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Five new affordability measures in the Liberal government’s fall fiscal update

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled a fall economic statement on Tuesday that aims to support middle-class Canadians amid soaring consumer prices and looming mortgage renewals. She announced $168 million in new spending over six years for programs focused on at saving Canadians money. Here’s what the government proposes to do. Competition and trade The Liberals have proposed several amendments to the Competition Act in an attempt to improve consumer choice and lower prices.The economic statement proposes a “crackdown” on predatory pricing and “killer acquisitions.”Proposed legislative changes would also broaden the reach of the law so more private parties can bring cases before the Competition Tribunal and receive payment if they win.The government also wants to make sure that when Canada opens market access to trade partners, Canadian companies are given similar access abroad. “Going forward, Canada will consider reciprocity as a k...

Kansas officials blame 5-week disruption of court system on ‘sophisticated foreign cyberattack’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Cybercriminals hacked into the Kansas court system, stole sensitive data and threatened to post it on the dark web in a ransomware attack that has hobbled access to records for more than five weeks, officials said Tuesday. The announcement of a “sophisticated foreign cyberattack” was confirmation of what computer security experts suspected after the state’s Judicial Branch said Oct. 12 that it was pausing electronic filings. Until now, state officials had released few details, describing it simply as a “security incident.” Upon learning about the attack, the state disconnected its court information system from external access and notified authorities, the Judicial Branch said in a statement. That disrupted daily operations of the state’s appellate courts and all but one county. Johnson County, the state’s most populous, operates its own computer systems and had not yet switched over to the state’s new online system.In recent weeks many attorneys have been ...

Feds set aside $7B from Canada Growth Fund for carbon-price contract guarantees

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

OTTAWA — Almost half of the Canada Growth Fund for clean technology investments will be allocated to special contracts intended to give companies the confidence they need to make major investments to lower their greenhouse-gas emissions.Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland used her fall economic update Tuesday to confirm that the fund – which she launched a year ago in the 2022 fall economic statement – would be the principal vehicle to deliver carbon contracts for difference.She said up to $7 billion of the $15-billion fund will be set aside for contracts for difference, some of which are already being negotiated.The contracts acknowledge that companies are making decisions to invest in things that lower their carbon emissions based on how much they expect to pay for the carbon price over several years. Those investments are only sound if they would cost less than what the company would pay in carbon pricing without the technology.If the carbon pricing system changes in the future, t...

Key highlights from the Liberals’ 2023 fall economic statement

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled her fall economic statement on Tuesday, updating Canadians on the country’s financial health and introducing some new measures to target the housing crisis. Here are the highlights. — $20.8 billion: New federal spending since the spring budget.— $488.7 billion: Total government spending for the current fiscal year, through the end of March 2024. — 1.1 per cent: The real rate of GDP growth for 2023. Growth is expected to decline to 0.4 next year, but the government says it doesn’t expect the slowdown to result in a recession. — $40 billion: The updated deficit for this year. — $38.4 billion: Next year’s projected deficit — a $3.4-billion increase from the government’s previous projection. — $15 billion: The amount of money expected to go toward loan funding, beginning in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, to build more than 30,000 homes across Canada. — $1 billion: The cost of a new affordable housing fund over three ...

After the dollar-loving Milei wins the presidency, Argentines anxiously watch the exchange rate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — As soon as Leandro Francisco Diana woke up Tuesday, he reached for his phone like many Argentines on the first business day after the election victory of President-elect Javier Milei.“I opened my eyes, got my phone and looked for the price of the dollar to see how the country had awakened,” said the 26-year-old Diana, who owns a hardware store with his father in Villa Crespo, a middle-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires.The exchange rate of the peso with the U.S. dollar has become a widely watched barometer of the nation’s economic health, and is top of mind for millions of Argentines coping with triple-digit inflation. Knowing a further depreciation of the peso will boost the price of consumer goods, they are anxious for signs of what Milei’s victory on Sunday meant for the value of the currency that has tanked against the U.S. dollar in the past year.Diana, who loves traveling to New York and visited Miami last month, said he had feared he would find ...

