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Parker: Welfare work requirements make everyone better off

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

The Congressional Budget Office has just released its latest projection for the next ten years.“In the agency’s updated projections, annual deficits nearly double over the next decade, reaching $2.7 trillion in 2033 … As a result of those deficits, debt held by the public also increases in CBO’s projections, from 98% of GDP at the end of this year to 119% at the end of 2033.”The picture keeps getting worse.The difference between Democrats and Republicans on the issue: Republicans say let’s do something; Democrats say let’s do nothing.House Republicans have put forward the Limit, Save, Grow Act as condition for increasing the debt limit, which imposes limits on growth of spending over the next 10 years and achieves reductions in expenditures.Democrats are beside themselves because Republicans propose to achieve efficiencies in spending in Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and Temporary Assistance for Needy ...

Jake Swamp and the Pine bring campfire vibes to Brighton Music Hall

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

Jake Swamp and the Pine has a motto: The outdoors brought to your ears.On the act’s debut album, “Simpson and Banks,” the songs explore rain clouds, open fields, darkness blooming to sunrise, trains and train tracks. Jake Swamp and the Pine pairs these lyrics with an Americana vibe powered by acoustic guitar and adorned with flourishes of rock and bluegrass instrumentation.“I think this music accompanies a campfire really well,” singer-songwriter Drew Zieff told the Herald. “I love being outdoors. I was gardening this afternoon, hiking yesterday, and I love climbing and camping and I want my music to be reflective of that.”Zieff is the entirety of Jake Swamp and the Pine. The name, not surprisingly, has roots in the natural world – the tallest tree in Massachusetts, a 163-foot white pine, is named for Mohawk statesman Jake Swamp. While Zieff will celebrate the release of “Simpson and Banks” at a June 2 show at Brighton Music Hall, his journey to his warm, meditative campfire aesthet...

Dear Abby: Couple reconciles, but friends are skeptical

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband and I were married nine years. He unexpectedly left me when COVID first hit. We were apart for a year and eight months and ended up divorcing. I filed because, even though I didn’t want to believe it, I eventually accepted that it was over. Even though he hadn’t actually filed the papers, he had taken all other necessary steps. It was the first time in my life I had ever felt this level of heartbreak.After time passed, he reached out and wanted to reconcile. We’ve been back together ever since, and he has asked me to get remarried. I happily agreed because he has been in therapy and made amazing changes.My friends have mixed feelings about our remarrying. They saw how devastated I was when he left and how hard I worked to pick myself up and start over. We didn’t have a wedding our first time, so this time we are planning to have one. The date is set and the venue is booked. I have all these feelings of excitement, but it’s hard to ...

Motorcyclist hurt in Mission Beach crash

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A motorcyclist was hurt in a two-vehicle crash Saturday that also prompted a road to temporarily close in Mission Beach, authorities said.The collision occurred around 4:15 p.m. at 1000 West Mission Bay Drive, according to the San Diego Police Department.A 54-year-old man was driving westbound in a 2011 Toyota Camry on West Mission Bay Drive, when he made a U-turn and was struck by a motorcycle, per SDPD.The motorcyclist, a 32-year-old man riding a 2008 Triumph motorcycle, was taken to the hospital with open fractures to both arms and other injuries, police said. His injuries are considered non-life-threatening while the driver of the Camry was not injured. Woman dead after cement bags fall from overturned truck on I-805 Police confirmed alcohol was not a factor in the crash.Eastbound West Mission Bay Drive, between Mission Boulevard to the Ingraham Street connector, was reopened after being closed for about an hour."Traffic remains heavily impacted in the Mission Bea...

