NEW YORK, NY – A man wanted for two stabbings inside train stations in Queens is being sought by the New York City Police Department today. Donny Ubiera is a fugitive on the run and police are asking residents to contact them if they know of his whereabouts. The stabbings happened this weekend in two unrelated and unprovoked attacks, the NYPD said.
TOMS RIVER, NJ – After dominating the local competition in a 30-0, giving up just 18 runs all season, the Donovan Catholic High School softball team was eliminated from this year’s NJSIAA tournament of champions in the semifinal round.
Donovan met their match in the form of freshman phenom Sophia Bordi, who struck out 14 Donovan batters, giving up just five hits in a 6-1 win for Haddon Heights. Donovan’s losing pitcher Julie Aposaloakus struck out 3 and allowed just three hits but gave up six runs in the game. Donovan made two errors in the game.
Donovan Catholic had a 48 game winning streak heading into the game.
Haddon Heights went on to defeat Watchung Hills 2-0 in the championship game as Bordi struck out 13 batters and shutout her opponent for the title.
By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM – Israel’s government plans to sharply boost construction starts and expand a discount scheme aimed at restraining rapidly rising housing prices as demand continues to outstrip supply.
Under a joint plan by the finance, interior, and construction and housing ministries, Israel aims to start building 280,000 housing units by 2025, or 70,000 on average a year. That compares to around 55,000 a year over the past decade.
Construction and Housing Minister Zeev Elkin noted that the various incentives would mean a loss of as much as 20 billion shekels ($5.89 billion) to the country’s lands authority, which allocates Israel’s land to developers.
“The plan is not a one-step magic solution,” Elkin said at a press conference on Sunday. “(But) we believe (it)… will stabilize Israel’s housing market.”
The proposal, parts of which require parliament approval, also includes other measures, such as cutting red tape and building more housing units for rentals.
It is the latest government attempt to contain housing costs, with previous ones failing to stabilize prices.
It takes twice as long to build an apartment in Israel than it does in the United States and Britain, Finance Minister Avidgor Lieberman said at the news conference, citing data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
Lieberman also cautioned that other factors, outside the government’s control, could slow progress.
Analysts and central bank policymakers have long said the current number of building starts in Israel is too low to meet demand for buyers either looking to invest or for a home.
Along with rock-bottom mortgage interest rates, housing prices have more than doubled since 2010, with a 16% rise over the past year alone.
Rent has also jumped, pricing many out of the market and contributing to rising inflation. Israeli media have reported double-digit gains in rental rates this year.
Data show that a four-room apartment in Israel averages nearly 2.5 million shekels, with prices far higher in Tel Aviv, Israel’s financial and cultural capital.
($1 = 3.3931 shekels)
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Maayan Lubell and Jan Harvey)
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis apologised to the people of Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan on Sunday for having to cancel his visit because of walking problems, and said he was hopeful his condition would improve.
The Vatican announced on Thursday that the July 2-7 trip had been postponed indefinitely because of the 85-year-old pontiff’s knee ailment, which has forced him to use a wheelchair for more than a month.
“I feel great regret that I had to postpone this trip, which I am still very keen to make,” he said at his Sunday address before thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
“I ask you to pardon me for this. Let us pray together that with the help of God and with medical treatment, I can come to you as soon as possible. We are hopeful,” he said, directly addressing the people and authorities of both countries.
The Vatican said on Thursday that the trip was postponed “in order not to jeopardize the results of the therapy that he is undergoing for his knee”.
On Sunday, he referred to his ailment, which is believed to be a torn ligament, as “problems with my leg”. Francis also suffers from sciatica, which caused him to limp even before the flare-up of the knee problem.
Vatican sources have said the pope has been receiving several injections a week for the ailment, as well as physical therapy, and that he had hoped to be able to regain at least a partial ability to walk before the trip was due to start.
They have said the pope is against surgery because of problems with general anaesthesia following an operation to remove part of his intestine a year ago.
The pope is still scheduled to visit Canada from July 24-30.
He also urged his listeners not to become accustomed to the war in Ukraine. “Let us not allow the passing of time to dull our pain and our concern for those martyred people,” he said
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Jan Harvey)
By Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON -Tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington and at hundreds of rallies across the United States on Saturday to demand that lawmakers pass legislation aimed at curbing gun violence following last month’s massacre at a Texas elementary school.
