Washington, D.C
Fed chairman tries to appease DC and Wall Street with rate cut – Washington Examiner
After an all-out fight against inflation over the past two years, the Federal Reserve recently voted to lower interest rates by a half percentage point. The Sept. 18 move by the central bank was bolder than many investors expected.
The Fed’s first rate cut since the world collapsed in March 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak drew elation in equities markets. Investors welcomed the supersize rate cut as evidence that the aberration of the last two years of restrictive monetary policy is over.
But reading between the lines, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his peers are not imposing some emergency effort to save markets from themselves. In fact, in the yearslong standoff between the Fed and an investor class addicted to the easy money of the 2008-2022 era, the Fed has quietly won its war. It’s done so mostly by ignoring the demands of both Wall Street and Washington, D.C., to forge forward on almost exactly this path a little less than one year ago.
At its final meeting of 2023, the Fed predicted that it would cut rates three times for a total of 75 basis points, but investors telegraphed more than twice as many cuts beginning in the first quarter of 2024. In reality, the Fed has hewed narrowly to what it said it would do all along. Although the central bank will score the inflation reduction headlines it so desperately wants, it’s once again quietly urging caution.
September’s Summary of Economic Projections shows that still nearly half of the Fed’s voting members believe it will only cut rates once more this year, bringing the total 2024 cuts to 75 basis points, exactly what it predicted late last year. Though a narrow majority says it will cut twice more, the SEP predicts a median interest rate of 3.4% by the end of 2025, close to the 3.6% of the final 2023 SEP projected for the end of 2025.
The Fed has also remained precise and constant in its prediction that long-run interest rates will even out at 2.9%, far from the zero-bound once assumed as the default neutral interest rate. Powell reiterated as much during his postmeeting press conference, agreeing that “the neutral rate is probably significantly higher than it was back” during the Zero Interest-Rate Policy era.
Most importantly, the Fed isn’t done. Even beyond Powell’s usual caveats that the Fed remains data-dependent and committed to inflation falling below its 2% target in the long run, the central bank also promised to continue to undo its balance sheet, “reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities.”
In other words, quantitative tightening is far from over, and even when it is, a return to ZIRP seems highly unlikely.
And while already politicos on both sides of the aisle have been jockeying to spin the Fed’s decision for maximum partisan advantage, the Fed has stuck so closely to the script that it’s difficult to imagine either side succeeding in claiming that monetary policy has rigged the 2024 election. By the time Powell announced the September rate cut, let alone, by the time it even trickled down to reduced credit card APRs and mortgage rates, early voting had already begun in lynchpin swing states such as Pennsylvania, with five more states commencing before the month’s end.
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It’s not the Fed has played its part perfectly. Far from it — the Fed’s complicity in financing the bipartisan coronavirus spending spree in 2020 and then its refusal to cut off President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2021 is why the economy suffered its worst inflationary crisis in 40 years in the first place.
But by its narrow definition of success, the Fed might have pulled off the impossible, and by that, I don’t mean balancing full employment with basic price stability. It’s too soon to say that it has achieved a soft landing, but as far as evading blame from Washington, D.C., and Wall Street, Powell has gotten his greatest wish: insulting the Fed from the institutional blame game of 2024.
WASHINGTON (7News) — An ice cream truck caught fire in Southeast D.C. on Thursday, the D.C. Fire and EMS Department said.
The commercial vehicle was reported fully engulfed when crews arrived in the 1700 block of Tobias Drive SE.
SEE ALSO | Man, woman injured in Southeast DC double shooting
Firefighters quickly put out the flames and prevented the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.
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No injuries were reported.
WASHINGTON (7News) — The Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy, on Wednesday removed a well-known priest as an exorcist of the archdiocese after he made public comments suggesting that UFO sightings were the work of demons.
McElroy said the archdiocese also was cutting ties with the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, a Washington-based nonprofit headed by the priest, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti.