Freeland’s fiscal update pledges new guardrails to keep deficits in check

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

The Liberal government’s fall economic statement acknowledges the cost-of-living crisis weighing on Canadians but offers few new measures to tackle it while pledging to keep deficits in check.Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presented her fiscal update in the House of Commons on Tuesday, stressing the pressure inflation and a slowing economy are putting on federal finances.At a time when the Liberals are facing pointed criticism from the Opposition Conservatives for years of deficit spending, the update outlines new guardrails to demonstrate fiscal restraint.That includes setting a goal to keep deficits below one per cent of the GDP beginning in 2026-27.The Liberals are also aiming to maintain the current fiscal year’s deficit at or below the spring budget projection of $40.1 billion and lower the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2024-25 relative to the projection in the fall economic statement.The new fiscal objectives come as the Liberals face an election in no more than two yea...

Teachers in Portland, Oregon, march and temporarily block bridge in third week of strike

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Teachers in Portland, Oregon, temporarily shut down a major bridge Tuesday morning as they marched in a strike started roughly three weeks ago.Members of the Portland Association of Teachers union and their supporters stopped in the middle of the Burnside Bridge for about 15 minutes, KGW reported. By 9 a.m. the bridge was clear and cars were driving across, according to the news outlet.Photos posted by the union on its Facebook page showed teachers sitting down on the bridge donning blue clothes and holding banners calling for better pay and teaching conditions. The union had called on supporters to meet at its headquarters, roughly half a mile from the bridge, at 7:30 a.m. before beginning the march at 8 a.m.Portland teachers have been on strike since Nov. 1, shuttering schools serving about 45,000 students in Oregon’s largest district. Students have missed 11 days of class because of the walkout.In marathon bargaining sessions that at times went through...

Disability advocate says Eglinton Avenue bike lane a danger to visually impaired pedestrians

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

A disability advocate is speaking out about a bike lane installed along Eglinton Avenue that he says could be dangerous for visually impaired pedestrians.In a video released by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA), David Lepofsky, AODA’s chair, walks along the north side of Eglinton with his cane, unable to tell the difference between the sidewalk and the raised bike lane.Lepofsky, a lawyer and associate professor, said he had to be told that the bike lane was at sidewalk level, not road level. “I’d never encountered this before. It is a serious and dangerous threat to blind pedestrians like me,” Leposky told CityNews.And he’s not just concerned for himself and other visually impaired pedestrians. “It’s also a danger to sighted pedestrians if they’re looking down at their phone, texting and having to walk into a bike path,” explained Lepofsky. “It’s dangerous to cyclists because I coul...

The White House says its cracking down on fentanyl use

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) - Tuesday President Joe Biden met with members of his cabinet to discuss ways to crack down on the flow of fentanyl into the U.S."Too many are faced with an empty chair for the first time at Thanksgiving. So many people have died,” he said.This meeting follows last week’s announcement that China is agreeing to help curb the deadly drug.  Mexico’s president also pledged to work side by side with the U.S.Biden stated, "It's a global challenge that demands global action."China says it will tell companies to stop shipments of the chemicals used to make the drug to Latin American countries, something the White House calls a step in the right direction. For more Washington DC coverage, click here National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said, "This agreement will save lives, will save American lives. And President Xi said he was committed to helping with that."Doctor Rahul Gupta, director of National Drug Control Policy, says over 100 nations are working ...

Highest paying jobs in Chicago that require a graduate degree

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:39 GMT

Education pays.At least, that's what Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. Higher degree holders earn more and experience lower unemployment rates than those without degrees or with lesser degrees. On a weekly basis, master's degree holders earn over $500 more than the median for all U.S. workers over age 25, and doctoral degree holders earn about $850 more than that median. Professional degree holders like doctors, lawyers, and veterinarians earn even more, at nearly $870 more than the median.However, advanced degrees often cost significant funds to obtain. A year of graduate tuition and fees cost about $19,750 for the 2020-21 academic year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The average at private institutions was even more, at $26,620 per year. Some programs offer assistantships or fellowships that offset those costs, but many students will be on the hook for paying or borrowing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.Other data from the center, released...