In the nation’s capital, organizers with March for Our Lives (MFOL) estimated that 40,000 people assembled at the National Mall near the Washington Monument under occasional light rain. The gun safety group was founded by student survivors of the 2018 massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school.
Courtney Haggerty, a 41-year-old research librarian from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, traveled to Washington with her 10-year-old daughter, Cate, and 7-year-old son, Graeme.
Haggerty said the December 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when a gunman killed 26 people, mostly six- and seven-year-olds, came one day after her daughter’s first birthday.
“It left me raw,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s going to be 11, and we’re still doing this.”
Kay Klein, a 65-year-old teacher trainer from Fairfax, Virginia, who retired earlier this month, said Americans should vote out politicians who refuse to take action in November’s midterm elections, when control of Congress will be at stake.
“If we truly care about children and about families, we need to vote,” she said.
‘ABSOLUTELY ABSURD’
A gunman in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24, 10 days after another gunman murdered 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a racist attack.
The shootings have added new urgency to the country’s ongoing debate over gun violence, though the prospects for federal legislation remain uncertain given staunch Republican opposition to any limits on firearms.
In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators have vowed to hammer out a deal, though they have yet to reach an agreement. Their effort is focused on relatively modest changes, such as incentivizing states to pass “red flag” laws that allow authorities to keep guns from individuals deemed dangerous.
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who earlier this month urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other measures, said he supported Saturday’s protests.
“We are being murdered,” said X Gonzalez, a Parkland survivor and co-founder of MFOL, in an emotional speech alongside survivors of other mass shootings. “You, Congress, have done nothing to prevent it.”
Among other policies, MFOL has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for those trying to purchase guns and a national licensing system, which would register gun owners.
Biden told reporters in Los Angeles that he had spoken several times with Senator Chris Murphy, who is leading the Senate talks, and that negotiators remained “mildly optimistic.”
The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a sweeping set of gun safety measures, but the legislation has no chance of advancing in the Senate, where Republicans view gun limits as infringing upon the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Speakers at the Washington rally included David Hogg, a Parkland survivor and co-founder of MFOL; Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten, the presidents of the two largest U.S. teachers unions; and Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C.
Two high school students from the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland – Zena Phillip, 16, and Blain Sirak, 15 – said they had never joined a protest before but felt motivated after the shooting in Texas.
“Just knowing that there’s a possibility that can happen in my own school terrifies me,” Phillip said. “A lot of kids are getting numb to this to the point they feel hopeless.”
Sirak said she backed more gun restrictions and that the issue extended beyond mass shootings to the daily toll of gun violence.
“People are able to get military-grade guns in America,” she said. “It’s absolutely absurd.”
(Reporting by Ted Hesson; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Los Angeles and Makini Brice in Washington; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Daniel Wallis)
By Cynthia Kim and Heekyong Yang
SEOUL – South Korean steelmaker POSCO said on Sunday will halt some of its plants in the country due to a lack of space to store finished products, which have not been shipped due to a strike by truckers who are demanding higher pay as fuel prices surge.
POSCO follows automaker Hyundai Motor in cutting production lines as the strike by thousands of truckers disrupted cargo transport at the country’s industrial hubs and major ports.
“Some production at our Pohang steel plants is set for suspension, and we are not yet certain how long this suspension will last,” a POSCO spokesperson said, adding that the halt will take effect from Monday.
The decision came as the government and the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union were holding a fourth round of meetings to find a compromise and end the strike, which began on June 7.
South Korea is a major supplier of semiconductors, smartphones, autos, batteries and electronics goods. The strike has deepened uncertainty over global supply chains already disrupted by China’s strict COVID-19 curbs and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As ports worldwide struggle with supply bottlenecks, a slowdown in chip production, petrochemicals and autos threatens South Korea’s mainstay exports, and consumer inflation in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy is at a 14-year high.
The truckers are demanding an extension to subsidies, set to expire this year, that guarantee minimum wages as fuel prices rise.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it responded to the union by explaining “that ship owners, the party of interest, demand the current Safe Trucking Freight Rates System be abolished”.
A joint statement from a total of 31 industry associations on Sunday urged truckers to end their strike and return to work, as bottlenecks are building up across industries including cement, petrochemical, steel, auto and IT components.
