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Reuters and CNN reported on the 26th that Republic First Bank, a local bank, was closed and sold to another bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Pennsylvania-based Fulton Bank will acquire substantially all of the deposits and assets of Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank. Previously, Pennsylvania state financial authorities closed Republic First Bank.

The FDIC took merger and acquisition actions against this bank to protect depositors. The bank faced a crisis due to management difficulties, including withdrawing from the mortgage (home loan) business early last year due to rising costs and worsening profitability.

As of the end of January, the bank’s total assets were about $6 billion, and deposits were $4 billion. Republic First Bank was the first bank to fail in the U.S. this year, raising concerns about the soundness of local banks again.

In the first half of last year, three local banks, including Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, went bankrupt, and in November of the same year, Citizens Bank of Iowa and others went bankrupt. Last month, international credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Global downgraded the rating outlook for five U.S. regional banks, including First Commonwealth Financial, from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’ due to concerns about commercial real estate (CRE) insolvency.

The Associated Press reported that in Tennessee, on Saturday the 20th, a shooting occurred in a park where a village festival was being held, killing at least two people, and injuring six others. Police in Memphis, southeastern Tennessee, said they received a report of gunfire at a park where a festival was being held at around 7:19 p.m. on this day, and that multiple casualties were found at the scene. Police said at a press conference, “Two people died instantly, and one of the injured is in critical condition.”

At the time of the incident, about 200 to 300 residents were gathering in the park and holding a festival, and prior permission from the city authorities was not obtained, the police added. It was not immediately known whether the criminal had been arrested.

There is a tense standoff between sexual minority groups, who say that the rights of transgender minors in California must be guaranteed, and parental rights, which require parents to know in advance about their children’s gender transition plans. The conflict between parents and sexual minority groups began when sexual minority minors were involved. It started with students changing their gender and changing their gender titles. The Chino School District required parents to be notified immediately when students change their gender identity on campus, but the court blocked that measure.

As the debate continues over the rights of teenagers and their parents’ right to know, surrounding the gender identity issue of teenagers. A proposal to expand the right to know of sexual minority parents is being promoted. The gist of the child protection initiative, called the ‘Protect Kids of California Act’, is that schools must notify parents if a minor student wishes to change gender.

Additionally, male-to-female male-to-female youth athletes are banned from participating in female sports games, transgender students are banned from using restrooms of the gender they are transitioned into, and students who wish to transition from gender to child are prohibited from performing physical examinations without parental consent. They are protesting against it, saying it is an invasion of students’ privacy. They pointed out that in many cases, sexual minority students want to hide the fact that they are sexual minorities even from their families, but parents’ right to know forces sexual minority students to come out.

The Korean community in Southern California is actively campaigning for signatures for a child protection bill, saying that the right to know of sexual minority parents must be protected, and the Korean missionary group TEXT is taking the lead. Sara Kim, CEO of the group Text, said that currently in California, children under the age of 18 are It is possible for adolescents to change their gender without parental consent, but it has too many side effects, and pointed out that California law needs to be changed.

In order to put a child protection initiative that guarantees parents’ right to know up for election, it is necessary to secure signatures from residents, and in a recent signature campaign, Although the response was low, many Koreans wishing to sign the child protection initiative to the election said there were many invalid votes and requested that they check the relevant information to avoid invalid votes. T

he deadline for the proposition to be included in the November election is May 5. It has been extended to the 28th of February. The Korean missionary group TEXT announced that it will continue to collect signatures at LA’s Hannam Chain and Zion Market for the next five weeks.

President Joe Biden additionally announced a plan to cancel student loan debt, one of his major pledges ahead of the November presidential election. President Biden announced a new student loan forgiveness plan in a speech on the 8th in Madison, Wisconsin, a battleground state for the presidential election, on the topic of ‘lowering the cost of living for Americans.’

According to this, those earning less than $120,000 per year ($240,000 or less for married couples combined) will have up to $20,000 of interest accumulated due to failure to repay loans on time be forgiven. In addition, through various other measures, the debt of more than 4 million people will be completely written off, and the debt of 10 million people will be reduced by at least $5,000. In addition, a plan to cancel the debt of borrowers who have repaid loans for more than 20 years (more than 25 years for graduate school) was also included in the plan announced by President Biden on this day.

The decision was made to ease the burden of student loans even in cases where a university suddenly closes, a student loses eligibility to participate in the federal student loan program, or a student is unable to repay student loans due to high other costs such as medical expenses and childcare.\

In addition, loans can be forgiven according to the already announced policy, but debts of borrowers who do not apply for this are automatically forgiven. It is estimated that the number of beneficiaries from this forgiveness plan will reach at least 23 million. Additionally, the White House explained that if beneficiaries of the forgiveness plan previously announced by the Biden administration are included, the debt burden of a total of more than 30 million borrowers can be reduced.