Coronado Beach closure leads to protest

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- As people head to the beaches this Memorial Day weekend, South Bay beaches are closed for the time being because of a sewage-contaminated leak.A group of people living in Coronado rallied to ask for more funding and attention to fix the issue."It's going to run people away, it's going to devastate the beach. It's a public health emergency," Laura Wilkinson Sinton said.The yellow signs are still out at Coronado Beach "KEEP OUT SEWAGE CONTAMINATED WATERS."The City of Coronado said the source of the sewage comes from Baja California.Now a group of people living in Coronado is demanding attention to the ongoing issue. The group wants county, state and federal leaders to listen up."Government all the way up and down to fix this binational problem because it can't sit like this for four to five years. OUR Navy seals train in this water, our children swim in this water. This is not acceptable," Wilkinson Sinton said.Residents worry about the health risks for them along with 3....

Debt ceiling tests McCarthy, as GOP speaker rides breezily through fight of his career

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — One morning amid the debt ceiling crisis, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy climbed onto his mountain bike and took a ride along the National Mall, marveling at the monuments.The next day he arrived for negotiations at the U.S. Capitol carting in tortilla chips and queso for the beleaguered reporters waiting outside his office during the 24/7 talks.McCarthy, with his laid-back California vibe, was never Washington’s bet to become House speaker, having almost missed seizing the gavel in a history-making spectacle at the start of this year.But the 58-year-old is now leading House Republicans in the high-wire act of his career: Having negotiated with Democratic President Joe Biden over raising the nation’s debt limit, he now must deliver the votes to pass the spending cuts package into law.The standoff is being watched the world over as the U.S. stares down a June 5 deadline when it could run short of cash to pay its bills, potentially hurling the American economy into cha...

‘Succession’ fans brace for series finale of Emmy-winning hit drama

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jennifer Gould, an Oregon-based trusts and estates lawyer, thinks the premise of “Succession” – HBO’s hit series chronicling a billionaire media mogul and his children’s struggles to take over the family company — is a little flawed.“The idea that they wouldn’t have a firm succession plan in place is ridiculous,” Gould said. Still, she has set aside Monday for “crying and grieving” after watching the hotly anticipated series finale airing Sunday evening.With the critically acclaimed drama’s fourth and final season ending, dedicated fans of “Succession” are locking in plans to watch the whopping 88-minute finale while turning online for emotional support, memes and endless theories about how the show could end and who will prevail. “No one I know in real life watches the show,” Gould said, adding that the emotional toll of season four made her look for support online, which is how she landed on the social news website Reddit, where a chat dedicated to all thin...

Voters in Turkey return to polls to decide on opposing presidential visions

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Voters in Turkey return to the polls Sunday to decide whether the country’s longtime leader stretches his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade or is unseated by a challenger who has promised to restore a more democratic society.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been at Turkey’s helm for 20 years, is favored to win a new five-year term in the second-round runoff after coming just short of an outright victory in the first round on May 14.The divisive populist who turned his country into a geopolitical player finished four percentage points ahead of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of a six-party alliance and leader of Turkey’s center-left main opposition party. Erdogan’s performance came despite crippling inflation and the effects of a devastating earthquake three months ago.Kilicdaroglu (pronounced KEH-lich-DAHR-OH-loo), a 74-year-old former bureaucrat, has described the runoff as a referendum on the country’s future.More than 64 million pe...

What’s next on the debt ceiling: Selling the plan, and making a deal into a law

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have announced an “ agreement in principle ” to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month.To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. That’s in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election.It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.A look at what’s ...

Why Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment fight isn’t finished yet

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:26:18 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Legislature already made one historic move with its impeachment of Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Another one is coming.The GOP-led House of Representatives on Saturday approved 20 articles of impeachment on sweeping allegations of wrongdoing that have trailed the state’s top lawyer for years, including abuse of office and bribery. The vote immediately suspended Paxton from office. But the intraparty brawl in the nation’s largest conservative state, one that even drew political punches Saturday from former President Donald Trump, is far from over. The Republican-controlled Senate will hold a trial of Paxton next, and he and his allies hope conservatives there will save him.One member of that chamber is his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, and she could cast a vote on her husband’s political future, which is now in jeopardy in part because of bribery allegations linked to his extra-marital affair.THE SENATEImpeachment in ...