“This lengthening strike by the Cargo Solidarity is nothing more than putting up a fight in an extreme way by holding national logistics as a hostage, even as the government has said it will find a way for inclusive growth through talks,” associations representing employers, taxis, semiconductors, automobiles and others said in the statement.
Around 40 people have been arrested in the strike, some later released. The actions have been largely peaceful, though tense at some locations.
The ministry estimated some 6,600 truckers, or 30% of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union members, were on strike on Saturday, halting trucking activities at petrochemical complexes in Ulsan and slowing product deliveries for POSCO.
The union says the number of those striking was higher, without specifying a number, and that non-union truckers were also choosing not to work.
Container traffic at Busan port, which accounts for 80% of the nation’s total, had plunged by two-thirds from normal levels on Friday, a government official said.
At Incheon port it has fallen 80%, while at the port for Ulsan, the industrial hub where much of the strike action has occurred, container traffic has been halted since Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Byungwook Kim; Writing by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by William Mallard, Jacqueline Wong and Louise Heavens)
By Gavin Jones
ROME – Italians were voting on Sunday for mayors in almost 1,000 towns and cities, providing an opportunity for far-right leader Giorgia Meloni to establish her dominance of the centre-right alliance ahead of a parliamentary election early next year.
Meloni, 45, leads the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, which tops opinion polls and has been steadily draining support from its rightist ally the League, led by Matteo Salvini.
Sunday’s balloting, the last major test before next year’s national election, will show whether Meloni’s poll lead translates into actual votes.
With some 9 million Italians eligible to vote for mayors up and down the country, the largest centres at stake were the Sicilian capital Palermo and the northwestern port of Genoa, respectively Italy’s fifth and sixth largest cities.
Voting will end at 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) but counting will not start until 2 p.m. on Monday. Where no candidate gets 50% of the vote, a run-off will be held on June 26.
A total of 26 provincial and regional capitals will be contested, also including Verona and Padua in the northeast, Parma in the centre-north, Taranto in the south and Messina in Sicily.
Eighteen of these are currently held by the centre-right bloc made up of the League, Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia, led by 86-year-old former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The centre-left alliance of the Democratic Party (PD) and the 5-Star Movement will claim progress if it increases its tally of five cities, while the PD will be hoping to top Brothers of Italy as the party with most support.
Brothers of Italy, which is often accused of having neo-fascist elements among its supporters, took just 4% of the vote at the last national election in 2018.
It now polls around 22%, helped by Meloni’s decision in February last year not to join the broad coalition backing Prime Minister Mario Draghi, making Brothers of Italy the only significant opposition party.
Italians were also voting on Sunday in five referendums on a series of reforms to the justice system sponsored by Salvini’s League.
However, the referendums seem headed for failure because at midday the turnout was a mere 7%, offering little chance of reaching the 50% required to make the result valid.
(Reporting By Gavin Jones; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
By Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Amlan Chakraborty
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI -The bidding war for media rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL) will continue on Monday with Disney, Sony and India’s Reliance in contention for what could fetch the Indian cricket board up to $6 billion.
The bidding began at 0530 GMT on Sunday for the broadcast rights, digital rights, a bespoke package that includes rights for high-value matches as well as rights to broadcast the world’s richest T20 league in foreign territories.
“We are very happy that things are going the way they were planned,” treasurer of the Indian cricket board (BCCI) Arun Singh Dhumal told Reuters.
“The participants are very enthusiastic. The bidding is still on and we are hoping for a good number tomorrow.
“This is the first time we went for an e-bidding to ensure a fair and transparent process.”
The IPL, counting top Indian industrialists and Bollywood stars such as Shah Rukh Khan among its franchise owners, is often seen as a surefire ticket to high TV ratings and growth in India’s booming online streaming space.
But while the digital and television rights for 2023 to 2027 are expected to more than double the 163.48 billion rupees ($2.09 billion) that Star India, now owned by Walt Disney Co, paid in 2017, observers say caution may be setting in.
“There is also a global shift toward saner valuations, where investor expectations have shifted from ‘growth-at-any-cost’ to ‘growth-with-profitability’,” said Mihir Shah, vice president of consultants Media Partners Asia.
