Category: ESTA News

Following the surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian armed faction Hamas, which even targeted civilians, security agencies in major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, are strengthening security in preparation for possible attacks on Jewish and Muslim religious facilities in the area.

According to CNN, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security are known to be sending a ‘Public Safety Concern’ bulletin to each state and local law enforcement authorities to pay attention and check the impact of this incident on the situation in the United States.

LASD has begun to increase patrol manpower. “We are deploying additional patrol personnel in our jurisdiction while also working closely with federal and local law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation,” LASD headquarters said in a statement via X. The Santa Monica Police Department, where many Jews live, has begun regular inspections to prepare for emergencies, including increasing the number of patrol vehicles.

Local politicians, including LA Mayor Karen Bass, strongly condemned Hamas’ attacks. “Los Angeles has the second-largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and many families are anxiously watching to see how the situation unfolds,” Mayor Bath said in his statement. “My heart is with them.”

The U.S. foreign policy is also being put to the test due to the armed conflict between the two sides that began with the attack on Israel by the Palestinian armed political faction Hamas.

First, the Biden administration’s Middle East policy itself is in a difficult situation.

After completely ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that began in the 21st century with the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan two years ago, the United States focused on ‘diplomatic stabilization’ instead of direct intervention in the Arab world.

The core of that strategy was to arrange for improved relations between Israel, an ally in the Middle East, and its neighbors.

In 2020, before the inauguration of the Biden administration, under the chairmanship of then-President Donald Trump, Israel and Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Morocco signed the ‘Abraham Accords’ to establish formal diplomatic relations, and President Joe Biden signed an agreement with Israel. and Saudi Arabia have accelerated the normalization of diplomatic relations.

The general analysis of experts was that the diplomatic goal was to simultaneously check Iran, the largest anti-American power in the Middle East, and China, which is gradually seeking to expand its influence in the Middle East after the United States left.

Therefore, the consensus is that the attack on Israel, the axis of U.S. policy toward the Middle East, is bound to be a significant blow to the driving force of the policy of stabilizing the Middle East through diplomacy.

If the situation escalates and anti-Israel and anti-American forces in the Middle East unite, it is expected that the Biden administration’s policy toward the Middle East will inevitably be shaken.

Politico, an American political media outlet, introduced that the United States has also involved the Palestinian side in the process of normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and wrote that it is highly likely that the participants will be personnel from the Palestinian Authority, a rival of Hamas.

Even if efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia do not run aground immediately, it is unlikely that diplomatic negotiations involving the Palestinian Authority will progress while the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas intensifies.

We cannot rule out the possibility that this incident will act as a variable in support for Daewoo Ukraine, which is already showing growing fatigue among Americans.

President Biden requested $24 billion (about 32 trillion won) from Congress in July to support Ukraine, but many Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives are opposed to it.

In this situation, he failed to reflect the amount of support to Ukraine in the 45-day temporary budget passed on the 30th of last month.

Moreover, as former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who led the passage of the interim budget bill through Congress, failed due to a few hard-line right-wingers in the Republican Party pushing for a resolution to dismiss him, it has become difficult to guarantee when the House of Representatives, which holds the key to supporting Daewoo Krai, including the election of the next House Speaker, will return to normal.

Therefore, as this incident occurs, there is a high possibility that support for Daewoo Ukraine will fall behind support for Israel, which is bipartisanly supported by U.S. politicians, in terms of priority.

Moreover, unlike Ukraine, which is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe, Israel is an ally of the United States.

Observers believe that if this armed conflict, which Israel has defined as a ‘war’, shows signs of an ‘escalation’ and the United States needs to rapidly increase its support for Israel, the possibility of the Daewoo Ukraine support plan drifting may increase.

In the end, President Biden’s plan to promote stable external relations as an achievement of the regime by increasing the number of ‘fronts’ (Ukraine and the Middle East) that do not directly deploy troops but are indirectly involved (Ukraine and the Middle East) with about a year before the US presidential election in November next year is not possible. We are facing a difficult situation.

In this situation, there is also talk of the possibility that the Biden administration will deploy behind-the-scenes diplomatic power to prevent this conflict from spreading into a ‘Middle East war’.