The archbishop said Rossetti’s statements “linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.”
“There’s a danger here,” Rossetti said in a May 29 video posted on his Facebook page addressing UFO sightings and the existence of aliens. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide. … They don’t want us to know what they’re doing because they’re more effective when we don’t realize it.”
“They can kind of get into your head, you know, and manipulate things in the world to influence us to do evil.”
“It’s my personal belief that probably many if not most of these UFO sightings are in fact demons,” Rossetti added.
Rossetti also said that people can be good Catholics and believe there’s life on other planets, though he does not personally believe life exists elsewhere.
In a statement posted on the St. Michael Center website, Rossetti said he was saddened by the action of the archdiocese.
“I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, particularly in the cited video on ‘aliens and the demonic,’” he said. “I believe it is of the utmost importance to be obedient to the Church and I will continue to endeavor to subject all that I do and the Center to be thus obedient.”
Rossetti, who has over 148,000 followers on Instagram, is a prominent psychologist as well as an exorcist. His center has specialized in offering spiritual healing for priests troubled by various difficulties.
In 2023, he told The Associated Press there was increasing and renewed appetite for information about demonic possession and exorcism.
Washington, D.C
Nurses at Washington D.C.’s largest hospital call on leadership to reverse planned cuts to maternal health
RNs at MedStar Washington Hospital Center say closure of postpartum unit will disproportionately harm marginalized and underserved communities
Union nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC) in Washington, D.C. are demanding that management stop the planned closure of an entire postpartum unit, announced National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU). The hospital notified the union on May 26, 2026 of its intention to eliminate 11 maternal health beds and displace eight nurses by July 26, 2026, leaving MWHC with one postpartum unit.
In a follow-up town hall with staff nurses, Chief Nursing Officer Ariam Yitbarek confirmed the closure. Other leaders have additionally informed staff that the hospital will strictly limit scheduled C-sections and inductions for patients from numerous D.C. maternal health organizations. The list of organizations includes many that primarily serve low-income patients, immigrants, and patients of color, all communities with significantly higher risks of maternal mortality. Additionally, staff were informed that Kaiser Permanente, which notably insures a large number of DC city employees and even many of MWHC’s own workers, will see a strict limit on scheduling inductions and C-sections for their patients as well.
“Closing postpartum unit 5F will gravely impact those most affected by health disparities,” said Stephanie Sims-Coates, RN in the neonatal intensive care unit. “Our low-income families and families of color will be most affected by this closure. Families trust the medical staff at MWHC and plan to come to us for their care. In a city where Black women make up 90 percent of pregnancy-related deaths despite being only half the population, the hospital’s decision to close this unit is a significant mistake.”
Community leaders and healthcare workers are joining the call for MedStar to put patients before profits and keep the unit open. This past weekend, nurses met with D.C. mayoral candidate and Ward 4 councilwoman Janeese Lewis George about the planned closure and the impact it would have on DC’s most vulnerable residents.
“Maternal mortality is a crisis for Washington, DC, and our healthcare system needs to address the crisis immediately, rather than exacerbate the challenges that birthing parents face,” said Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George. “Now is the time to invest in health care, rather than make cuts. I want to work with the hospital to identify solutions that work for patients and the provider.”
“In my time at Washington Hospital Center, I’ve seen the hospital tout its Safe Moms, Safe Babies program and host a community baby shower specifically designed to call attention to the maternal mortality crisis,” said Marcqueata “Tiya” Butler, RN in the Mother/Baby unit. “Their current plan to shut down 11 postpartum beds betrays the hospital’s stated commitments. They are aware of persistent inequities in access to care. We are calling on the hospital to consider the impacts on the community, safeguard the mothers and infants of DC and commit to addressing the maternal mortality rate.”
In 2024, MedStar Health, a registered non-profit, reported $9 billion in operating revenue.
NNOC/NNU represents more than 2,200 registered nurses at Washington Hospital Center.
National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.
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