Important Takeaways:
- 56 million Americans have been in credit card debt for at least a year. ‘We are seeing pockets of trouble,’ expert says
- Americans are increasingly leaning on their credit cards.
- Altogether, card balances now total $1.08 trillion, according to the latest quarterly report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a new record.
- “Over the past two years, Americans’ credit card balances have skyrocketed 40%,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
- Nearly half, or 49%, of credit card holders carry debt from month to month on at least one card, up from 46% last year, the report found, and 56 million cardholders have been in debt for at least a year.
- The average credit card rate is now more than 20%, on average — an all-time high
- At 20.74%, if you made minimum payments toward the average credit card balance — which is $6,088, according to Transunion — it would take you more than 17 years to pay off the debt and cost you more than $9,072 in interest, Bankrate calculated.
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Important Takeaways:
- US consumers did not rein in their spending this past holiday season, and now have near-record-breaking debt balances to show for it, according to new Federal Reserve data released Monday.
- Consumer borrowing spiked by $23.75 billion in November, more than doubling economists’ expectations for a $9 billion increase and sending outstanding credit balances north of the $5 trillion mark for the first time on record, the Fed’s latest Consumer Credit report showed.
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Important Takeaways:
- A restaurant owner has explained how raging inflation means he has to charge $16 for a BLT sandwich – yet makes under $2 on each.
- The ingredients – bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo and bread – cost $5… But Will says spiraling costs for staff, rent and utilities have been a much bigger blow – forcing him to raise the price of a BLT from $13 three years ago.
- He pointed out that in one of his restaurants alone these three costs – along with cleaning, maintenance and accounting – are close to $90,000 a month.
- Selling sandwiches at $16, he said he would still need to sell more than 94,000 a year to generate a revenue of around $1.5 million and break even. That figure covers all the costs plus ingredients.
- ‘If I do $1,499,000, in sales, I lose $1,000. We don’t start making profit until we get above that breakeven point,’ he said.
- He said his situation would be similar to restaurants across the US, where $16 is now a typical price.
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Important Takeaways:
- Sweden is warned to ‘brace for war’: Civil Defense minister tells citizens to ‘get moving’ and prepare for the end of 210 years of peace as country bids to join NATO in face of Russia tensions
- Sweden’s civil defense minister has warned his country could soon face the prospect of war and urged citizens to join voluntary defense organizations in preparation for a potential armed conflict.
- In a rousing speech that took note of his country’s hotly-anticipated accession to NATO this year and ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine, Carl-Oskar Bohlin called on ordinary citizens to ask themselves ‘who are you if war comes?’.
- Speaking at Sweden’s annual ‘Folk och Försvar’ (Society and Defense) conference in Sälen this past weekend, the minister said: ‘It is human to want to view life as you wish it was, rather than as it actually is.
- ‘For a nation for whom peace has been a pleasant companion for almost 210 years, the idea that it is an immovable constant is conveniently close at hand. But taking comfort in this conclusion has become more dangerous than it has been for a very long time.
- ‘There could be war in Sweden… The world is facing a security outlook with greater risks than at any time since the end of the Second World War.
- ‘Are you a private individual? Have you considered whether you have time to join a voluntary defense organization? If not: get moving!’ he declared.
- It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Vladimir Putin would not stop at Ukraine and will attack other neighbors unless allies joined forces to stop him.
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Important Takeaways:
- GOP Lawmakers Confront Hunter Biden at Contempt Hearing: ‘You Have No Balls
- Republican lawmakers confronted Hunter Biden at Wednesday’s hearing to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena.
- Hunter and his posse immediately left the hearing when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) began to speak. “[He] sits here with a smug look on his face and runs away when it’s my turn to talk,” she said.
- “He can’t even face my words as I was about to speak to him,” she said. “What a coward.”
- A majority of Democrat voters say Hunter Biden should comply with the House impeachment inquiry’s lawful subpoena, appearing for both a closed-door deposition and a public testimony. If he does not, he should be prosecuted, a Harvard Caps/Harris poll revealed:
- All partisans said Hunter Biden should comply with a closed-door deposition.