Gujarat Titans, owned by European buyout firm CVC, won the 15th edition of the league, beating Rajasthan Royals in the May 29 final in front of more than 100,000 fans in Ahmedabad.
The glitzy T20 league attracts the world’s best cricketers for two months of fast-paced matches played to packed stadiums with cheerleaders and live music.
Amazon.com Inc pulled out of the bidding process on Friday, saying it did not think it was viable growth option for the company in India.
Reliance Industries Ltd is bidding through its broadcasting joint venture, Viacom 18. Sony Corp’s India unit and local broadcaster Zee Entertainment are in merger talks but are bidding separately.
Last time, Star India won a consolidated bid that gave it broadcasting rights on both television and digital platforms.
“At renewal value of $5 to $6 billion or more, the rights would require the winner to attain significant scale in the $20 billion competitive streaming and TV industry,” Shah said.
($1 = 78.098 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Amlan Chakraborty, Editing by William Mallard and Ed Osmond)
LONDON – Britain’s competition watchdog has been asked by the government to review the retail fuel market to see whether a cut in duty has been passed onto consumers as prices at the pump hit unprecedented highs.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said on Sunday the investigation would find out why fuel prices were always quick to rise but slow to come down.
The price of oil has surged worldwide, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and economies reopening after the pandemic.
Britain reduced fuel duty by 5 pence per litre for one year in March in a 5 billion pound ($6.2 billion) package to ease the burden on motorists amid a worsening cost-of-living crunch for households.
However prices have continued to rise, and the average cost of filling a family car rose above 100 pounds for the first time last week, according to data firm Experian Catalist.
“The British people are rightly frustrated that the 5 billion pound package does not always appear to have been passed through to forecourt prices and that in some towns, prices remain higher than in similar, nearby towns,” Kwarteng said in a letter to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
He said the review should consider the health of competition in the market, regional factors, including localised competition, and any further steps that the government or the CMA could take to strengthen competition.
He requested an initial report by July 7.
($1 = 0.8121 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, Editing by Louise Heavens)
DUQUESNE, PA – A woman was shot multiple times Saturday morning in Duquense.
According to police, at approximately 4:15 AM the Allegheny County Police Department was notified that an adult female arrived at an area hospital with gunshot wounds to her arm and wrist. First responders found evidence of a shooting at the intersection of Viola Avenue and South 5th Street.
“The victim was treated for injuries and is expected to survive. ACPD General Investigations Unit detectives are initiating the investigation,” police reported.
LONDON – The leader of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine said on Sunday there was no reason to pardon two British nationals who were sentenced to death last week after being captured while fighting for Ukraine.
A court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic on Thursday found Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner – and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun – guilty of “mercenary activities” seeking to overthrow the republic.
Britain says Aslin and Pinner were regular soldiers and should be exempt under the Geneva Conventions from prosecution for participation in hostilities. The pro-Russian separatists who control Donetsk say they committed grave crimes and have a month to appeal.
“I don’t see any grounds, prerequisites, for me to come out with such a decision on a pardon,” Denis Pushilin, the leader of the breakaway republic, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
Donetsk and Luhansk are two breakaway Russian-backed entities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Russia says it is fighting to remove entirely from Kyiv’s control.
Three days before launching its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Vladimir Putin recognised them as independent states, a move condemned by Ukraine and the West as illegal.
Aslin’s family said he and Pinner “are not, and never were, mercenaries”.
They were living in Ukraine when war broke out and “as members of Ukrainian armed forces, should be treated with respect just like any other prisoners of war”, the family said in a statement.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge)
LOCKPORT, NY – A statewide amber alert has been issued in New York after a 10-month-old baby girl was abducted from her Lockport home Saturday morning. Police reported the child was taken under circumstances that lead police to believe that they are in imminent danger of serious physical harm and/or death.
Royalty Mullen, a 10-month-old black girl with brown hair and blue eyes was taken by Anthones D. Mullen, a black male, aged 37, with braided hair and brown eyes. He’s 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs about 165 pounds, police said.
Anyone with any information on this abduction is asked to call the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office at (866)N Y S-AMBER or dial 911 to provide information on a report or sighting.
By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM – One year after ending the record reign of Benjamin Netanyahu following months of political turmoil, Israel’s fragile coalition government is teetering on the edge of collapse, raising the prospect of a snap election in the coming months.