In his speech, President Biden diagnosed, “Too many Americans today, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree, and paying off student loans has become too burdensome for working- and middle-class people.” President Biden then pointed out that the burden of student loan repayment ultimately hinders the economy by acting as a burden on marriage, childbirth, home purchase, and starting a business.

At the same time, President Biden emphasized, “We will not stop cancelling student loan debt for hard-working Americans,” and added, “That is good for our economy.” President Biden’s student loan forgiveness is evaluated as considering the votes of young voters, such as those in their 20s and 30s who have just graduated from college and still have a lot of loans, and people of colour.

President Biden won the 2020 presidential election over former President Donald Trump based on the full support of young people and people of colour, but public opinion has shown that their support for Biden has decreased significantly compared to four years ago ahead of the rematch with Trump in November. It has been shown in the survey.

The White House said it expects this policy to greatly help blacks and Latinos, saying they tend to take out more loans and fail to repay their loans than white people. The New York Times assessed that if President Biden succeeds in implementing the new plan before the November presidential election, it could help win the support of voters who were greatly disappointed by the failure of President Biden’s first attempt to cancel student loan debt.

In August 2022, President Biden announced a policy to waive up to $20,000 of student loan debt for households with an annual income of less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). However, in June of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the president did not have the legal authority to do so, and about 4 million people received benefits until the policy was suspended. Since then, President Biden has been seeking ways to eliminate student loan debt to the extent legally permitted.

The NYT reported that only part of the new plan is expected to be implemented before the presidential election, and that the Republican Party, which has opposed student loan forgiveness, may file another lawsuit.

Amid growing concerns about the killing of Palestinian civilians, it has been reported that the U.S. government will soon approve the largest amount of weapons support to Israel since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. Citing multiple officials, CNN reported on the 1st that the Biden administration has decided on a policy to sell 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel and plans to request related approval from Congress soon. The sales volume is $18 billion, the largest since the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas.

The U.S. government reportedly plans to notify Congress of new sales of large-scale precision-guided munitions to Israel. CNN said, “The United States’ decision to sell cutting-edge weapons was made amid growing criticism of Israel over the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Even Biden administration officials are raising voices of criticism about Israel’s killing of civilians.”

According to Gaza health authorities, more than 32,000 Palestinians have died in Israeli attacks to date. Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 last year, the United States has continued to sell more than 100 weapons to Israel. Most of these were promoted privately without approval from Congress. The reason was that it was not subject to congressional approval because it did not exceed a certain amount. The Biden administration also recently approved providing Israel with 1,800 2,000-pound MK84 bombs and 500 500-pound MK82 bombs.

A plan to provide Israel with weapons worth $2.5 billion, including 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines, was also approved. There is a strong possibility that strong opposition will be raised in Congress regarding the sale of the F-15 fighter jet.

In particular, it is expected that criticism will boil down to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the ruling party of President Joe Biden. Democratic lawmakers are weighing the argument that Israel should limit arms support before expanding humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. President Biden has voiced opposition to Israel’s all-out attack on Gaza, but he has continued to fully support Israel since the outbreak of war.

For this reason, President Biden had to face a serious division of supporters within the Democratic Party, mainly among Middle Easterners, progressives, and young people, ahead of the presidential election in November. In fact, in some primaries (primary elections) where many Arabs live, including in Michigan, a large number of votes were poured in saying ‘no candidate supported’ as a sign of opposition to President Biden.

All public schools in Washington state will teach LGBTQ+ history to students as a regular subject in accordance with the related law (SB-5462), which Governor Jay Inslee signed into effect on the 18th. Public schools already teach historical perspectives on marginalized groups, such as Native American tribes and blacks under slavery, but this is the first time that this education explicitly includes sexual minorities.

SB-5462, a bill passed by the state Legislature this year, requires all school districts to adopt “diverse, equitable, inclusive and age-appropriate” curriculum to teach the history and perspectives of underrepresented groups. Senator Marco Rias (D-Edmonds), who introduced the bill, pointed out that homosexuals also deserve to be recognized for their contributions and that homosexual students have the right to be proud in school life, and that under this law, the attendance rate and grades of sexual minority students will be reduced.

He emphasized that this would improve, and the overall quality of life will also improve.

Washington State becomes the 7th state in the country to teach LGBT-related subjects in public schools, following six states including California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon. As this law goes into effect, the Washington State Association of Public-School Districts, with the cooperation of the State Superintendent of Education’s Office, will complete preparatory work such as drafting an education policy for sexual minority subjects, setting curriculum for each grade, and adopting related textbooks by June next year, and then 10 It must be reflected in existing policies before March.