With President Biden immediately expressing his support and willingness to support Israel, there is no doubt that the United States will come forward to support Israel.

However, there are observations that the expansion of the front line outside the Gaza Strip will not lead to a situation where Iran intervenes militarily or where Middle Eastern countries that are non-hostile to the United States, such as Saudi Arabia, end up sympathizing with or supporting Palestine.

Some media outlets are already raising suspicions that Iran was involved in Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel. However, the U.S. government is extremely cautious about this assessment.

Previously, Secretary of State Tony Blinken stated cautiously in an interview with NBC the previous day that he had no evidence of Iran’s involvement in the planning and execution of Hamas’s attack on Israel, which is seen as reflecting the complex intentions of the United States.

As professional thieves and gang robberies targeting high-end retail stores and shopping malls are on the rise throughout LA and Southern California, ‘Grove Mall’ near Koreatown, which is popular among LA residents and travelers, is a target of crime, which has increased significantly this year. ‘Crosstown’, a crime analysis site, analyzed that this is happening.

According to ‘Crosstown’, 45 crime incidents occurred at ‘Grove Mall’ in August alone this year, the highest number this year. Previously, 42 criminal incidents occurred in July.

From 2017 to November 2022, when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began analyzing statistical incidents at ‘Grove Mall,’ there were never more than 27 crime incidents that occurred in ‘Grove Mall’ in a single month. However, this year, there were a total of seven months in which the number of crime incidents that occurred in a month exceeded 27.

According to Crosstown, a total of 278 crime incidents were reported at ‘Grove Mall’ during the eight months from January 1 to August 31 of this year. The number of crimes that have occurred as of August of this year has already exceeded the total number of crimes in one year in 2022, which is 175.

Of the 278 crimes that occurred this year, 203, or more than half, were store thefts, of which 165 were thefts in which items worth less than $950 were stolen, and 38 were thefts in which items worth more than $950 were stolen. There were also 27 incidents of general theft, and 9 cases of pickpocketing were reported.

The background to the rapid increase in robberies at ‘Grove Mall’ this year is the problem of deteriorating security in the LA area. The number of smash-and-grab theft incidents occurring at department stores across LA reached an all-time high in 2023.

According to LAPD statistics, as of August this year, 3,361 crimes were reported at department stores in the LA area alone.

Accordingly, the LAPD and various agencies collaborated to form a theft crime task force last August, and this organization reportedly arrested 40 theft suspects as of September 19.

As the federal government took a breather from the crisis of shutdown (temporary business suspension), U.S. Treasury bond yields soared.

According to foreign media such as Reuters on the 2nd, the yield on 10-year maturity U.S. Treasury bonds rose to 4.703% at one point on the day and closed at 4.683%.

The intraday rate of 4.703% is the highest since 2007.

As the shutdown crisis was averted, demand for U.S. Treasury bonds, a safe asset, decreased and Treasury yields rose.

The U.S. Congress passed a 45-day temporary budget to avoid a shutdown on the 30th of last month, which was the deadline for processing next year’s budget.

Stronger-than-expected U.S. economic indicators also pushed up government bond yields.

The September manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) compiled by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) was 49.0, exceeding the market expectation of 47.7.

The fact that high-ranking officials of the Federal Reserve, including Chairman Jerome Powell, Vice Chairman Michael Barr, and Federal Reserve Board member Michelle Bowman, have successively emphasized curbing inflation has also had an impact on the decline in government bond prices (increasing yields).

 

There are also predictions that U.S. long-term government bond interest rates will rise further and exceed 5%.

Bill Ackman, chairman of Pershing Square Capital, a giant in the hedge fund industry, predicted in an interview with CNBC that day, “The interest rate on 30-year government bonds will be in the mid-5% range, and the interest rate on 10-year bonds will be close to 5%.”

California is enacting legislation to further strengthen regulations, including imposing additional taxes on the firearms industry.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill on the 26th that aims to impose an 11% tax on gun and ammunition sales on local gun manufacturers and distributors.

Accordingly, gun manufacturers and sellers in California will have to pay an additional tax imposed by the state in addition to the existing tax (10-11% of sales amount) imposed by the federal government.

The taxes paid by gun manufacturers have doubled.