Pointing to achievements including boosting economic growth and eliminating the budget deficit, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Sunday vowed to fight for the survival of their unlikely coalition of right-wing, liberal and Muslim Arab parties.
“We’re marking a year since the establishment of the national salvation government. Any honest person would admit that this is one of the country’s best governments, which leans on one of the most difficult coalitions the Knesset has ever known,” Bennett said in broadcast remarks at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.
“We will not despair and we will not break.”
The hawkish Bennett, 50, and 58-year-old centrist Lapid ended Netanyahu’s record 12-year reign in June 2021 after the fourth election in two years.
But with a razor-thin majority, and deeply divided over major issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the coalition has struggled to hold together, and analysts predict a resounding crash.
After losing the support of two members of his own right-wing Yamina alliance over the past year, Bennett found himself in control of only 60 of the Knesset’s 120 lawmakers, with another member now wobbling.
And since a flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence in March, Lapid has been struggling to contain tensions in his camp with two Knesset members from Israel’s Arab minority, many of whom identify with the Palestinians.
The result has been a series of defeats in key parliamentary votes, most recently on rolling over a law ensuring that Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, formally under military jurisdiction, are covered by Israeli civil law.
The measure, which is likely to be brought back, would normally enjoy broad support and the loss underlined the fragility of the government; Bennett’s own party is close to the settler movement.
The most likely scenario may be an election between December and April, according to public broadcaster Kan’s leading political analyst, Yoav Krakovsky, who has described the government as “passing the time for the sake of buying time”.
Netanyahu, now leader of the opposition, is at present on trial for corruption, an allegation he denies. A final verdict is unlikely in the coming year and he has vowed to make a comeback despite his legal troubles.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by James Mackenzie and Kevin Liffey)
BUFFALO, NY – Buffalo police need the public’s help in locating 12 year old Adanya M. White. a black female, may be wearing a purple hoodie, sweat pants and Nike slides. Last seen Saturday in the 100 block of Butler Avenue in the City of Buffalo Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call 911 immediately.
NAPLES, FL – A woman who smashed multiple bird cages during a domestic dispute at a home east of Naples has been arrested for animal cruelty.
According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, a Collier County woman was arrested overnight after deputies said she intentionally injured several caged birds during a domestic disturbance at her 22nd Avenue SE home.
Yenileisis Vacas Comas, 40, is charged with animal cruelty.
“We will not allow animals to be abused in our community,” said Sheriff Kevin Rambosk. “I sincerely hope these birds recover from their injuries.”
Deputies responded to the residence for a report of a domestic disturbance. When they arrived they saw multiple bird cages and injured birds on the patio. A person at the residence showed deputies a video of Vacas Comas smashing the caged birds to the ground during an argument.
Vacas Comas was arrested and the birds were taken to an emergency pet hospital.
Camden, N.J.– On October 24, 2019, officers of the Camden County Metro Police Department responded to the area of 5th Street and State Street for a report of a person shot.
That victim sustained a gunshot wound to the back. The victim stated that after a verbal altercation Langston pointed a firearm at his friend, and in response, the victim jumped in the line of fire and was shot. Langston was apprehended later that day.
On Friday, Michael Langston, 44, was sentenced 16 years in New Jersey State Prison for the shooting.
NEW YORK, NY – Los Angeles drill rapper Avanti Frowner was gunned down during an attempted robbery Thursday at a Bronx pharmacy, the New York City Police Department reported. Frowner who goes by the stage name MoneyGangVontae was in the area scouting music venues and entered the Amazing Pharmacy on East Tremont Avenue at around 2 pm.
A witness said Frowner was picking up an eye drop prescription after visiting a doctor as he and the rapper were approached by a group of men attempting to sell them marijuana. The sale quickly turned into a robbery as they began taking his personal belongings, including his wallet, gold chain and phone. Tremont retreated inside the pharmacy and one of the four men followed, pulling a gun and shooting him multiple times.
Employees and customers inside the pharmacy ducked behind aisles and counters during the shooting. Frowner ended up taking several shots to the chest and was later pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital.
A worker at the store said she heard Frowner begging the gunman to spare his life.