SB-5462 was passed in both the Senate and House of Representatives with all Republican lawmakers opposing it. Republican and conservative groups argued that each school district and parents have the authority to decide what to teach their students, and that this bill infringes on their rights.

Recently, the deployment of the National Guard to subway stations has become a hot topic among New Yorkers. Even New Yorkers do not deny that the New York subway is dangerous. Not long ago, I saw a civic group teaching ‘subway safety rules’ in an educational program. But was security so dangerous that the military was deployed? This is a point that makes even the reporter, who rides the New York subway almost every day, tilt his head a little.

On the 6th, New York Governor Cathy Hocal announced that the National Guard would be stationed at major stations in the city and that random checks would be strengthened to ensure security in the New York subway. In fact, the image of soldiers is strong, but if you look at the actual announcement, it is not much different from the plan to expand the deployment of police personnel.

The background to this policy is that a series of violent crime incidents occurred in the subway, increasing citizen anxiety. Of course, there is controversy here. This is because ‘numbers’ (statistics) tell a somewhat different story. According to the New York Police, the number of serious crimes in February this year was 169, down 9.1% from a year ago.

During the same period, the number of subway users increased by more than 10%. Based on these statistics, New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, is making efforts to publicize that the New York subway, which is used by 4 million people a day, is becoming safer. Mayor Adams has already pledged to create a subway that citizens can use with confidence in October 2022, and has significantly increased the deployment of police officers at subway stations and strengthened inspections. Whether citizen anxiety has actually increased can be judged differently depending on one’s perspective.

According to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s ‘Citizen Satisfaction Survey Results’, in a survey conducted from November 6 to 20 last year, satisfaction with subway cabin safety was 54%, up 4 percentage points from six months ago. Satisfaction with subway station safety was 51%, up 3 percentage points from half a year ago. Although half of the population is still anxious, it is positive that there is improvement.

Of course, it is difficult to say that statistics truly reflect the anxiety felt by actual citizens. For example, last summer, New York City closed Rockaway Beach for a period of time after a shark attacked a woman and injured a woman.

The probability of being attacked by a shark at a beach is quite slim, but even if an incident like this happens just once, people become reluctant to go to that beach. The same seems to apply to the New York subway. This is because several violent crimes remain in the minds of citizens and increase anxiety. After an incident occurred in January 2022 at the Times Square subway station where a mentally ill homeless man pushed an Asian woman to death by pushing her onto the tracks, New Yorkers still get nervous and take a step back every time the subway enters the platform.

In January of this year, a man in his 40s who was trying to break up a fight on the subway was shot dead twice by an assailant. Citizens learn from experience that if they see someone making a fuss or fighting on the subway, they should not get involved and should quietly move to another carriage.

Administration is based on numbers, but politics is based on emotions. In the U.S. media, Governor Hocal’s decision to ‘deploy the National Guard’ is being evaluated as being based on political motivation. The Republican Party’s point of attack is that ‘the Democratic Party only puts political correctness first and puts public safety second’, and the intention is to break this perception ahead of the November election. Let’s stop talking about politics in other countries.

If you ask, ‘So, can I ride the New York subway?’, I will answer like this. “It is true that the New York subway is dangerous, and you have to be careful, but it is not as dangerous as you think. Of course, it is best to avoid using it alone late at night.”

On my way home from work last Friday, I heard an announcement that ‘operation was stopped due to a breakdown’ on a crowded New York subway. This is the answer I thought about as I got off the plane. This is also a daily life in New York that I am becoming accustomed to.

New York City Council member Linda Lee has begun to prepare regulations to strengthen vehicle theft prevention. The ‘Int 0610’ ordinance proposed by Rep. Lee on the 7th aims to mandate the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) vehicle theft prevention program and establish a program to provide devices that help prevent vehicle theft, such as a ‘steering wheel lock’, and to provide vehicle theft prevention programs.

It contains information such as aiding with software updates to prevent easy theft. Assemblyman Lee, who serves as chair of the City Council’s Mental Health, Disability, and Addictions Committee, said, “The constant theft from vehicles has reached a level where it is impacting public safety in the community.” He added, “With the passage of the ordinance, vehicle theft prevention programs will be mandated, vehicle thefts will decrease, and public safety will be reduced.” “I hope this will provide a foundation for strengthening safety,” he said.

If enacted, the ordinance will take effect 60 days later. Meanwhile, major crimes in New York City decreased compared to the previous year in 2023, but thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles without ‘engine immobilizers’ increased rapidly.

It was reported that in 2023, thefts of Kia vehicles in New York City increased by 890%, and those of Hyundai vehicles increased by 766%.