The Associated Press cited an analysis by ‘Brady’, a gun control advocacy group, and reported that such gun taxation at the state level is the only measure in the United States. Previously, Tennessee imposed a 10-cent tax on shotgun shells but abolished it in 2019, and Pennsylvania collects an additional fee of $3 on gun sales to cover the cost of background checks.

The state of California already charges a fee of about $37 to gun buyers, and most of this money is used for background checks, the AP reported. Existing taxes collected by the federal government from the firearms industry are used to protect wildlife and operate hunter safety programs.

The state of California announced that it plans to use taxes collected from the gun industry to support various gun safety measures, including school safety, gun violence prevention measures, and confiscation of guns from domestic violence offenders.

“This law is based on the simple premise that we must put the safety of our children ahead of the interests of the gun industry,” said state Rep. Jesse Gabriel, who sponsored the bill. However, gun advocacy groups immediately protested.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association told the AP that it plans to file a lawsuit against the state.

“This law does not make us safer,” said Chuck Michel, the group’s president. “We are responding with retaliation,” he said. He added, “The moment this bill was signed, the clock started ticking toward a ruling that would strike them down.”

On this day, Governor Newsom announced a bill to strengthen regulations by raising the right to possess firearms in public places to 21 years or older and to require unique identification numbers on handgun cartridges to track firearms used in crimes starting in 2028. He also signed a bill that would prevent potentially dangerous people from possessing guns through extensive background checks.

Governor Newsom emphasized, “The gun death rate in California has decreased significantly over the past few years as the state has shown leadership on gun issues,” and added, “Ultimately, we will need to establish a national framework to solve this problem.”

According to 2021 data from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of annual firearm deaths in California was 3,576, but the firearm death rate compared to the population was relatively low.

With 9 deaths per 100,000 people, it ranked 43rd among all 50 states.

The results are attracting attention after New York City pushed for changes to the ‘Right to Shelter’ ordinance, which has been in effect for over 40 years to resolve the refugee crisis.

New York City is the only major metropolitan city in the United States to have a ‘Right to Shelter’ ordinance that requires city government agencies to provide shelter and other protective spaces when homeless or refugees request it.

This ordinance, established in 1981, served as a driving force in attracting immigrants, including refugees, to New York City. However, as capacity exceeded the limit and the refugee crisis worsened, New York City began preparing a plan to exclude refugees currently flowing into New York City from the ‘right to refuge’.

New York City has begun changing its ‘right to shelter’ ordinance after the Trump administration’s ‘Title 42’, which enabled immediate deportation of refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic, expired in May.

Anne William Isom, New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, said, “We plan to submit a request to the court next week to exclude refugees currently flocking to New York City from the ‘right to refuge’,” adding, “With the current humanitarian crisis that has led to a refugee crisis, “The position is that the right to refuge should not be applied,” he argued.

In response to New York City’s statement of position, New York Governor Cathy Hokull also expressed support for the push to change New York City’s ‘right to shelter’ ordinance.

Governor Hokul stated, “The purpose of the ‘Right to Shelter’ ordinance is to provide humane support to homeless people on the streets and their families, not to support refugees who are flocking from all over the world like now,” and added, “This right is not unlimited.” “We agree with New York City that it is necessary to change its application to the current refugee crisis because it is not a right that is applied as a right,” she emphasized.

A study showed that the risk of developing dementia significantly increases in people aged 60 or older if they spend any amount of time sitting, such as watching TV or driving.

Professor David Raichlen’s team at the University of Southern California analysed the UK’s biomedical database in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the 13th and found that the risk of dementia significantly increases if you spend more than 10 hours a day sitting.

Professor Raichlen said that the total amount of time spent sitting per day, rather than the number or type of sitting behaviour, appeared to be associated with dementia, and that this was a notable result considering that Americans spend an average of 9.5 hours sitting per day.

“I know many people are told to break the habit of sitting for long periods of time by standing up or walking around every 30 minutes or so,” he said, explaining the background of the study, saying that sitting behaviour is associated with disease and mortality, but the relationship with dementia was not clear.

The research team analysed the association between sedentary behaviour and dementia risk using data measuring the movements of more than 100,000 adults 24 hours a day for a week with a wrist-worn accelerometer from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database in the UK.