By David Randall and Davide Barbuscia
NEW YORK -Blistering inflation is threatening to reignite twin declines in U.S. stocks and bonds, leaving investors with few places to hide from a Federal Reserve that appears headed for its most aggressive policy tightening in decades.
Friday gave a hint of what investors may see in coming weeks. The benchmark S&P 500 index fell nearly 3% while yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury hit their highest level since early May after stronger-than-expected inflation data ramped up forecasts for more aggressive Fed rate hikes later this year. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
“Today, the inflation data was disappointing. Many hopes for a peak are now dashed,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. “The fears over inflation and the potential impact of profits in Corporate America are adding to the worries for investors here.”
Stocks and bonds have fallen in lockstep for most of the year as tighter Fed policy lifted yields and dried up risk appetite, pummeling investors who had counted on a mix of the two assets to buffer declines in their portfolios.
Those moves partially reversed over the last few weeks on hopes that a potential peak in inflation would allow the Fed to turn less aggressive later this year.
But with markets now betting policymakers will hike rates by at least 50 basis points in their next three meetings, expectations of a less hawkish Fed are fading and investors believe more declines are on the way.
“Given that price pressures in the U.S. show little sign of easing, we doubt that the Fed will take its foot off the brakes anytime soon,” analysts at Capital Economics wrote on Friday. “We therefore suspect that more pain is yet in store for U.S. asset markets, with Treasury yields rising further and the stock market remaining under pressure.”
The S&P is down 18.2% year-to-date, again approaching the 20% decline from record highs that many investors consider a bear market. Yields on 10-year U.S. government bonds – a benchmark for mortgage rates and other financial instruments – have more than doubled.
Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Hermes, has beefed up cash positions in the portfolios he manages to 6% – the largest allocation he has ever held – while cutting holdings in bonds. In equity markets, he is overweight the sectors expected to benefit from rising prices, such as energy.
“You have a very difficult picture for financial markets for the next several months,” he said. “Investors (have) to accept that the consensus view was wrong and inflation is still a problem.”
Orlando sees fears of stagflation – a period of slowing growth and high inflation – as a key market driver.
Overall, 77% of fund managers expect stagflation in the global economy over the next 12 months, the highest level since August 2008, according to a survey by BoFA Global Research taken before Friday’s inflation data.
HAWKISH VIEWS
Friday’s white-hot print – which showed consumer prices rising 8.6% in May – is pushing some Wall Street banks to raise forecasts for how much the Fed will need to hike rates to stanch inflation in coming months, potentially maximizing the pain for investors.
Barclays now sees policymakers delivering their first 75- basis-point increase in 28 years when they meet next week, while Goldman Sachs strategists forecast 50-basis-point hikes at each of the next three meetings.
Prices of Fed funds futures contracts on Friday reflected better-than-even odds of a 75-basis-point rate hike by July, with a one-in-five chance of that occurring next week – up from one-in-20 before the inflation report. The Fed has already raised rates by 75 basis points this year.[FEDWATCH]
Meanwhile, few investors expect falling equity markets to knock the Fed from its inflation-fighting path.
A BoFA Global Research poll taken before Friday’s CPI number showed that 34% of global bond investors believe the central bank will ignore equity weakness entirely, only pausing if markets become dysfunctional.
Pramod Atluri, fixed income portfolio manager at Capital Group and principal investment officer on Bond Fund of America (BFA), is among the bond investors who have dialed back duration – which is a portfolio sensitivity to changes in interest rates – over the last few weeks.
“I thought there was a reasonable chance that inflation had peaked at 8.5%, and we would be on a steady downward trend through the rest of this year. And that has not played out,” Atluri said.
“We’re now back to a point where we’re wondering if two 50- basis-point hikes and maybe a third 50-basis-point hike is enough.”
(Reporting by David Randall and Davide Barbuscia in New YorkAdditional reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin, Lewis Krauskopf and Ira Iosebashvili; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili, John Stonestreet and Matthew Lewis)
TEMPLE HILLS, MD – Three people were shot and one is still in critical condition on Friday at the Shops at Iverson in Temple Hills.
Today, Prince George’s County Police investigators released surveillance photos of two suspects wanted in a shooting.
“Both suspects fled the scene following the shooting where three people were injured. Two of the victims have been treated and released. One victim remains hospitalized. At this time, that victim is in critical but stable condition. A cash reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and indictment in this case,” the department said in a statement.
