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For the best experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. The US Federal Reserve Bank recently cut the interest rate, a few weeks after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) did the same. The old dictum that the government has no business in business is not supported by reality. The government intervenes in business through monetary and fiscal policies. Interest cuts affect your business; lower rates mean more borrowing, spending, and growth despite the risk of inflation. Tax rates affect our businesses by muting demand and profits. Government projects, by extension, create demand and jobs. Remember John Keynes? Back to the US Federal Reserve (Fed) rate cut. Why cut the rate when inflation has been stubbornly high? Some have suggested that the rate cut will leave less room for President-elect Donald Trump to make economic changes when he takes office in January. If he imposes tariffs the low rates will compound the inflation. That is not good for politics. Trump campaigned on the platform of reducing the cost of living. Does that sound familiar? The rate cuts mean employment is a bigger concern than inflation. With low rates, it is easier to buy houses or vehicles. Low rates entice us to focus on other investments instead of keeping money in the bank. Rate cuts have a silver lining; they will stimulate economic growth as citizens borrow more money to consume or invest. Remember CBK cutting the rates when inflation was seen as falling and growth slackening? One of the most daunting tasks of central banks is deciding when to cut or increase the rates and by how much. Luckily, good econometric models exist to help make that decision. That does not remove the human factor, our sentiments. The Fed cut is the third this year. That would mean fewer cuts next year. Does it also mean less flexibility for the incoming president? But economic circumstances could change. Could inflation lead to a rate hike next year? The market reacted to the cut with a fall in stock prices. The market interpreted a cut as a sign that the economy is not doing as well as expected. Did stock owners try to sell off leading to oversupply and low prices? Should we bother with the interest rate cut so far away? If we keep up with the US cultural trends, why not their economic trends? Did we not appropriate parts of their constitution? Why do we call ministers secretaries? Just because Americans called them so over 200 years ago? Don’t we love American movies and music? Don’t we love giving our children American names, from Beyoncé to Kennedy and love immigrating there? Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter If you have relatives in the US, I am sure they are concerned over Trump’s threat of mass deportation. If we keep up with the Kardashians, why not with the Fed? Low interest rates make the US less attractive to investors, particularly those who buy bonds. This reduces demand for dollars and weakens it. Higher rates have the opposite effect. The positive part is that cuts stimulate the US economy, and the rest of the world benefits through trade. Remember the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)? A rate cut could mean a stronger shilling. Importers and those travelling abroad or paying fees abroad will cheer up. Importers and tourists will not. Since Kenya is a net importer, we would love a stronger shilling. That combined with falling oil prices and good rains could cheer the economy up. Remember cost of living has been a political hot potato. How can we forget that a stronger shilling helps reduce our debt, which is dominated by dollars? What is happening far away has implications at home. Luckily, this time positive. Do you recall the rise in US rates weakening the shilling? Any lessons for Kenya? One, the fact that the government can influence the rate of economic growth through policies means it can take the blame for any slack in growth. Such policies supplement the citizen’s contribution to growth through consumption, investments and innovation. Two, The policy changes work best when the Federal Reserve (central bank) is independent of political influence. Did I hear Trump has threatened to end that independence? Such independence ensures the best decisions are made objectively and for citizens, not politicians. That is why the CBK governor has security of tenure. Third, economic growth, with full employment and optimal inflation, is the goal of any central bank, including CBK and the Fed. That must be complemented with good laws, an active legislature, a strong judiciary, an objective executive and a good balance among all branches of the government. Finally, growth is about the people, the ordinary citizens. Economic growth is driven by our hard work and incentives. We invest and consume more if the government creates a conducive environment for us through good policies, public goods, security, a good education and health system and optimism. And confronting our soft underbelly - corruption. Happy Holidays my fellow countrymen!Smart Cities of the future – Smart traffic lights, app-based parking spaces, AI lighting in 107 citiesIs Verstappen the GOAT? Four-time champ now among F1's greats