First, a machine learning algorithm was applied to the measurements of 49,841 people over 60 years old (average age 67.2 years) who were not diagnosed with dementia at the start of the study, and daily physical activity was measured by various factors such as sedentary behaviour and sleep. They were then followed up to see if they had been diagnosed with dementia for an average of 6.7 years using inpatient hospital records and death registration data, and 414 positive cases of dementia were discovered.

The research team reflected demographic characteristics that can affect brain health, such as age, gender, education level, chronic disease, genetics, race and ethnicity, and lifestyle characteristics such as physical activity, diet, smoking and drinking, and sedentary behaviour.

The association with dementia risk was statistically analysed. As a result, based on the median sitting time of 9.27 hours per day, the risk ratio (HR) for dementia rose sharply to 1.08 for people who sat for 10 hours, to 1.63 for 12 hours, and to 3.21 for 15 hours.

The adjusted dementia incidence rate per 1,000 person-years was 7.49 in the 9.27-hour group, 8.06 in the 10-hour group, 12.0 in the 12-hour group, and 22.74 in the 15-hour group, showing a significant increase as the sitting time increased.

In addition, it was confirmed that the average time spent sitting and maintaining posture along with the total time spent per day were significantly associated with the risk of developing dementia. However, the amount of time spent sitting did not seem to be related to the risk of developing dementia.

Co-researcher Gene Alexander, a professor at the University of Arizona, said, “This shows that the risk of dementia increases rapidly if sitting time exceeds 10 hours a day.” However, this also means that if you control your behaviour, such as not sitting for too long at a time, if you sit for less than 10 hours, dementia can be reduced.

“This study is part of our efforts to understand the impact of sedentary behaviour on brain health from a variety of perspectives,” said Professor Reichlen. “Research is needed,” he said.

An analysis showed that the U.S. economy is not falling into a recession, contrary to some expectations, due to the increase in real income and the government’s manufacturing support policy.

The US daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 2nd that the US economy is showing surprising resilience, including steady employment and solid consumption, despite the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) aggressive interest rate hike. In fact, in relation to the US August employment situation report on the 1st, US President Joe Biden said, “Inflation has been alleviated over a long period of time, jobs are increasing, and wages are rising,” and “All jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered.”

According to the employment report released by the U.S. Department of Labor on this day, the number of non-farm jobs in the U.S. last month increased by 187,000 compared to the previous month, and the unemployment rate recorded 3.8%.

The number of jobs in August exceeded the expert forecast of 170,000 jobs compiled by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and the unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points compared to the previous month.

The US base interest rate has currently been raised to 5.25-5.50% per year, the highest level in 22 years.

WSJ explained three reasons as to why the U.S. economy did not fall into recession despite such high interest rates.

First, it was revealed that real income increased, and more employment and spending occurred due to an increase in the workforce and a slowdown in price increases.

Real after-tax income in July increased by 3.8% compared to the same period last year, and this figure has been calculated to have increased compared to the previous year every month since last January.

This was analysed to help stimulate consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic production. “The Fed has certainly slowed down credit-sensitive activity,” said Neil Dutta, an economist at research firm Renaissance Macro.

In relation to this, WSJ presented a second rationale, saying that enormous demand was suppressed due to the pandemic and that such demand was less sensitive to interest rate increases. In particular, in the case of automobile production, it was unable to keep up with demand in 2020 and 2021 but is now catching up and industrial activities have become more active.

Lastly, WSJ noted that the U.S. government, which stimulated the economy with cash and low interest rates during the pandemic, has now increased spending on a massive scale through manufacturing support policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Semiconductor Act. Although liquidity has partially contracted due to the recent interest rate hike, the government’s large-scale stimulus package is further encouraging private sector investment.

This situation has also raised expectations for a soft economic landing. A soft landing refers to overcoming inflation while avoiding an economic downturn, such as a collapse of the job market.

Expectations for a soft landing were reflected in the stock market, and the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index rose more than 17% this year. “We are going to have a soft landing,” said John Fish, CEO of construction company Suffolk. “The combination of a global economic recovery, additional federal spending and an eventual decline in interest rates will create tremendous demand in the service sector of the economy.” He spoke.

