https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/earthquake-maryland-shaking-tuesday-felt/

A small earthquake occurred near Rockville, Md., early Tuesday, and within an hour, hundreds of people in Maryland’s suburbs reported hearing or feeling it, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The 2.3-magnitude quake, according to initial estimates, occurred a few minutes before 1 a.m. at a depth of about 9.5 miles and an approximate distance of 1.8 miles west of Rockville.

A quake of that magnitude is regarded as minor and very weak.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injury, but the quake occurred at a time when many people were asleep. Most accounts of experiencing the quake came from Montgomery County, where Rockville is located.

Reports told of shaking, of the kind caused by a heavy truck passing by. Others emphasized the sound, likening it to a kind of growling or low roar.

A Silver Spring resident told The Washington Post of hearing “a distinctive rumble that lasted 10 or 15 seconds.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2024/dc-crime-homicide-victims-shooting-violence/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001

Gift Link: https://wapo.st/3RZcmJU

The city recorded 40 homicides per 100,000 residents, with victims in every ward, from babies to the elderly

The nation’s capital recorded more homicides in 2023 than in any year since 1997, giving the District the fifth-highest murder rate among the nation’s biggest cities.

The 274 confirmed victims ranged from infants to octogenarians. They were killed in homes, in Metro stations and in motor vehicles; they were killed in alleys, in school zones and in public parks. They were slain on streets by acquaintances and strangers and in the crossfire of warring neighborhood crews, in double shootings and triple shootings. They died in the dark and the dawn and under the midday sun in all parts of Washington, from its poorest precincts to its busiest commercial and nightlife areas.

To illustrate the human dimension of the violence, The Washington Post compiled a comprehensive list of the casualties — a month-by-month tally of who the victims were, how they died and where — while also examining the broader trends of the city’s 2023 homicide crisis.

The loss of lives in the year just ended, including the killings of 19 children and young teenagers, plunged families and communities into grief and ignited a local political crisis that escalated to the halls of Congress. Federal officials questioned whether D.C. leaders were equipped to prevent the District from regressing to the social dysfunction and near municipal collapse of the late 20th century, when the city, overwhelmed by crack-fueled bloodshed, became known as America’s murder capital.

“It’s been a tough year,” Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said in an interview. “There is no doubt about that.”

With a rate of 40 homicides per 100,000 residents, the District was deadlier than 55 of the country’s 60 most populous cities, behind only New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore and Memphis. While homicides surged in Washington, they decreased in many other metropolises, including New York and Chicago.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/economy/economy-soft-landing-biden/index.html



New York
CNN
—
President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser sounds increasingly confident that the American economy will avoid the recession that so many had penciled in for 2023.

“Recent data certainly give more evidence that the width of the runway for a soft landing has gotten much bigger,” Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters on Friday.

Squashing inflation without throwing the economy into recession is what’s called a “soft landing.” It’s something the Federal Reserve has only achieved once in the past 60 years, at least by most metrics. (Some research argues the central bank has done it more often.)

Brainard, previously the No. 2 official at the Federal Reserve, stopped short of outright saying a recession is not in the cards. But she pointed to a variety of metrics – cooling inflation, rising real wages, easing interest rates and a growing supply of workers – to make the case that a soft landing looks increasingly likely.

“Of course, there are always risks. There will always be risks. Right now, we can see geopolitical risks and there could be other risks,” Brainard said.

The White House official noted that, just a year ago, many economists thought a recession was inevitable.

“Most people don’t think about what the alternative could have been,” Brainard said. “But obviously, forecasters did put out very clearly what they anticipated a year ago, and it was very close to 100% odds, in some cases, that there would be major job losses and a recession in order to get inflation to where it is today.”