- A majority say Joe Biden’s Department of Justice should prosecute Hunter Biden for not appearing.
- House investigators announced they would probe the Biden family in November 2022. They later revealed Joe Biden received money from James and Hunter Biden. They also showed that nine additional Biden family members received payments from the family’s foreign business ventures, including two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
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Important Takeaways:
- Bronx food pantry empty for first time in 10 years, forcing them to turn families away
- The shelves at a Bronx food pantry have been bare for the past two weeks as hungry New Yorkers face heightened food insecurity at the beginning of the New Year.
- The Albanian American Open Hand Association (AAOHA), located in Pelham Parkway, fed around 800 weekly before the pandemic, but that has since doubled to 1,600.
- For the first time in 10 years, the pantry has been forced to turn people away.
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Important Takeaways:
- Deadly storm batters Northeast leaving 500K without power as wind and rain knock down trees and cause flooding: Three are dead across US after system wreaked havoc from coast to coast
- A deadly winter storm that caused chaos throughout the US with tornados, snow, rain and flooding slammed into the Northeast overnight.
- The storm knocked out power to more than 500,000 people in the region, including those in New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut.
- At least three fatalities have been reported due to the weather. Among them, an 81-year-old woman who died in Alabama as the storm created tornados in the Southeast early Tuesday. The same system brought snow and travel headaches in the Midwest.
- The mid-Atlantic has dealt with heavy rain and flooding. In North Carolina, more than 170,000 people lost power from the storm throughout the day. Parts of historic Alexandria, Virginia, were underwater as floods filled streets.
- All 50 states were put on weather alerts because of the storm.
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Important Takeaways:
- Khirbat Ikhza’a is just slightly southeast of Khan Yunis, making it an important strategic location for cutting off Hamas forces from maneuvering.
- It is also only a few kilometers from the Jewish kibbutz of Nir Oz and was one of Hamas’s invasion launch points to take over that kibbutz on October 7, along with Nirim and Ein Hashlosha.
- The IDF’s 5th Brigade destroyed hundreds of terror positions and killed dozens of Hamas terrorists to achieve operational control both above and below ground.
- In addition, IDF forces found a variety of personal items, such as challah covers, bicycles, agricultural items that Hamas stole from Nir Oz residents, and some clues relating to Israelis who were kidnapped on October 7.
- Further, the IDF seized a sizable number of mortars, rocket launchers, grenades, and guns. Also, IDF sources said every other house had weapons or terror-related items.
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Important Takeaways:
- Magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Kepulauan Talaud
- An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 has been registered in the area of the Talaud Islands in Indonesia, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center reported.
- The quake’s epicenter was located 171 kilometers southeast of the Philippine city of General Santos, home to about 679,000 people. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 91 kilometers.
- It did not trigger a tsunami alert, according to the US Tsunami Warning System and the Philippine seismological agency.” By the grace of God it was not that strong in our province,” said Chief Master Sergeant Ian Roy Balandan of the Sarangani provincial police office on Mindanao. Balandan told AFP there had been no reports of casualties or damage to infrastructure or houses. “It was really mild. People hardly felt it,” he said.
- This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title “Magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Kepulauan Talaud.”
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Important Takeaways:
- For the first time, scientists have grown cerebral organoids — three-dimensional, lab-grown “minibrains” — from human fetal brain tissue.
- The new organoids grew to the size of a grain of rice and contained many types of cells that self-organized into complex 3D structures. The researchers also triggered the growth of brain tumors within the minibrains and tested the tumors’ response to existing cancer drugs.
- To make the new minibrains, the researchers took samples of brain tissue from deceased fetuses around the gestational age of 12 to 15 weeks old, which had been provided by anonymous donors. They separately grew small samples of each of the tissues on small plates using specific nutrients and growth factors. Each sample was continuously shaken as it grew, to ensure that all the cells within them were exposed to these chemicals, and they were not provided any physical scaffolding to grow upon.
- Around four to eight days later, the researchers noticed the formation of “multiple organized 3D structures” that later matured into organoids with a “tissue-like appearance.”
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