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Gas Leak prompts evacuation of 150 people in PragueCheers and beers for Ruud van Nistelrooy as Leicester reign starts with winTAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Bucky Irving isn’t choosy. The rookie running back relishes any opportunity he gets to contribute to the success of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have rebounded from a tough stretch to climb back into a tie for first place in the NFC South. Irving leads NFL rookies in rushing with 732 yards, averaging 5.5 yards per carry while sharing the workload with starter Rachaad White and third-stringer Sean Tucker, who have combined to ease some of the burden on quarterback Baker Mayfield. A fourth-round draft pick out of Oregon, Irving is coming off rushing for a season-best 152 yards and a touchdown in last week’s 26-23 overtime win over the Carolina Panthers. He had another 33 yards receiving, giving him a rookie-leading 1,017 total yards from scrimmage through 12 games. The Bucs (6-6) on Sunday host the Las Vegas Raiders (2-10), who have an outstanding newcomer of their own with Brock Bowers on the verge of breaking the league’s record for catches by a rookie tight end. Bowers leads all players, regardless of position, with 84 receptions. He’s fourth with 884 yards receiving and second behind Irving among rookies with 895 total yards from scrimmage. RELATED COVERAGE The Titans have issues to fix and hope to keep slim playoff hopes alive when they host the Jags Seahawks try for 7th straight win in series vs. Cards in crucial NFC West matchup Patriots’ coaches enter bye week confident Drake Maye can be a franchise quarterback “I don’t really like taking all the credit. It’s those guys up front,” Irving said, deferring to Tampa Bay’s improved offensive line. “I think I have to do something special for those guys for Christmas because they’re getting the job done.” The Bucs are eighth in the NFL in rushing at 137.2 yards per game. They’ve gained 100-plus yards on the ground in nine of 12 games after only doing it nine times in 34 games over the past two seasons. The AP Top 25 college football poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . Irving, whose ability to make defenders miss and accelerate in the open field, has provided a spark to an offense that sputtered without injured wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin during a four-game losing streak. It doesn’t seem to bother the rookie that he still sits behind White on the depth chart. The starter had a 38-yard run in overtime to set up the winning field goal last week. Coach Todd Bowles continues to stress that the Bucs, tied with Atlanta for the NFC South lead, need both Irving and White to be successful. “In our room, all our success is one,” said Irving, who in the past two weeks became the first rookie since Miles Sanders in 2019 to string together consecutive games with 150-plus yards from scrimmage. “If I’m having success,’’ Irving added, “everybody in the room is having success.” Bracing for a challenge Tampa Bay’s porous secondary figures to be tested by Bowers, the first tight end to lead the league in catches after Week 13 since Todd Christenson in 1986. The first-round draft pick out of Georgia needs three receptions to break Sam LaPorta’s season record (86 in 2023) for catches by a tight end. He’s 116 yards away from joining Mike Ditka (1,076 in 1961) and Kyle Pitts (1,026 in 2021) as the only rookie tight ends to finish with 1,000-plus yards receiving. “I thought he was one of the best tight ends coming out in a long time – not just this draft, but in a long time,” Bowles said. “He’s living up to expectations. He can play wideout, he can play tight end, he can do some fullback, he can run jet sweeps,” the Bucs coach added. “They do a lot of things with him and he’s a very talented guy.” Getting ready for Baker The last time the Raiders went against Mayfield was two seasons ago when he came off a plane to play for the Los Angeles Rams. Despite having minimal time with the playbook and just one brief practice, Mayfield rallied the Rams to a 17-16 victory on a 23-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds left. Raiders coach Antonio Pierce was the team’s linebackers coach at the time. “He plays the game kind of like Brett Favre, who I played against in (the) league,” Pierce said. “He’s very fiery. He’ll do whatever it takes to make a play. The play’s never dead with him. You’ve got to keep your eyes on him and then stay in coverage, so that’ll be a challenge.” Return to action Raiders quarterback Aidan O’Connell didn’t look as though he had missed nearly six weeks because of a broken thumb when he almost led Las Vegas to a victory at Kansas City last week. He completed 23 of 35 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns in the Raiders’ 19-17 loss to the Chiefs. But O’Connell had a hard time looking at the positives given how close the Raiders came to beating the two-time defending Super Bowl champions. “Definitely some good plays, but it just stinks more than anything,” O’Connell said. “It was just a really hard loss. Even sometimes when you have a game right after, it’s easier to move on. But we had a longer week this week and so kind of really got to sit in it and it’s no fun.” ___ AP Sports Writer Mark Anderson in Las Vegas contributed to this report. ___ NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
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Canada again supports UN motion critical of Israel, citing two-state solutionTORONTO -- TORONTO (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump was joking when he suggested Canada become the 51st U.S. state during a dinner with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Canadian minister who attended their recent dinner said Tuesday. Fox News reported that Trump made the comment in response to Trudeau raising concerns that Trump's threatened tariffs on Canada would damage Canada's economy. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, said Trump's comments were in jest. “The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment,” LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa. LeBlanc described it as a three-hour social evening at the president’s residence in Florida on a long weekend of American Thanksgiving. “The conversation was going to be light-hearted,” he said. He called the relations warm and cordial and said the fact that “the president is able to joke like that for us” indicates good relations. On Tuesday, Trump appeared to continue with the joke, posting on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself standing on a mountain with a Canadian flag next to him with the caption “Oh Canada!" Some Canadians had fun with it. “If I were President Trump, I’d think twice before invading Canada. The last time the U.S. tried something like that— back in the War of 1812 —it didn’t exactly end well. Canada even burned down the White House,” former Quebec Premier Jean Charest joked on X. Earlier last week, the Republican president-elect threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico unless they stem the flow of migrants and drugs. Trudeau requested the meeting in a bid to avoid the tariffs by convincing Trump that the northern border is nothing like the U.S. southern border with Mexico . Trudeau held a rare meeting with opposition leaders on Tuesday about U.S-Canada relations and later said that opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre shouldn’t amplify the erroneous narratives that Americans are saying about the border. “Less than one percent of migrants coming into the United States irregularly come from Canada and 0.2 percent of the fentanyl coming into the United States comes from Canada,” Trudeau said in Parliament. Canadian officials have said there are plans to put more helicopters, drones and law enforcement officers at the border. At the dinner, Kristen Hillman, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., said America’s trade deficit with Canada was also raised. Hillman said the U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year but noted a third of what Canada sells into the U.S. is energy exports and prices have been high. “Trade balances are something that he focuses on so it’s important to engage in that conversation but to put it into context,” Hillman told The Associated Press. “We are one-tenth the size of the United States so a balanced trade deal would mean per capita we are buying 10 times more from the U.S. than they are buying from us. If that’s his metric we will certainly engage on that.” Hillman said Canada sold $170 billion worth of energy products last year to the U.S. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing for national security. About 77% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. Trudeau's government successfully employed a “Team Canada” approach during Trump’s first term in office when the free trade deal between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico was renegotiated. But Trudeau’s minority government is in a much weaker position politically now and faces an election within a year. Poilievre, Canada's opposition leader, said the tariffs would harm Americans. “The president-elect was elected on a promise to make America richer. These tariffs would make America poorer,” Poilievre said after meeting with Trudeau. Poilievre said the U.S. would be wise to do more free trade with its best friend and closest ally. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly 3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Trudeau returned home after the dinner at Mar-a-Lago club in Florida without assurances Trump would back away from threatened tariffs on all products from the major American trading partner. Trump called the talks “productive” but signaled no retreat from a pledge that Canada says unfairly lumps it in with Mexico over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States. The flows of migrants and seizures of drugs are vastly different. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. Most of the fentanyl reaching the U.S. — where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually — is made by Mexican drug cartels using precursor chemicals smuggled from Asia. On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with irregular migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.Hurricanes rally with 5-goal third period, beating the Stars
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NoneGaetz's withdrawal highlights how incoming presidents often lose Cabinet nominees MARTIN, Tenn. (AP) — Losing a Cabinet nominee to the confirmation process isn’t unheard of for incoming presidents — including for Donald Trump when he was elected the first time. Matt Gaetz’s decision to pull his name Thursday from consideration for attorney general — amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation — represents the first indication of resistance that the president-elect could face from his own party to picks facing allegations of sexual misconduct or other questions. Other Trump picks have drawn negative attention as well, including Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Vance takes on a more visible transition role as he works to boost Trump's most controversial picks WASHINGTON (AP) — After several weeks working behind closed doors, Vice President-elect JD Vance returned to Capitol Hill this week in a new, more visible role. He's been helping Donald Trump’s most contentious Cabinet picks try to win confirmation in the Senate, where he has served for the last two years. Vance spent part of Wednesday at the Capitol with Rep. Matt Gaetz sitting in on meetings with Trump’s controversial choice for attorney general. On Thursday, Vance was back, this time accompanying Pete Hegseth. Vance is expected to accompany other nominees for meetings over the coming weeks as he tries to leverage the two years he has spent in the Senate to help push through Trump’s picks. Beyond evangelicals, Trump and his allies courted smaller