Previously, in July, he lowered the likelihood of a U.S. economic recession in the next 12 months from 35% to 20%. However, some point out that to predict whether the U.S. economic strength will continue, the situation in other major economies, such as China and Germany, must be taken into consideration.

This is because China, the world’s second-largest economy, has recently entered deflation (a decline in prices amid an economic recession) and the crisis in the real estate sector is increasing, and Germany has also seen warning lights in its economy, including a slowdown in export competitiveness.

The Associated Press and CNN reported on the 3rd that heavy rain fell on a festival held in the Nevada desert, leaving more than 70,000 participants stranded in the mud and one person dead.

The ‘Burning Man’ festival has been held since the 27th of last month in the Black Rock Desert, about 177km north of Reno, Nevada, and there was a surprise heavy rain from the 1st to the morning of the 2nd. As a result, the normally dry land was flooded and turned into mud, and as car wheels were unable to get out of the mud and became mixed up, causing chaos, the organizers completely restricted vehicle access for safety reasons.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the area, said that about 70,000 people were stranded at the site and that one death occurred during the event and is being investigated. However, the police did not reveal the identity of the deceased or the suspected cause of death. There are also stories online of people having to walk several kilometres to get to the site because it was impossible to move by car.

Pop star DJ Diplo, who was there, posted a video on social media of himself riding in the bed of a pickup truck with comedian Chris Rock, revealing that he walked 6 miles (9.7 km) in the mud before getting into the car.

“We walked down the street for hours with our thumbs up (trying to catch the car),” he wrote, “and no one would have believed we would get to (Washington) DC for tonight’s show.”

Law professor Neil Katyal, who also attended the festival, posted on social media this morning, “It was an incredibly harrowing hike that involved walking six miles through heavy, slippery mud in the middle of the night, but I made it out of Burning Man safely.” He added, “(The festival) was fantastic with gorgeous art and great music,” adding, “Except for the ending.”

Festival organizers said that it could rain again this afternoon and asked participants to stay within the event site as much as possible and to conserve or share the food and supplies they had prepared.

“Burning Man is a community of people ready to help each other, and we knew this was the place to bring everything we needed to survive,” organizers said in a statement. “We are well prepared for these extreme weather events.” He spoke.

This festival, which has a somewhat anti-establishment character, combines camping and avant-garde cultural performances, and lasts for about a week. The principle is that participants are self-sufficient by bringing their own water, food, and other necessary items. Despite the adverse conditions, some participants took pictures of themselves dancing while covered in mud or enjoying a dip in a puddle made of rain and posted them on social media.

“Honestly, we’re having fun,” festival attendee Teresa Galleani told The Associated Press. “I haven’t seen anything negative or difficult.”

The organizer said, “We will continue to restrict vehicle access until the roads are dry enough for cars to drive safely,” and predicted that vehicle movement will be possible on Monday the 4th when weather conditions improve.

Home prices in Southern California hit record highs last month, despite extremely low home sales due to soaring mortgage rates.

Housing prices in the Southern California area, which showed stagnant housing price increases last year, have been showing a steady upward trend since January this year.

Last month, the median home price in Southern California recorded $743,000, which is close to the record high of $750,000 for a home in Southern California set in April of last year.

This year, the median home price in Southern California increased by $73,000.

In Southern California last month, median home prices hit record highs in Orange County, Ventura County, and San Diego County.

The median home price in Orange County hit $175,000, with Ventura County breaking records at $813,000 and San Diego County at $850,000.

Last month, Southern California home prices soared, but home sales were sluggish.

A total of 130,998 homes were sold, the lowest number of sales in 35 years.

The number of housing transactions through July of this year was 97,197, which is also the lowest record.

As mortgage interest rates soared, rising monthly payment burdens appear to have dampened home sales.

With interest rates soaring, the average monthly mortgage payment in Southern California is now $3,891, up by $1,600 in the past two years.

However, there were not enough houses for sale, which pushed up the price of houses.

According to housing information company Redfin, the number of homes for sale in Southern California last month was 40,866, the lowest number of homes sold in July in the past decade.

Usually, in July, the average number of homes for sale in Southern California is about 64,000.