The gunfire cracked through the air at around 12:45 pm when PGPD officers working a secondary employment assignment at the mall in the 3700 block of Branch Avenue heard the sounds and immediately responded to the scene near a mall entrance.
“The three victims were located suffering gunshots wounds and were transported to the hospital. The victims are all adults – one male and two females,” police reported. “Investigators located surveillance video which shows as the two suspects leave the mall entrance, one of them opens fire. Investigators continue to work to determine whether this was a random act or if any of the victims was the intended target.”
NEW YORK, NY – A 38-year-old woman was the victim of the latest groping incident in New York City on Friday as she was forcibly touched inside a store at 666 Morris Park Avenue. Police said the incident happened at 1:55 pm when a man approached the woman from behind and grabbed her buttocks over her clothing.
The man is described as having dark hair, a man bun, and a slender build. He was wearing shorts, slides and socks; and a sweatshirt.
Location: Manhattan, NY
NEW YORK, NY – A heinous act was committed by an unknown suspect on the New York City subway platform located at 68th Street at Hunter College. On Saturday, a man shoved a female victim to the ground and then forced her to watch him “caress his genital area” according to the New York City Police Department.
The act is the latest behavior of sexual deviancy in the New York Subway system, where women are being groped, fondled, and assaulted on a near-daily basis this spring.
The incident happened at around 3:47 am on the southbound 6 train platform.
Location: Manhattan, NY
OLD LYME, CT- Police in Old Lyme are searching for a wallet thief and his female getaway driver who entered a car that wasn’t theirs at a local gas station, stealing a wallet
According to the Connecticut State Police, the female suspect driving a recognizable Volkswagon Beetle on Thursday at approximately 2:18 p.m. entered the station and committed their theft.
“Two individuals in a Volkswagon Beetle drove into the Mobile gas station on Halls Road in the town of Old Lyme,” Connecticut State Police said in a statement. “One female with blue hair approximately 5 foot 4 inches exited the driver’s side door. A white male, approximately 5 foot 7 inches with short hair, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, exited the passenger side of the vehicle.”
Police said the man then went into an unoccupied vehicle at a separate gas pump and took a wallet from the vehicle. The Volkswagon then took off, heading northbound on Halls road. Anyone with information relative to this investigation is asked to contact Trooper Bly #1420 at Troop F 860-399-2100
SEOUL – South Korea’s POSCO said on Sunday it plans to halt production at some of its plants in the country from Monday due to a glut of finished products that could not be shipped due to a strike by truckers.
A company spokesperson said the decision affects plants in Pohang, adding that production at its steel plants in Gwangyang will continue.
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Choonsik Yoo; Editing by William Mallard)
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The Baltimore Police Department is investigating a shooting that left one woman injured on last night. This incident happened on the 500 block of Rose Hill Terrace in Northern Baltimore
According to detectives, “At approximately 10:32 p.m., Northern District patrol officers were dispatched to the 500 block of Rose Hill Terrace to investigate a reported shooting. When officers arrived at the location they observed a 36-year-old female suffering from a gunshot wound to the elbow. The victim told investigators she was shot in the 800 block of Benninghaus Road and drove to Rose Hill Terrace to call police. Northern District Shooting detectives responded to the scene and assumed control over the investigation.”
If you have any information about this incident, contact Northern District detectives at 410-396-2455 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.
NEW DELHI – The leader of India’s main opposition party, Sonia Gandhi, has been admitted to hospital in New Delhi with health issues related to COVID-19, her Congress party said.
The party tweeted the announcement but gave no other details.
Italian-born Gandhi, widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, is the longest-serving president of the Congress party, which ruled India for decades after its founders led the country to independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Gandhi, 76, is credited with reviving the Congress when it won a surprise victory in legislative elections in 2004.
Following that election success, she would have become India’s first foreign-born and first Roman Catholic prime minister, but she surprised everyone by turning down the top post and nominating economist Manmohan Singh to be prime minister.
In recent years, Gandhi has travelled several times to the United States to deal with health issues.
Her party’s fortunes have declined precipitously since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party defeated it in the general elections of 2014 and 2019.
(Reporting by Neha Arora; Editing by Rupam Jain and Frances Kerry)
