

Biden’s legislative accomplishments extend to nearly every aspect of American life -– although their impact may take years to be felt in some cases — and his marshaling of a global coalition to back Ukraine’s defenses and of democracies against China’s growing influence will echo for decades. He defied history in the midterm elections, persuading voters to stick with his vision of long-term gains despite immediate concerns about inflation and the economy.

It turns out his conception of the job is about far more than restoring democratic norms and passing the baton, as the 80-year-old president looks toward an announcement in early spring that he’ll run again despite his record-setting age.

The road ahead will be far tougher: Republicans take control of the House on Jan. 3, the threat of recession looms during stubbornly high inflation, and sustaining support for Ukraine will be harder as the conflict approaches the one-year mark.

The next two years also will be complicated by a heavy overlay of 2024 presidential politics. And whatever Biden’s accomplishments, his job approval rating remains underwater and voters have expressed doubts about his capacity to lead. Biden swats away questions about his ability to hold up with a dismissive “watch me.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, echoing a refrain among presidential aides from chief of staff Ron Klain on down, says Biden has been “frequently underestimated.”

“I don’t think he ever thought of himself as a caretaker,” she said. “He came in with an unbelievably ambitious agenda, and a core belief that he had to preside over many investments in America and American workers, American infrastructure, American manufacturing, that presidents had not done or not been able to get done for decades before him.”

In the 2020 campaign, Biden offered himself as an experienced hand ready to step in to stabilize a pandemic-weary nation, but who was also mindful of a clamoring for fresh leadership.

“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said in March 2020, as he campaigned in Michigan with younger Democrats, including now-Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

A week later, he swatted back at primary rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ agenda saying, “People are looking for results, not a revolution.”

Those statement have often been thrown back at Biden by Democratic critics of two minds: moderates who have wanted him to curb the ambition of his agenda as he’s navigated an often-rocky legislative path, and progressives urging him to step aside in 2024.

“Nobody elected him to be F.D.R.,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., told The New York Times pointedly last year as Biden’s agenda appeared at a stalemate, a line that was seized on by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to critique Biden’s agenda.

Meanwhile, some prominent Democrats have publicly declined to endorse Biden’s reelection when confronted with the question, and the progressive group RootsAction is running ads in New Hampshire — recently unseated by Democrats as the first state on the primary calendar — calling on Biden to step aside for younger blood in 2024.

Biden aides and allies argue that such critics miss the point — that Biden never set out merely keep the seat warm for the whippersnappers to follow, nor does he believe he’s finished the job. His successes of late have quieted many doubters — though some in his party still harbor private doubts.

“He couldn’t have thought about it more differently,” said Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director and longtime Biden aide. “He’s leading with his experience, and the next generation is leading alongside him.”

Bedingfield pointed to Biden’s relatively youthful Cabinet and to Democratic candidates across the country who won election in the 2022 midterms by running on the president’s agenda.

Says Democratic political consultant Jesse Ferguson: “He’s not giving a hand-off; he’s really giving a leg up to the next generation and people are responding to that.”

For restive young voters who may have once gravitated toward the younger crop of Democrats, Biden pollster John Anzalone said the president is offering proof of “getting things done for the new generation.”

“You saw that in how they voted in the 2022 cycle and you’ll see that in 2024,” he added.

Yet while younger voters skewed toward Democrats in the 2022 midterms, their enthusiasm waned from 2020, when dislike for the chaotic presidency of Donald Trump drove them to the polls in greater numbers. It’s a potential warning sign for Biden, especially if the GOP nominates a fresh face.

Biden entered the White House almost two years ago with pent up expectations but long odds for delivering on them with the slimmest of margins in Congress. Right out of the gate, he secured passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. But then he quickly ran into hurdles with a series of even larger proposals first billed as the “American Families Plan” and later the “Build Back Better” package.

A tortuous period of on-again, off-again talks with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin pared back those proposals and weighed down Biden and his White House for months, even after passage of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law.

In the legislative morass and the fallout from the darkest moment yet of Biden’s presidency — the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan last summer — Biden’s approval rating plummeted.

It wasn’t until mid-2022, as the midterm elections loomed, that Biden was able to break through the gridlock and secure legislation that would make for the most productive first-term Congress since President Lyndon Johnson, with bipartisan action on gun violence and rebooting domestic high-tech manufacturing, and Democrats-only investments in combating climate change and lowering drug costs.

“He had a big ambition for this presidency, in particular the need to make generationally important investments in the country, things that have been left undone, really for years, in many cases — the investment in the country itself,” said Biden senior adviser Steve Richetti. Biden, he said, set out to “restore the sense of what the presidency and what a president are capable of.”

Still, Biden fell short on some popular 2020 campaign promises, particularly on what his aides had billed as “human infrastructure” like free community college — a priority of first lady Jill Biden — expanding paid family leave and early childcare. And his fall pledge to forgive much of the nation’s publicly held student debt has been frozen pending Supreme Court arguments in February.

Biden’s next two years, aides say, will be necessarily constrained. Democrats lost unified control of Congress and his priorities will shift toward implementing new initiatives and reminding Americans of their impact as he heads into reelection. Biden, they said, will continue to look for areas of bipartisan cooperation, but little is expected on his biggest priorities like banning assault-style weapons and codifying a nationwide right to abortion.

Instead, he’ll look to highlight and build upon popular programs, like a $35 monthly cap on insulin costs for those on Medicare, that are set to take effect in January, while Cabinet agencies work to award and track hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending.

“The next two years are about those solutions impacting people’s daily lives and that starts with the insulin cap on Jan. 1,” Ferguson said.