faith groups, from the Amish to Chabad Donald Trump’s lock on the white evangelical vote is legendary, but he didn't focus exclusively on large religious voter blocs. He and his allies also wooed smaller religious groups, away from the mainstream. He posted a tribute to Coptic church members on social media and met with members of Assyrians for Trump — two smaller Christian communities with Middle Eastern roots. He visited the grave of the revered late leader of an Orthodox Jewish movement. His allies sought votes from the separatist Amish community. While Trump won decisively, the outreaches reflected aggressive campaigning in what was expected to be a tight race. NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia's attack with new hypersonic missile KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with a hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war. Ukraine's parliament canceled a session Friday over the security threat. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech Thursday that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Putin said Russia is launching production of the Oreshnik, saying it's so powerful that several of them fitted with conventional warheads could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ education board has voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools. The approval Friday follows other Republican-led states that have pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education is optional for schools to adopt, but they’ll receive additional funding if they do so. Parents and teachers who opposed the curriculum say the lessons will alienate students of other faith backgrounds. Supporters argue the Bible is a core feature of American history and that teaching it will enrich learning. 2 men convicted of charges related to human smuggling after scheme led to an Indian family’s death FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A prosecution spokesperson says a jury has convicted two men of charges related to human smuggling for their roles in an international operation that led to the deaths of a family of Indian migrants who froze while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border during a 2022 blizzard. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Shand each faced four charges related to human smuggling before being convicted Friday. Patel is an Indian national. Shand is an American from Florida. They were arrested after the family froze while trying to cross the desolate border during a 2022 blizzard. Northern California gets record rain and heavy snow. Many have been in the dark for days in Seattle FORESTVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A major storm with heavy snow and record rain that's moving through Northern California has toppled trees, closed roads and prompted evacuations in some areas after knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington and Oregon. Forecasters warn that the risk of flash flooding and rockslides will continue through Friday. The National Weather Service has extended a flood watch for areas north of San Francisco as a plume of moisture known as an atmospheric river inundates Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Up to 16 inches of rain is forecast in Northern California and southwestern Oregon. The storm system unleashed winds earlier this week that left two people dead and hundreds of thousands without power in Washington. Colorado funeral home owners accused of letting 190 bodies decay plead guilty to corpse abuse COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Colorado funeral home owners accused of stashing 190 decaying bodies and giving grieving families fake ashes have pleaded guilty to corpse abuse. Jon and Carie Hallford entered the plea on Friday. Prosecutors say the owners of the Return to Nature funeral home began improperly storing bodies in a building outside Colorado Springs as far back as 2019. They allege the couple gave grieving families dry concrete in place of their loved ones’ cremains. Over the years, the Hallfords spent lavishly, buying luxury cars and laser body sculpting. That ended when the bodies were discovered last year. Archaeologists discover 4,000-year-old canals used to fish by predecessors of ancient Maya WASHINGTON (AP) — Using drones and Google Earth imagery, archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old network of earthen canals in what’s now Belize. The research published Friday in Science Advances shows that long before the ancient Maya built temples, their predecessors were already altering the landscape of Central America’s Yucatan peninsula. The ancient fish canals were used to channel and catch freshwater species such as catfish. These structures were used for around 1,000 years — including during the “formative” period when the Maya began to settle in permanent farming villages and a distinctive culture started to emerge. Noodles and wine are the secret ingredients for a strange new twist in China's doping saga Blame it on the noodles. That's what one Chinese official suggested when anti-doping leaders were looking for answers for the doping scandal that cast a shadow over this year's Olympic swim meet. Earlier this year, reports that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned heart medication emerged. None were sanctioned because Chinese authorities determined the swimmers were contaminated by traces of the drug spread about a hotel kitchen. In a strange twist, the leader of China's anti-doping agency suggested this case could have been similar to one in which criminals were responsible for tainting noodles that were later eaten by another Chinese athlete who also tested positive for the drug.
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