With the U.S. stock market soaring, Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates (hereinafter referred to as Bridgewater), the world’s largest hedge fund, said on the 29th in response to some analysis that the U.S. stock market has recently been overvalued, “It doesn’t look like there’s much of a bubble.”

In an article posted on LinkedIn that day, Dalio said that compared to various criteria for evaluating stock market bubbles, the recent overall situation in the U.S. stock market remains in the middle category compared to past history.

His conclusion is that although the stock market has shown a significant upward trend since last year, it is difficult to say that it is in a bubble situation.

Regarding the ‘Magnificent 7’ (M7), which refers to the seven American Big Techs (giant technology companies), it was judged that “although it is evaluated as slightly foamy, the overall conditions are not considered a bubble situation.” However, he cautioned, “You could still imagine a significant correction in these stocks if generative artificial intelligence (AI) does not live up to expectations as first reflected in the stock price.”

In making this statement, he assessed that Alphabet and Meta are still “somewhat cheap” and that Tesla is “somewhat expensive.” Dalio has internally developed indicators that can measure the economic situation and the possibility of a crisis and has been warning of the possibility of a crisis due to increased debt since early 2007, just before the financial crisis. However, some say that predictions are not always accurate as they do not respond properly to the rebound immediately after the financial crisis and the rapid recovery of the stock market during the pandemic.

Analysis suggests that although former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, has virtually driven a wedge into the presidential race in the Republican primary, he is having a hard time collecting donations. He said donors are reluctant to give money because they fear it will be used to cover his legal costs.

On the 24th, the Washington Post (WP) reported that there is growing concern among high-ranking Republicans and some supporters in Washington DC that former President Trump is spending too much political money on legal fees and that small donations are slowing down. Currently, former President Trump is lagging President Joe Biden in both the amount of donations and the number of donors. As of the end of last month, the Biden camp had secured $56 million in cash, but the Trump camp had only $30.5 million in cash.

In addition, according to WP’s analysis, the number of donors was 172,000 for the Biden camp as of November last year, surpassing the 143,000 for the Trump camp. The Trump campaign suspended TV advertising for a significant period during the 2020 presidential election due to financial difficulties. However, this time, the WP diagnosed that there were further setbacks in fundraising due to the possibility that a significant portion of the campaign funds would flow to former President Trump’s legal fees in several criminal and civil trials.

Some major donors have expressed concerns about donations being used to pay for legal fees, according to two prominent Republicans. “They will donate to Trump, but they won’t give as much if they think the money is being wasted,” said one of these Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They want to win the election, not pay lawyers.” He said.

However, one Trump adviser said he had not heard such concerns directly. Former President Trump relies on ‘Leadership PAC’ ‘Save America’ and ‘MAGA Inc.’ for legal fees. Leadership Packs are permitted to raise funds to support travel, fundraising and other political expenses. Last year, the two leadership packs spent more than $55 million on former President Trump’s legal fees, or 23% of their total spending.

‘Save America’ spent $2.9 million on former President Trump’s legal fees last month alone this year. Faced with having to pay huge legal fees but receiving only a small amount of donations, former President Trump is actively raising funds. WP reported that he has been ‘talking to donors’ for 3 to 5 hours a week for over a year. He also regularly writes personal letters to donors and signs thank-you notes, according to Trump’s advisers. He also reportedly agreed to a small dinner and question-and-answer session with some major donors.

In fact, former President Trump held an event last week at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, gathering 1,000 donors, and this week he held donation events in Nashville, Tennessee and Greenville, South Carolina, generating $10 million.

Trump has signaled his willingness to continue calling even people he believes are unlikely to donate and has reportedly even asked some of his associates to raise money for him. WP reported that this is an unusual move that is different from the past.

Former President Trump’s donations fall short even compared to his primary rival, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Former Ambassador Haley is repeatedly losing in the primary but appears to be ahead in the competition for donations. The Financial Times (FT) reported last month that former Ambassador Haley raised $11.5 million, surpassing the amount raised by former President Trump ($8.8 million).

Additionally, the FT reported that in South Carolina, where the Republican primary was held on the 24th, he spent $11.4 million on advertising, more than $10 million more than Trump. According to Politico’s analysis, 55,000 donors gave more than $200 to Haley’s campaign last month alone. Analysis suggests that the reason donations continue to continue despite former Ambassador Haley falling behind in the primary is because she is seen as an alternative to the aging President Biden or former President Trump.

According to The Times, former Ambassador Haley’s supporters said that her wide range of donors shows that Haley is a candidate who can appeal to a wide spectrum of Americans and a candidate who can unite the United States after years of polarization. South Carolina residents Travis and Angela Bass, who donated $350 to Haley, said, “Are you going to vote for your grandfather? Absolutely not. There are two elderly narcissists running for president. They both have the decency to resign. “It must be equipped,” he pointed out.