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Oct. 16, 2020 08:12PM EST
U.S. federal deficit soars to record $3.1 trillion in 2020
The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $3.1 trillion in the 2020 fiscal year, according to data released Friday by the Treasury Department.
Why it matters: The deficit — which measures the gap between what the government spends and what it brings in through taxes and other revenue streams — illustrates the massive impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on the economy.
- The shortfall easily eclipsed the previous record set in 2009, when the deficit was $1.4 trillion, per CNBC.
By the numbers:
- The federal government spent $6.552 trillion for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, according government data. That's up from $4.447 trillion spent last fiscal year.
- The government brought in $3.42 trillion in tax revenue in the 2020 fiscal year, down slightly from 2019.
- Much of the 2020 deficit can be attributed to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, passed in March.
What they're saying: In a statement on Friday, Treasury said the deficit was $2 trillion more than originally forecast due to actions taken to stem the economic impact of the coronavirus.
- “Thanks to President Trump’s pro-growth policies and the bipartisan CARES Act, we are experiencing a strong economic recovery,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday.
- “The Administration remains fully committed to supporting American workers, families, and businesses and to ensuring that our robust economic rebound continues,” Mnuchin said.
The big picture: The data come as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House remain deadlocked in negotiations on a new round of stimulus aid.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday said he would not put a potential $1.8 trillion deal struck by democrats and the Trump administration on the Senate floor, noting the number is “a much larger amount than I can sell to my members."
Go deeper: Employment gains are reversing course
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May. 27, 2021 11:14PM EST
What we know about the victims of the San Jose mass shooting
Local authorities have identified the nine victims of Wednesday's mass shooting at a transit station in San Jose, California.
The big picture: Many of the victims were longtime employees of the Valley Transportation Authority. "Their jobs included bus and light rail operators, mechanics, linemen and assistant superintendent," reports AP.
What we know: The victims, per the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office, include:
- Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, age 63
- Alaghmandan went by, "Abdi," and worked as a substation maintainer at the VTA for about 20 years, reports ABC News.
- Adrian Balleza, age 29
- Ballezastarted working as a trainee at the VTA in 2014 and eventually became a maintenance worker and light rail operator, per KCRA News.
- Alex Ward Fritch, age 49
- Fritch was a substation maintainer at the VTA and died from his injuries in the hospital hours after the shooting.
- "Alex was everything to this family," his wife, Tara, told KTVU. The couple had been married 20 years and have two children. They were meant to renew their wedding vows in Hawaii in September.
- Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, age 35
- Hernandez started working at the VTA in 2012 as a transit mechanic but later became a substation maintainer. His ex-wife told NBC News that Hernandez was "most loving, romantic and giving man."
- Lars Kepler Lane, age 63
- Lane started working for the VTA in 2001. He was a husband, father, and grandfather and would celebrated his 64th birthday later this week, per ABC News.
- Paul Delacruz Megia, age 42
- Megia also started at the VTA as a trainee in 2002, and eventually became an assistant superintendent.
- His wife described him as a "husband & father who was full of love, jokes, energy for life and always up for new adventures," per NBC News.
- Timothy Michael Romo, age 49
- Romo was an Air Force veteran who worked for the VTA for 22 years. He and his wife had been planning a trip to visit their son, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
- Michael Joseph Rudometkin, age 40
- Rudometkin started working at the VTA in 2013 and was a "lifelong friend" of San Jose City Councilman Raul Peralez, per AP.
- Rudometkin's cousin said he was a "proud union member" who "always stood up for everyone's rights," per KCRA News.
- Taptejdeep Singh, age 36
- Singh was a married father of two toddlers who died while trying to warn his colleagues that there was a shooter at the facility.
- "Even in the last moments, he wasn't looking for his own safety, per se, he was trying to save people. That's who he was," his cousin Harpartap Singh, told NBC.
The suspected shooter, Sam Cassidy, is believed to have taken his own life at the scene of the shooting. Authorities have not yet determined a motive.
Go Deeper: Coroner identifies ninth victim of San Jose rail yard shooting
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Jun. 05, 2021 11:00AM EST
In a world of extreme risks, the world needs a chief risk officer
A future that will see escalating danger from extreme risks demands a longer-term approach to handling these threats.
The big picture: The world was caught off guard by COVID-19, and millions of people have paid the price. But the pandemic provides an opportunity to rethink theapproach to the growing threat from low-probability but high-consequence risks — including the ones we may be inadvertently causing ourselves.
Driving the news: Earlier this week, a nonprofit in the U.K. called the Centre for Long-Term Resilience put out a report that should be required reading for leaders around the world.
- Spearheaded by Toby Ord — an existential risk scholar at the University of Oxford — "Future Proof" makes the case that "we are currently living with an unsustainably high level of extreme risk."
- "With the continued acceleration of technology, and without serious efforts to boost our resilience to these risks, there is strong reason to believe the risks will only continue to grow," as the authors write.
Between the lines: "Future Proof" focuses on two chief areas of concern: artificial intelligence and biosecurity.
- While the longer-term threat of artificial intelligence reaching a level of superintelligence beyond humans is an existential risk by itself, the ransomware and other cyberattacks plaguing the world could be supercharged by the use of AI tools, while the development of lethal autonomous weapons threatens to make war far more chaotic and destructive.
- Natural pandemics are bad enough, but we're headed toward a world in which thousands of people will have access to technologies that can enhance existing viruses or synthesize entirely new ones. That's far more dangerous.
It's far from clear how the world can control these human-made extreme risks.
- Nuclear weapons are easy by comparison — bombs are difficult to make and even harder for a nation to use without guaranteeing its own destruction, which is largely why, 75 years after Hiroshima, fewer than 10 countries have developed a nuclear arsenal.
- But both biotech and AI are dual-use technologies, meaning they can be wielded for both beneficial and malign purposes. That makes them far more difficult to control than nuclear weapons, especially since some of the most extreme risks — like, say, a dangerous virus leaking out of a lab — could be accidental, not purposeful.
- Even though the risks from biotech and AI are growing, there is little in the way of international agreements to manage them. The UN office charged with implementing the treaty banning bioweapons is staffed by all of three people, while efforts to establish global norms around AI research — much of which, unlike the nuclear sphere, is carried out by private firms — have been mostly unsuccessful.
What to watch: The "Future Proof" report recommends a range of actions, from focusing on the development of technologies like metagenomic sequencing that can rapidly identify new pathogens to having nations set aside a percentage of GDP for extreme risk preparation, just as NATO members are required to spend on defense.
- A global treaty on risks to the future of humanity, modeled on earlier efforts around nuclear weapons and climate change, could at least raise the international profile of extreme risks.
- Most importantly, the report calls for the creation of "chief risk officers" — officials empowered to examine government policy with an eye toward what could go very wrong.
The bottom line: We are entering a frightening time for humanity. Ord estimates the chance that we will experience an existential catastrophe over the next 100 years is 1 in 6, the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with our future.
- But if our actions have put the bullet in that gun, it's also in our power to take it out.
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Dec. 08, 2024 06:05PM EST



